I was very pleased and excited to have been awarded a bursary to attend the International Association of Music Library (IAML)’s 2019 Annual Study weekend, which took place back in April. The report that I wrote about the experience is here, so please do check that out. As always, I never want to JUST plug my writing on other sites here, and like adding something extra to this blog when I do shamelessly promote myself. So, for that reason, please enjoy this rundown of all the awesome foodstuffs provided at the conference. Firstly, look at the quaint pick-n-mix that was made available. The sweets were in little flowerpots and the bags were tiny paper cones. How adorable is that?

There was also a rainbow cake to celebrate 20 years of the Cecilia database, which contains information about all of the different music collections in the UK and Ireland. It’s a potentially really helpful tool, that I’m hoping might assist me in my future job searching. And the cake was really lovely – it tasted like vanilla.

I did not get a picture of any of the conference dinners or lunches that were provided. But they were pretty nice, too. I did learn very quickly, after the first night, that, as a fussy eater who doesn’t like to eat slabs of meat, I was better to request the vegetarian option. It meant I got to eat a wide variety of different risottos, and there was a very nice (if a little hard to cut) chocolate tart at the fancy conference dinner party.

I got a little nervous when it came to the dinner party. Everyone was beautifully dressed up, and I didn’t have anything special to wear (and I also wasn’t sure whether the bursary had provided for the dinner, so that was also a little stressful before it was sorted out). Everything turned out fine, though. And one of the waiters joked that I was very posh for drinking the Bottlegreen Elderflower Cordial with (gasp) sparkling water!

Although I don’t drink alcohol, I was quite proud of myself for being sociable in the bar at the end of each day. It was a little noisy, but I really enjoyed talking to the music librarians, who were all really nice and friendly. I did stay up quite late both evenings, so I was super tired from all the excitement and socialising. It was quite nice to have a little break when everyone was getting ready for the dinner party.

The staff were also really nice and let me take some of the complimentary berry teabags to my hotel room. It was really relaxing to unwind in the early hours of the morning, watching Poirot with my fruit tea before going to sleep.

All in all, it was an awesome conference and the food was generally really nice. But for my proper thoughts on the conference from a music librarianship perspective, do check out the report I wrote for IAML.