Hastings student to work with Fatboy Slim

Published January 2012.

Late last year University of Brighton students were given the opportunity to promote Fatboy Slim’s 2012 gigs and Hastings student Bobby Thrower was selected.

Former Brighton Polytechnic student, Norman Cook, AKA iconic DJ Fatboy Slim, is holding his fifth Big Beach Boutique gig next June, except this time it’s not on the beach it’s at the new AMEX stadium, home of his beloved Brighton and Hove Albion.

As an alumnus, Norman has always been keen to keep in touch with the university and at the end of last year he made an exciting offer to our students.

His management company invited University of Brighton students to submit promotional ideas for the Big Beach Boutique 5 and any ideas they liked would be turned into professional promotional materials. The project was launched via the university alumni association’s Brighton Futures initiative – a programme aimed at exposing current students to the expertise of university alumni.

TV production student, Bobby, heard about the opportunity after being emailed by his lecturer and swiftly submitted a proposal with a number of ideas one of which revolved around a pastiche of 'The Wizard of Oz' and the well-known phrase from the film 'there’s no place like home'.

“Norman didn’t actually want to use the Wizard of Oz theme,” explained Bobby, “but his management company loved it and may want to use it for another of their clients, so for the BB5 project we’re going with something else.”

Only in the first year of his degree, Bobby’s thrilled to get such a fantastic opportunity. In addition to getting his promotional ideas put into print he’s also been invited to work as a part of the production crew at the events, which may be televised and/or turned into a DVD.

Fatboy Slim was the soundtrack to ska and punk music devotee Bobby’s youth as his mum is a massive fan and has all of the albums.

“Although it’s not really my genre of choice I’m incredibly excited to work with such a legend,” said Bobby. “I’m only a few months into my course so I never expected to get such an unbelievable opportunity this early on, or even ever!”

The BB5 gigs are on 1–2 June with support from Carl Cox, Nero and others to be confirmed. We’ll make sure to catch up with Bobby after the event for all of the news from behind the scenes.