Over the 2 semesters we have learnt many key skills and ideas to include into the planning and management of both our live and broadcast event. The main concept from our event came from the battle of the bands concept that has been around for a while. We had played one the year previously which had themed rounds this was fun and was a good gig with a decent turnout however we didn't want to imitate the same idea and really wanted our event to have its own USP. The boys came up with the concept whilst I was absent despite this they contacted me straight away so I could have my say and give an opinion. Once we had discussed this idea further we aimed to identify the artists we would want to play as this would be the main attraction to the event we wanted to make sure we chose to book artists that would bring people in. The main concept from our event came from the battle of the bands concept that has been around for a while. We had played one the year previously which had themed rounds. We knew we wanted something similar Being a uni based event with a primarily based student audience it was also important to choose artists from different circles of friends to help maximise the potential audience that would come just because of the artists. We made a list and immediately contacted the three alumni we wanted to play our gig as we knew these would be harder to work with availability than the current students. Once we had contacted our three alumni artists we then contacted the three current students we wanted to play our event. We've the artists contacted we started discussing venue and dates. We all said from the start that we had no interest in using the Frog & Fiddle as it is an overused venue that many of our target audience are bored of visiting. We decided that we wanted to hold our event at The Stable as it was somewhere a little different and has only been used for a couple of gigs before, as well as this the gigs that we knew had been held at the venue had all been very popular.
We struggled choosing a date for the event but we initially wanted it to be held on a Thursday night so we could try and incorporate a deal with Propaganda we felt this would be a key aspect of drawing a crowd as Propaganda is so popular with students who are our primary audience. We needed to make sure our gig did not class with another groups events and didn't clash with another cheltenham based events such as big uni gigs like the 200 Trees showcase as well as non uni based events. We chose our date after checking for clashes and then Callum proceeded to contact the stable. With the date chosen I set out about creating a GANTT chart we could use to work by to ensure we did not forgot to complete any tasks and to make sure we were not leaving everything until the last minute. The GANNT chart included tasks such as agree terms and signing a venue contract, contacting and booking the artists as well as signing contracts with them as well and a marketing timeline informing us of what promotion we needed to do and when.
From this point we met on a weekly basis solely to discuss and work on the organising of our event. As artists ourselves we had played good gigs and we have played bad gigs and from this we were able to identify were the differences were. Not only did we want the gig to be good for the crowd we wanted it to be good for the artists to ensure we developed a good relationship with them which would help keep them happy and would make them want to work with us again in the future. We felt this to be of key importance as we knew we wanted to create something that wasn't just one off we wanted to create something that could return on a yearly basis, as well as this we knew from the start that we would like to host multiple other events throughout the future.
The Stables communication was very poor and slowed us down when it came to planning as we were unable to tell artists a specific date and therefore we couldn't confirm with them. We then found out that if we hosted the gig at The Stable that we would not be able to charge entry for the gig. We knew that because of this the stable was no longer an option as we had no other way of generating income due to the fact that the only thing we had planned on selling was the entry to the gig. We had to rethink our options and after more group discussion we settled on the idea of hosting the gig at Smokey Joes. Callum booked a meeting with the manager so we could go in and book the venue as well as agreeing on drinks deals and working out a rider for the artists.
Throughout the planning period Tom and myself had discussed started up our own business and discussed running the idea under the business that were planning to set up. I knew that the event would need to be hosted on a Facebook page and I thought this would be a good opportunity to bring the business out for the first time. After looking through the universities other courses I found the graphic design course and found the contact details for their course leader. I emailed him with a message to forward on to all his students about create a logo for our business. We received a few responses and after looking through all the candidates works we contact our favourite to arrange a meeting to discuss logo design and how much they would charge us. Tom and I met the graphic designer and discussed all ideas and agreed to pay a fee for the work he would complete up to £25. Directly after this meeting we had to proceed to Smokey Joes where we met with the manger as a full group. Unfortunately the venue was quite booked and the Thursday night we had hoped to host the gig was unavailable. We had to quickly think of what other nights and dates would be suitable we eventually chose Monday the 23rd of April. At this meeting we also agreed to pay a £50 deposit for the venue and that we would get this back as long as we drew a crowed of around 20 or 30 people. We went through a list of questions we had written before the meeting as well to ensure we had all the information we needed about the venue before we put on the gig.
The venue had a PA and as well as mics and stands so for the technical aspect we knew that we wouldn't have to bring any equipment ourselves. Any other equipment such as instruments and guitar amps had to be provided by the artists themselves. This was helpful for us as it meant we had more time on the day to set up as we would not have to take a trip to the uni to hire a PA.
