#buckslive

As the days have flown past since the event, I have seen the importance of post-event PR – especially since that is what allowed for the evolution of Bucks Live – from the concourse to The Grange.

We have been included in the Bucks Free Press, the Bucks Herald and even the university website!

The importance of content, again, is very apparent. If not for the numerous photos and videos taken on the day, we would not have anything to show for the success of the event. Research, primarily for Facebook, has shown that followers have grown from 589 to 656 from early October to mid-May, while the page insights have shown a small boost of page likes from 606 to 671 during the same period. Although this may not seem like much, there have been consistent high engagement rates on social media, which is fairly surprising seeing as this medium did not seem like a promising communication tool with our target market after evaluating the market research carried out in the winter. Nevertheless, engagement – especially on Twitter and Facebook – was relatively high on the day and the immediate following periods.

Social media has been quite effective in not only publicising the event but also in developing the SubWoofers brand. Juxtaposed with the account activity from previous Bucks Live events, we have definitely been more active and engaging. It has been wonderful learning how social media can almost be a science – whether that be moving pictures to the left-hand side or using video content more than photos or text because it is more engaging, or even that posts have higher engagement rates after 6pm.

If I could do it all again, I would carry out more extensive research about social media specifically and encourage my team members to do the same. Although there were no serious issues, I should have been more persistent in encouraging my other team members – specifically within social media – to create content and think or help more to generate ideas. Up until the new addition to the team (and somewhat now), I was the sole idea/content generator for social media and, although it was successful, the team would have benefited from even more of everything on socials. After all, three brains are better than one.

Nevertheless, it has been an enjoyable experience, and doing this with a larger group instead of the much smaller 8-people (sometimes 10) Music Business group has really helped to spread the load, and simply give a different dynamic. If I get the chance to do a similar project next time, I would enjoy the larger group experience more and not dwell on the negatives that can sometimes come along with it (such as longer communication chains, too much input when it is not needed etc.).

Finally! SubWoofers brought to life with its design work finished and ready for our disposal!

As part of the marketing team we took a huge step forward when we received the design work,  as we were finally able to efficiently market this event once and for all. Making us all feel very excited of the realization that this event was actually happening! For the first time both ‘Bucks Live’ and ‘The Hearing Dogs’ teaming up to create our first ever dog music festival, the anticipation was high! 

Immediately we re-skinned all our social media platforms to give SubWoofers an identity, with Hudson the dog becoming the USP! We also wanted to establish the unique partnership with essentially our client for the event, ‘The Hearing Dogs’, to get the ball rolling to what ‘SubWoofers’ is all about and what we are intending to achieve. As a result, we made a trip  to ‘The Grange’ in ‘Saunderton’, where the event would be taking place, to create some marketing material to form the relationship, as can be seen below.

Moving on, not long after seeing the picture of Hudson the dog on the flyer, we were meeting the real thing! As you can seen in the picture above, a very well behaved, photogenic dog, who overall i was just relived when he decided not to chase me around the 30 archer site dressed as Rusty Buck! ;) Which on that particular topic, me dressed up as a mascot seems to be a regular theme throughout promoting this event as you may begin to notice ;) 

Within the Marketing Team we knew the expectations of us where high, especially from ‘The Hearing Dogs’, to ensure we can attract as many people as possible to the event. As a result, during one of our Tuesday planning sessions at ‘Bucks New Uni’ we all come together to put a plan together of what our best marketing opportunities are and what are we gonna do to make stuff happen. ‘The Henley Dog Walk’ was the perfect opportunity, not only to market our event, but market it to the target audience we want to attract! it was the perfect opportunity to gather potential numbers for ‘SubWoofers’. On the day we had a stool set up with flyers to hand out, with once again me in a mascot costume (pretending i can play the guitar). Altogether, it gave us a chance to feed into the target market, and begin word of mouth marketing within our desired audience going forward. 

As an attempt to get me out of a dog onesie, i took matters into my own hands and decided to order ‘SubWoofer’ t-shirts ;) In all seriousness, we began to have plenty of material at our disposal in the forms of both digital and traditional physical marketing media teckniques, to help provide ourselves with a presence to the public. As weeks went on the colour green began to have a big presence in the majority of the surrounding areas, whether it be via flyers, mascots, t-shirts or large banners, like in the picture below.

