Duo lived a tween’s dream

Stepping off the tour bus into a sea of underage fans, cameras flash and the noise of frantic screams rings inside your head as you walk by. For you, this is a normal day at work, but this is not the typical college student’s summer job.For two Castleton State College seniors, their summer consisted of traveling across the country, five-star hotel stays, catered meals and thousands of screaming fans.

James Dahlgard and Sean Gwinner had the summer job that most tween girls could only dream of having, touring with Jordin Sparks and the Jonas Brothers. This does sound like a fantasy for many, but jobs like this aren’t the type you see listed in the want ads of a newspaper.

In May, these two were just the typical Castleton students, finishing up finals and partying with their peers. Now they were living the life of rock stars.

“Almost everything was free. We lived on a tour bus with 11 other people traveling to 27 different venues. Each of us was allowed our own food list, two cases of beer for the bus, and three meals from the catering company each day. If we had days off in between shows, we each got our own rooms in five-star hotels,” stated Dahlgard.

Although this sounds like pure fun, there was still plenty of work to be done.

“I got offered this job because I worked with the president of Amplitude Marketing last summer and was offered the job again this summer,” said Gwinner. “We were in charge of the activities before the concert began. We would do meet and greets with the fans and Jordin, take pictures of them alongside her and upload onto the Internet, and we would train brand ambassadors, which are the people who sell merchandise outside the venues,” continued Gwinner. “We ran the whole thing.”

For Dahlgard, the tasks were just a little different.

“I would work at the tent and write analysis reports during the day, and then go in and help out with the meet and greets after,” said Dahlgard. “We would start setting up around 1 p.m. and be finished around 10 or 10:30 p.m. It was a nine-hour day that wasn’t stressful at all”

But things weren’t always easy.

The duo learned how difficult a crowd can be to work around, especially a crowd full of crazed underage fans trying their hardest to see their favorite famous brother trio.

“We always saw and were around the talent, but they had crazy fans. We got offered tons of money for our tour passes. We even had mothers coming up to us asking what they had to do so that their daughter could meet the Jonas Brothers,” explained Dahlgard.

A job like this, entertaining as well as educational, can teach a person just what it takes to make it in the world, they said.

“The main goal was to network as much as you can to get more jobs out of this once we get out school,” said Dahlgard. “My business management and marketing classes really helped to prepare for this job.”

But would they do it again?

“Hell yeah!

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