The change of date meant we codlin work out a Propaganda promotion as they only operated on thursday nights however. Monday was still a night with student deals. Callum contacted Glamourpuss who run Moo Moo Clubrooms on a monday night and worked out a promotion with them where are customers would gain entry for £3 with a queue jump and a cocktail before midnight. This was great as we knew that this would defiantly help draw people in.
In one of our meetings we spoke about how much we would want to charge for our gig. It was very important that it wasn't too expensive and also wasn't too cheap. We had looked at other events and what they had been charging and spoke to a few friends to see how much they would pay to come to our event. From this information we worked out that £3 but be a good price to charge as it was not too cheap or expensive and also meant that for only £1 more than standard entry to Moos you could come to our gig and still get queue jump and a cocktail for the club.
With the date confirmed and the venue booked we started to ensure we had contacted and started to agree terms with the artists who we wanted to play our event. Callum was primarily in charge of contacting the artists however Matt did contact one of the 6 as he had a better personal relationship with them. We simply contacted artists over Facebook Messenger and spoke to them as often as possible when we would see them in person around uni etc. Before we were able to complete and send contracts out one of our artists had to pull out due to double bookings us with another event. Immediately we all spot to try and think f who we should contact as a replacement. After sending a few messages we managed to book another artist who we were happy with. We later had another change of artists due one pulling out as he would no longer be available for our gig.
I created a SWOT analysis for the entire event and got the rest of the group to put forward any ideas they would have to fit the SWOT so we could analyse the key strengths we had to exploit and the key weaknesses we had to minimise to unsure our event was as desirable as possible.
With the Venue and artists booked and knowing the times we could work between at the venue before the noise curfew Tom and I worked out a running order and set times for the artists as well as an individual load in,soundcheck and set times time that meant they didn't all have to turn up at the same time and wait around for one another to finish before they could soundcheck. I created the artist information document to ensure all artists had all the information they needed in one clear and easy to read document.
With everything coming together I started to set up a social media page for the business (Big Pappi Records). I was able to use the logo we had designed as the image for the business making the page look somewhat professional from the start. I forwarded the logos onto Callum as well so he could create an Instagram for the company. I had come up with an initial poster design for the event and so had Callum, we chose to use Cals as it fit our image a bit better than the designs I had created. Once we had uploaded the first promotional poster for the event onto our social media pages, I made sure I invited all my friends to like the page as this would get us more cover over social media.
We discussed the idea of gaining promotions from other business and looked out to find business suitable to try and gain a partnership for them to sponsor our event. We visited a few local business however didn't have any success due to the owners not being on site, and not getting replies when we did email the owners of businesses such as Badlands Records. I also contacted local press to help try and promote the event. I emailed the Gloucestershire Echo to try and get featured either in their paper or on their website to help reach out to people that weren't directly in our target audience yet may still be interested in the event. Sadly we didn’t get any response from these requests either.
Once we had announced our full lineup on social media as well as our drinks deal it was time do some physical marketing and get some posters around the uni campus and around as many shops in town as possible. We Callum and myself worked together to create the final poster than displayed all the information including location, price, date, lineup and the deals for the event. We then used the universities printing facilities to print off our final posters. The first poster I printed I accidentally printed the wrong size and did a full size poster. After this I printed some A4 size posters as well as some A5 sized ones to use as flyers. We gave some posters to the uni techs to put up around the media school I also sent them a digital copy to put up on the media school. We wanted to have our posters around the rest of the university however, we arrived to the SU after they had shut and being the Thursday before the event we were unable to get any around the rest of the uni. After this the four us headed into town to give some of our posters to the venue and whilst were in town we went into Badlands records and the four of us put posters around the shop as the coming weekend was record store day and therefore the store would be as busy as it would ever be all year. After this Callum and myself went into a few shops and restaurants to see if we could get some posters up in their windows. We managed to get posters into Valentinos, Paparitos and The libertine that are popular places for students meaning the posters were in the perfect locations to be seen by our target audience. On the saturday before the gig Tom, Callum and myself went into town again with the A5 flyers to hand out at the record store street party. we figured that people at this event despite likely not being student (our main target audience) would be music lovers and likely to go to local gigs. I spoke to a member of staff to leave some of the A5 flyers on the check out counter and I was even to have some put into peoples shopping bags. Cal and Tom handed flyers to customers in the store whilst I handed out flyers and spoke to people listening to the music outside the store. After this We went around a few more shops in town I managed to get a poster into Go Peri as well as Roosters Peri which again are very popular student hot spots and being a saturday night would more than likely be very busy on that night. As well as this I was able to have posters put in the staff rooms of a few shops including HMV and Olive.