Due to the scale of the event we wanted to achieve, unlike ‘Winterland’ the year before we wanted to venture out our marketing further. For example, the banner below i drove and took to ‘Pebblebrook School’ on ‘Churchill Avenue’ in ‘Aylesbury’,  where the particular location receives a lot of stationary traffic, especially during school times. This, alongside with other pieces of traditional marketing, was seen as our most productive and efficient form of marketing, when referencing back to the market research carried out earlier in the year. Therefore, we wanted to take advantage of it and try to increase our image within the surrounding areas. Things all weren't plain sailing though, as when i went to put the banner up it turned out that i had the wrong size cable ties and had to make a quick diversion to the nearest DIY store to put it right, baring in mind a bad worksman blames his tools ;).

During another Tuesday planning session at ‘Bucks New Uni’, i was over the moon when our course leader Alan had booked us a rehearsal studio for us to create some marketing material for the event. It was a win,win, as i love playing the drums and i was doing something constructive for the event at the same time... However, i wasn't so over the moon when we realized there was no drum sticks...Never the less i managed to improvise ;). Overall, it was a very productive day as we manged to blend what ‘SubWoofers’ is about in a single piece of marketing material, with the use of dogs, music and fun to portray the associations of the event we wish to stage. 

SubWoofers Music Festival finally happened. I’m still in shock.

On the 6th May 2018, I was instrumental in carrying out a successful music festival! Although there were things that could have gone better, the fact that the up-end of three thousand people came and enjoyed themselves is a significant win for the Bucks Live team.

Rewind.

10am. No alarm. Phone is dead. Bad news for social media team leader.

To say that the day started with a shock is an understatement. The panic of missing the early bus, missing the briefing (which didn’t end up happening) having 2% battery and having to pay an extortionate rate for a taxi all flew through my mind as I launched out of bed. Nevertheless, the cloud of worry and panic quickly disappeared as I was able to think quickly, problem solve and make getting to the festival site as soon as possible my goal. Once the ball started to roll, it just kept rolling. That brings us to over 3,000 attendees, loads of photo and video content, press coverage by Bucks Free Press and Hiya Bucks and a month more of evenings spent finding emojis that fit just right with scheduled Facebook posts.

The day was definitely a learning experience. I have learnt that some events have late sales, and the weather can have a significant effect on purchasing decisions. Also, from the day and in the weeks leading up to it, I learn that quality communication and asking for clarification is KEY. Especially on a large, busy festival site where it can take a relatively long time to get to where you need to be, one must be sure of what they are doing and should not be scared to clarify their task because time and energy is wasted when you get to the other side and realise you are not entirely sure of what you need to do. Equally, people who do know what they mean to say sometimes are unable to communicate that, so for the benefit of all parties, clarification of tasks and objectives is a must. This was particularly apparent when a template media response was needed for the serious incident report. Although this was my task to complete, the guidelines given were unclear and long-winded and the delegators were not entirely sure on what the task was. This taught me that even those in charge can sometimes be clueless, but to allocate work, the giver must in fact know what that work is.

In retrospect, many things could have been improved on the day and in the time leading up to the event. From a social media perspective, there should have been better communication between the talent and marketing teams, specifically when acts were either being added to or taken away from the list. Since social media is where many people find out about the event, this is vital. Similarly, communication between all of the teams could have been better, regarding the things provided at the event such as traders and attractions and logistically the general arrangement of the finished product. This is particularly important seeing that at the end of the day, we all wear the same ‘Bucks Live Event Staff’ Hi-Vis vest. This means that to external people (who do not know who is part of marketing, or production, or logistics), we look like we know everything about the event, so if they ask a question about where something is, they expect an answer coming from a place of knowledge. This could have been managed better if there was a briefing in the morning from the production and logistics team where they explore possible queries from customers or even traders and how we would handle this. This would have been especially helpful for volunteers.

Differently, more stewards and BSL interpreters could have improved the event as a whole for both the organisers and the general public. Not only were people doing many miscellaneous jobs that stopped them from doing their main role, there were instances where people were trying to interact with people who needed BSL interpreters, so communication was sometimes a challenge.

Personally, my performance could have improved by being more adamant when asking for information and updates from other teams, as slow responses (or no response) meant that social media did not cover all bases. In a different way, stressing the importance of teamwork within the marketing team could have been higher on my task list. Although I did not want to undermine leaders or take on too much work that I do not need to, I could have been better at highlighting when others were not pulling their weight and encouraging them to contribute further.

