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The CCP model, beyond Berkeley

Concert Career Pathways isn’t just a program at one venue. It’s a proven model for equitable, hands-on music industry workforce development — and we’re actively working to replicate it with partners across the country. CCP-X is our expansion framework: the same approach, adapted for new contexts and communities.

10+

Years of proven results

80%

Graduate job placement

1

National festival partner

60+

Bay Area employers

What is CCP-X?

CCP-X is the replication and partnership arm of the Concert Career Pathways program. It allows festivals, venues, and arts organizations outside Berkeley to launch CCP-modeled workforce development programs — tuition-free, paid, and equity-centered — with The UC Theatre as a development and training partner.

Each CCP-X partnership is structured to the host organization’s scale, audience, and community context. We provide curriculum, training, mentorship, and access to our professional network. Partners provide the venue, the participants, and the community relationships.

Current partnerships

ACTIVE PARTNERSHIP

CCP-X at Bumbershoot — Seattle, WA

Bumbershoot, the Pacific Northwest’s largest arts and music festival, partnered with The UC Theatre to launch a CCP-inspired workforce development program tied to the festival’s operations. Run in partnership with Third Stone (the nonprofit operator of Bumbershoot), the program serves 15–20 participants aged 17–25, working alongside seasoned festival professionals in a tuition-free, paid training model. This was the first time the CCP model was replicated at a major national festival partner.
EXPANSION OPPORTUNITY

Future partnerships — inquire now

We are actively seeking new CCP-X partnerships with festivals, independent venues, and arts organizations that share our commitment to equitable access to creative-economy careers. If your organization works in live music, performing arts, or the broader creative sector — and serves communities that face barriers to entry — we want to talk.

What we bring to a CCP-X partnership

10 years of proven results

80%+ graduate placement, nationally recognized, with a decade of refining what actually works.

Curriculum & training design

Our workshop curriculum, internship structure, and industry partner model — adapted to your context and scale.

Staff training & coaching

We coach your team on facilitation, mentorship, and equity-centered workforce development practices.

Network access

CCP partners join our regional Professional Partner Network — connecting to Bay Area employers, venues, and industry contacts.

Why this matters

The music industry’s diversity problem isn’t limited to the Bay Area. Nationally, management and leadership roles in live music remain disproportionately white and disproportionately credentialed in ways that exclude talented people from underserved communities. CCP’s model — hands-on, paid, network-driven, equity-centered — is one of the few approaches that has actually demonstrated durable career placement results.

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“Our program gets a foot in the door for graduates where a college degree alone could not. That’s not a small thing — that’s a systemic shift.”

— The UC Theatre

CCP-X is our attempt to make that shift happen at scale. Not through advocacy, but through replication: giving more communities access to the same model, the same support, and the same outcomes.

Start a conversation

CCP-X partnership inquiries:

development@theuctheatre.org

Education program questions:

education@theuctheatre.org

Support CCP expansion:

donate@theuctheatre.org
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Concert Career Pathways

Applications for Cohort 11 are live. Please submit your application by May 15th, 2026.
Apply

MORE ABOUT THE CONCERT CAREER PATHWAYS PROGRAM

Currently in its 9th Cohort, the CCP program is the UC Theatre's flagship workforce development program, dedicated to providing accessible opportunities in the live music industry for people from underserved communities. Our mission is to offer hands-on training and educational experiences for young adults between the ages of 17-25 and guide them towards a career in the concert industry.

Program Timeline:

  • Phase 1: Intro Workshops - August 2025
    • Program Orientation
    • Intro to Concert Promotion
    • Intro to Community Development and Education
    • Intro to Front of House Operations
    • Intro to Marketing Operations
    • Intro to Production Operations
    • Intro to Talent Buying
  • Phase 2: Shadow Shifts - September - November 2025
    • 50 hours, 8-14 hours a week
    • Shadow The UC Theatre Staff and gain a deeper understanding of all aspects of how a venue operates
  • Phase 3: Paid Internship - January 2025 - May 2026
    • 8-14 hours a week
    • Become an intern for a department at The UC Theatre and work closely with a team that will help prepare you for a career in the music live industry.
  • Additional Programming: September 2025 - May 2026
    • Advanced Workshops
    • Speaker Series Sessions
    • Industry Tours
    • CCP Presents Event Challenge

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Concert Career Pathways program participants have the opportunity to learn best practices in production management, event coordination, stagehand, floor staff, live sound engineering, lighting design, event budgeting, box office operations, marketing, social media promotion, booking and more.

