TWO Oxfordshire summer music events will benefit from the input of the county's sound engineers of the future.

Students from SAE Oxford Audio college will put their skills to the test when they volunteer at June's Tandem Festival and the Cowley Road Carnival in July.

The students are contributing towards several stages across both events, which audio lecturer Tom Gill believes will be invaluable.

He said: "Going and physically doing these live sound events really gets the students feeling comfortable quickly and makes them realise how much they actually already know."

At the Cowley Road Carnival on Sunday July 1 – one of the highlights of the Oxford cultural calendar – the students will have full responsibility for the global dance stage.

They will also assist professionals on the new community stage and the City Arms stage, two more of the event's 30 performance areas.

Anya Fox, artistic producer at Cowley Works which organises the carnival, said: "It makes sense to us to give some of the students the chance to really own a project and learn about the pitfalls and triumphs that can be found when seeing something through from start to finish.”

One week earlier students will run the sound, set up and mixing for one of the Tandem Festival stages from June 22-24, with one student becoming artist liaison.

The cycle-powered, volunteer-run and community-led festival, based at Oxford's Lower Farm, mixes music, art, talks, workshops, film, dance, and food.

SAE Oxford is the headquarters for SAE Institute's 54 campuses worldwide. See sae.edu/gbr/campuses/oxford