How I aim to approach similar situations in the future is by making sure that my instructions are understood by clarifying with colleagues, chasing up tasks and maintaining constant communication with both external and internal team members. In another way, I will make sure that there is ALWAYS a Plan B – whether that be giving someone else the task to manage social media while I am directing traffic in a car park or having a back-up person to help organise the countdown if someone does not follow through. Nevertheless, I was surrounded by a great team; passionate, hard-working peers who also love music.

A new partnership between Bucks New University and Hearing Dogs for Deaf People will see live music performed at the charity’s home in Saunderton this summer. A fun day out has been planned for all the family with live music, entertainment and attractions that’ll leave everyone smiling.

The event, presented in collaboration with Bucks New University’s Bucks Live, will be called SubWoofers and will take place during the bank holiday weekend on Sunday 6 May 2018 at Hearing Dogs, The Grange, Saunderton, Bucks HP27 9NS, from 1pm until 7pm.

 Michele Jennings, Chief Executive of Hearing Dogs says: “We are delighted to be working with Bucks New University on this brand new event. With the growth in music festivals over recent years, we want everyone to enjoy live music, but remember to look after their hearing! The one-day event will raise funds to train more clever, loveable hearing dogs, and we hope lots of families will enjoy a great day out with us.”

Following the success of other Bucks Live events at the University's High Wycombe Campus over recent years, students from second year Music & Live Events Management and Music Business courses have been working with Hearing Dogs over several months to create what promises to be a great fun day out.

 In the UK 11.5 million people suffer from hearing loss* and this number continues to rise. Deafness can be caused by many factors, of which frequent exposure to loud music is one, and increasingly festival goers, well-known musicians and many employed in the entertainment industry are developing hearing loss. We want this event to raise awareness of the causes of deafness, while ensuring live music can still be thoroughly enjoyed.

After our first year success of planning and carrying out our event "WinterLand" I was excited to say the least when we were informed that throughout our second year we will be carrying out our live music event off-campus in partnership with the Hearing Dogs Trust on their 30+ Acre site. Once we were informed we were going to be in complete control in the planning process of the event all of us in the class had a lot of enthusiasm considering the higher responsibility and opportunities that we have been granted with this year in comparison to last year in order to carry out this event in May 2018. 

We began the lectures with briefings of what the Event Management course had lined up for us this year, before paying the Hearing Dogs Trust site a numerous amount of site visits to help begin to fuel our creative minds of what we are working with and what we wish to conduct during the lead up to the event and on the day itself. During the first year, with the Winterland event, I was placed in the Production Team and very much enjoyed the responsibilities and tasks that came with it, however also showed an interest in the Marketing Team hence the participation in some of last years marketing events, including dressing up as Rusty Buck and walking around the town of High Wycombe, not being the fondest memory ;). As a result of this I decided to give the marketing team a go for this years event. However, marketing this years event is proving to be very different to marketing previous bucks live events, which we had predicted due to us working for a client as opposed for ourselves. This has so far proven to have both positives and negatives to it in the way that the negatives are we don't originally know the hearing dogs audience and social media presence, along side with how they decided to conduct and promote themselves through marketing due to being a charity of course. Never the less, we are beginning to get to know our client and their intentions which is a huge positive due to the much higher social media following they have than our bucks live social media presence. 

Furthermore, our preparation to marketing the event has been strengthened even further in the last few weeks after our team, alongside with the music business team attended the Christmas market event at the hearing dogs trust to get an idea of the social fabric of an Hearing Dogs Trust event. We were able to conduct this not just be showing our faces at the event, but also due to the help of the music business students who designed a public questionnaire to gain market research to build hub of information for us marketers in particular to base our marketing focuses off. The information gained has since been converted into clear easy to understand graphs and figures by the music business students for us to use as a bases to focus our marketing in-depth. 

The day began with a McDonalds breakfast at 7:30. Everyone was half asleep, bundled in scarves and gloves but excited for the day ahead. At 8:00 we arrived on the university concourse ready to begin working.

I would say set up can be considered the least fun part of the day as our first job was to place all the fencing so that there were clear indicators for where the public could and couldn't go. Next was the gazebos, thankfully as we had bought all new ones there were no missing pieces and they all had instructions. During this time, we had multiple deliveries and traders arriving with the first being the Ferris wheel as it took the longest to set up. When the other fairground rides arrived, upon seeing the layout of our space the workers suggested different positioning which meant we had to adjust the layout of a few other elements. Thankfully the stage had already arrived as the repositioning meant there was no room for vehicles to arrive on site at that entrance.