This free nine-month experiential workforce development program develops critical and creative thinking skills necessary to become successful in the 21st-century workplace, providing opportunities that both empower young people and strengthen the local economy.

  • Workshops Series (6 Sessions): Workshops are co-facilitated with industry professionals and provide a foundation in multiple aspects of concert promotion such as Marketing, Front of House Operations, Production, Nonprofit Development, and Community Engagement, and Talent Buying.
  • Paid Internships: Participants who have successfully completed the workshop series will work under the direction of The UC Theatre staff and alongside industry professionals for 8-14 hours per week at The UC Theatre. Interns get hands-on training with staff in all disciplines and are paid on an hourly basis.
  • Advanced Workshops Series: The Advanced Workshops are facilitated by The UC Theatre’s staff and offer a deeper understanding of multiple aspects of concert and event promotion such as Live Sound Engineering, Lighting Design, Digital Marketing, Special Event Operations, Bar Operations, and Talent Buying.
  • Industry Tours: Participants are exposed to a variety of career opportunities through behind-the-scenes tours at Bay Area music/concert venues, performing arts organizations, music festivals, ticketing agents, and other music and entertainment-related businesses.
  • Networking Opportunities: Participants will have the opportunity to network with a variety of music industry professionals through our Professional Partner Network.

Our CCP Graduates and Participants come from diverse backgrounds.

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Despite the wealth in the Bay Area, teenagers and young adults, particularly low-income youth of color, struggle to find educational opportunities that lead to living-wage jobs. CCP provides hands-on job experiences, fostering the understanding of work as an integral and satisfying aspect of life, and connecting youth passionate about the music business to a field in which there are current job opportunities and career ladders. Now more than ever removing the barriers to entry in the workforce for people of color and the LGBTQ+ community is critical to embrace and support.

In general, music industry management programs, like many industries in the United States, lack equity, diversity, and inclusion. The UC Theatre believes that bringing together young leaders from a variety of backgrounds with diverse perspectives will help create a more equitable and diverse industry and provide a space for underserved youth to have their voices heard by their peers, some of whom come from more privileged backgrounds, providing exposure to and immersion in diverse voices and ideas. This unique management program supports up-and-coming leaders of the Bay Area that hold promise for re-imagining the music industry in ways that advance intergenerational and multicultural leadership, inclusion, and equity.

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The UC Theatre thanks our individual donors, foundations and corporate supporters who help make our workforce development program possible:

Amazon ~ Bayer Development Agreement Funding ~ City of Berkeley ~ Kimball Foundation ~ Quest Foundation~ Taube Philanthropies ~ Foundation for Jewish Life & Culture


This project is supported by the STEAM Fund of the Amended and Restated Development Agreement between the City of Berkeley and Bayer

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Find out about Chris’s experience working as a mentee in the Concert Career Pathways Program below!

BUMBERSHOOT WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM APPLICATION OPEN UNTIL MARCH 15, 2024:

Bumbershoot Arts and Music Festival, now operated by non-profit Third Stone, is the Pacific Northwest’s Largest Music Festival and is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2023. Strategically tied into the main campus festival event, Third Stone will also be launching a tuition free and paid workforce development program, designed to remove barriers of entry to the creative workforce. Third Stone’s mission is to help foster an inclusive, energized, and sustainable arts economy in the Pacific Northwest through festival, artistic spectacle, and community driven programming.

Third Stone is partnering with The UC Theatre’s Concert Careers Pathway (CCP) program, in Berkeley, CA, who have placed 80% of their graduates into jobs. Like the CCP Program, Bumbershoot Workforce Development Program serves 15-20 participants, ages 17 to 25, to work alongside seasoned live event and concert business professionals.

For any additional inquiries about Concert Career Pathways at The UC Theatre, please email education@theuctheatre.org

Please donate today to the Concert Career Pathways Program to help us build more capacity to graduate more participants and jumpstart their careers.

If you would like more information about other ways to give or on becoming a Producers Circle or Founders Circle Member, please contact:
David M. Mayeri at development@theuctheatre.org
Joan Rosenberg at development@theuctheatre.org

Join us today to make a difference at our beloved The UC Theatre!

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