Next to arrive was the inflatables, the event hall where they were being set up had already been carpeted and we were able to reverse the delivery van directly in front of one of the entrances allowing for quick and easy unloading. Once all the key elements had arrived and were mostly set up we were able to begin decorating. The main area that needed decorating was the Santa's grotto so as some of the group decorated it others worked on signage and adding Wintery flourishes such as wreaths and candy canes.

At 13:30 set up was almost complete so the head of health and safety at the university came down and lead us through all the checks he was doing and why he was doing them. This was especially helpful to myself and one of my classmates Lexi as we were both in charge of health and safety throughout the event. 

After we had the all clear we were finally ready to open to the public, the first problem occurred within the first hour when the grotto workers realized it was going to be more popular than expected and they were going to run out of presents. Luckily the grottos opening times were laid out in half an hour slots so on their next break they were able to get another colleague to go buy more. Apart from this the first hours ran fairly smoothly; the pressure didn’t begin until around 16:00 when the event was at its busiest. The inflatables got immensely busy and we even considered closing it for a certain amount of time until the crowds became more manageable but instead we reworked the positions of a few colleagues to allow for extra staff in that area.

The popularity of the event also caused a few issues outside as both the grotto and box office ran out of change at the same time and traders ran out of water. As myself and Lexi were health and safety it meant we were not obligated to remain in the one area so we were able to deal with problems as they were occurring. Although it did involve us running around a lot we didn’t mind as it kept us warm. As well as this we were also the main colleagues dealing with any issues with the public although there were only a handful of instances that had to be handled and they were fairly easily solved. 

At 19:00 the event came to a close and so began the take down, this was fairly quick to do as everyone was still running off of adrenaline from the event and because we had done the set up we already knew what to do in the take down. All and all the event was a success with 3,500 members of the public attending with plenty of positive feedback and no major issues occurring.

Since beginning university in October, I have been working with my peers to put on an event to the public on the 9th of December called Winterland. The first step as with any event was to form groups for each of the most significant areas. Production, which involved creating the site map, arranging fencing and so on; next was marketing who were in charge of social media, radio and basically just getting the word out to anyone and everyone. Then there was talent who are pretty self explanatory, they were in charge of hiring performers and creating a line up. The final team was logistics which was the team I was assigned to, we were in charge of catering, fairground rides, inflatables, décor and so on.  

Our first priority and the thing we reminded each other on throughout was knowing 'who is our target audience?' For this particular event our main focus was families with younger children, especially because we planned on creating a Santa’s grotto which didn’t seem to be being done anywhere else in High Wycombe at the time. It was important for us to keep our target audience in mind as it was central to everything we did. For example when I ordered the inflatables I made sure to order ones that adults would be allowed to go on as well; this meant if they needed to accompany their child they could. I also ordered a soft play area so that very young children could be included too. Another area this was important in was the catering, if we had decided on a gourmet stall children wouldn’t have been so keen so instead we choose foods we knew children would enjoy such as burgers and sweets.  

During this project there had to be a lot of communication between not only our individual groups but also between all the groups. Each group depended on another at least once. My group in particular worked more closely with the production team. This was because they had measured the area and so when we wanted to order something were then able to create a mock diagram to insure there was enough room without blocking emergency exits.  

Within the first few weeks my group managed to confirm most of the larger elements such as catering, inflatables, fairground rides and the Christmas tree. Our next priority was to get into a workshop and start designing what props we wanted to use. Firstly, we had to set up gazebos that had been used for an event the year before. You might be thinking this doesn't seem like a particularly taxing thing but, you would be wrong. After struggling with no instructions and many broken and missing pieces we gave up and decided to purchase new ones instead. Next was A LOT of painting, thankfully most of us found it therapeutic so spending eight hours doing it ended up being enjoyable. This painting included our Bucks Live signs, candy canes, large signs and a picket fence to go around Santa’s grotto to give the gazebo a more cottage like feel. Our biggest stress was creating the public sign posts, this required having stencils specially made. Then my team had to work with the production team to ensure the signs were in accordance to the site maps which all took longer than we anticipated to get right.

The biggest issue that became apparent during this process was getting other teams to help. As it was not their teams job to do many lacked the effort to help which in turn put pressure on my team when it came to the last weeks before the event. There was still a lot that had to be done including making Santa’s chair. Although, we were not the only team that needed contribution from others. When it came to marketing handing out leaflets was a big part of it and it required large numbers of people. So for a few of the times there was a struggle to get people to do it but, when most did help it was very successful. It also helped that we usually brought along our university mascot Rusty who always interested kids for long enough for us to explain the event to their parents.

 We also had to make a few compromises which were ultimately down to poor time management; even though my team would meet every Monday to go through what still needed to be done. For example, we were supposed to make multiple games but instead were only able to refurbish the one that had be used before. We also had an order form that included parts for props we were going to make, but it was sent off too late and then was not processed with enough time. Luckily my team thought on their feet and one member went shopping a few days before the event to buy the essentials that we were still missing.  

Despite the issues that occurred when it came to the final week before the event everyone seemed to realise the importance of working together and all started helping. This meant that although we had to compromise a leave out a few things, everything we had started we were able to finish to a good standard  ready for the day.  

On Saturday the 9th of December I had my first event as a first year.

Not long into the start of my fist year at university we were set a task to put on a winter event called ‘winterland’. The fact that we have only just met each other as a class made us all a bit on edge about how we would approach starting the event. Winterland had only happened once before and proved to be a big success, it included...fairground rides, inflatable’s and live music throughout the afternoon. We loved the sound of all of this but we had plans to make it bigger.

Once we got put into groups which were: Talent, who was in charge of getting acts to perform on and off the stage. Marketing, who promoted the event on social media, radio and with flyers in local towns? Logistics, which had to provide the catering, the rides and decorating the event to make it look appropriate.  And lastly Production, which was the team I was in. We had the task of the lay out, stewards, fencing and Santa.

My team leader was Jess who did weekly update with information on what had gone on that week and what had to be done for the next week. However all the jobs was split and it was a team effort. In our groups we very much stayed together for the first couple of weeks, then we slowly had to speak to each other. I feel that because we weren’t close as a class our groups didn’t communicate as much as they should of. Allot of information as past back and forth on the Tuesday sessions that we possibly should have discuss before the workshops.

Pete the penguin was a giant stuffed penguin that one of my class mates had brought whilst looking for sponsors for Winterland. Whilst this was just an out the blue buy, he became a part of the group. We used him as a kind of mascot and I believe if we planned a bit earlier we could have had him on the face book page and made him a recognisable face for the kids. We did have The Rusty Buck costume however I personally don’t think he was a friendly face compared to Pete.

The day before...

The day before on the Friday, everyone was in a rush to complete certain jobs that had to be finished, this is where I believed we started to come together as a team.

My job on the day was to organise the stewards. We had quite a bit of trouble with requiting stewards for this event. Unfortunately it was around deadline session and quite allots of people was unable to help us out. We had a list of willing volunteers however the list slowly got less and less as the event grew nearer and on the day we ended up with 8 stewards. I had a plan of where my stewards would need to be placed and I placed the ones I had on the most relevant and important places that I thought was necessary. I had done a sight map with the placing of each steward and on the back had a description of what they would need to do and a few questions and answers that they may be asked. Overall I feel as though we as a team did very well with who we had and although it wasn’t the job they was expecting to do on the day when my team was asked to cover the rides they did and it made a great difference.

They day started off really well, we all met for 7:30 in McDonald's to discuss how we thought the day was going to go. We made our way to the site where we met with Neil, Alan and Stan. We began to put up the fencing and gradually the rides and food vans turned up. Before we knew it we had a stage, Santa’s grotto, tea cups, chair-o-planes, carousel, inflatables, a ferris wheel and a lit Christmas tree. I think getting this all up in the 5 hours we had was amazing, we worked as a team and it was a real bonding session. Me and Lizzy was putting up gazebo and there was some queries on whether we could do it, however 1 and a half hours later and 3 gazebo up, we was the gazebo queens. Later on me and Lizzy spoke and realised we haven’t had convocation together till that day which we found quite funny. It hit 1 o’clock and my stewards where there, I briefed them gave them there walkie torquay and site maps and they were set into place. Then, it began....

During the event I personally came up agents a few challenges that I had to make decisions on where I ended getting into the car with Elsa and showing her to the car park and running circuits round the uni to get to each stewarded.

The acts on stage consisted of Homers Green school choir and rook band, woodburn Green and High Wycombe rock project, Bucks New uni Accapella society and Musical theatre society, Irene and Iiz and Barney, all in witch were very talented!