We didn't need much in the way of staffing due to the fact between the four of us we could handle most of the jobs at the event itself. Outside of the four of us we had girlfriends Tilly and Katie working the door which kept the costs down but freed us up for other jobs. We also had two photographers that Callum had organised and a videographer that I had organised to capture and edit together a video showcasing the whole night. All of these extra staff worked for free which helped keep our costs as low as possible. We all helped one another to set up the PA once we arrived we arrived at the venue, this took slightly longer on the day than expected due to the fact the venues PA was poorly stored and organised, we made sure everything was set up in a proper and safe fashion. Ensuring that all loose cables were taped to the floor to minimise the risk of trips and falls. Once the first artist had arrived Matt and myself took main control of the soundchecks with Matt working the desk and me advising on the levels and helping apply effects like reverb. Cal and Tom moved the tables and chairs from the venue to create the layout we wanted for the night. Some of our artists were unable to reach their soundcheck times so had to do line checks on the night.
We managed to keep all of the gigs costs quite low with only having to spend money on the artists rider and wristbands (assuming we had a good turnout meaning we got our deposit back). Our total costs were only £62 and we managed to generate a total revenue of £120 from our ticket sales. Due to the fact we had income in the form of uni funding of £30 on top of the revenue generated from our ticket sales we ended up with a profit of £88. This is a fantastic outcome from a first event as many first time business ventures struggle to breakeven. Generating this much profit has meant that we are able to start discussing new gig ideas and other ways we can invest the money into further projects to generate further income streams. Using a venue that was free is what I believe has lead us to achieving such great profit margins as the £88 we made could have easily been spent if we went for an alternate venue such as Frog & Fiddle. This would remain a core focus when organising other gigs in the future as venue costs are likely to be the difference in an event making a loss, breaking even or making a profit. If we were able to find a free venue where we were able to bring in our own alcohol for the artist rider we would have seen an even greater profit of what would have likely been over £100. This will be kept in mind for future gigs as the more profit we make on a gig the more we can reinvest into to future gigs to help expand even further.
Upon reflection I feel we successfully planned and carried out the crucial elements involved in planning and holding a live event however there a lot of things that I would change. I would move all of the marketing a week further from the event so posters and Facebook posts would have more time to be noticed and therefore have had an even greater turnout to the event. As well as this I would make sure the planning and booking of the venue was far enough in advance that we could have a wider choice on dates as by the time we booked the venue we ended up being quite restricted by the dates that were available to us. This would have helped with securing our artists as well as could have had more flexibility to work the dates around them as well. I would also be more persistent with trying to gain sponsorship deals with local business and try and gain sponsors with a larger range of businesses. I would also try and engage more within the local media and try to get noticed but the local press and potentially the local radio to boost our events outreach. I feel that we could gain even more success by just being more forward and almost taking not taking no for an answer e.g when we don't hear back from someone email again and then again if required and try different ways of communicated with people we need to speak to.
The main I thought of the original idea of our broadcast event involving an interview whilst playing video games as I just felt this would be fun and interesting and although I have scene similar style content where bands play one anther, as seen on Lock In Live, however I have never seen it be used in the form of an interview. It also fit perfectly with the theme of alumni's current students.
We knew that the primary purpose of our broadcast event would be to promote and generate interest for our live event. It was always going to be harder to gain a high count of viewers on the first video as it takes a lot of time to build up a popularity when it comes to web content.
Our audience for the broadcast was the same as our primary audience for the live event as we were using it as a promotional tool.
I tried to work so I was able to carry out the live stream using my DSLR camera to make the video as high quality as possible, as I felt video quality is something that is important for viewers especially as we living in a world everything is in 4K resolution. Sadly I did not have all the equipment required to use the camera nor the budget to purchase the necessary equipment. Because of this we skimpy used an iPhone 7 Plus. We also used my personal PA for the sound of the event which we held in Matts basement.
As with the live event we produced a GANTT chart with a timeline of all the task that we needed to complete leading put to and after the event.
Sadly we had to change from the original idea of artist vs artist due to the poor communication of the artists we therefore adapted the concept so it was the four of us hosting a night of music games and challenges with the artist. On the day we didn't have that many ideas planned and made up a lot as we went a long. I think we pulled this off quite well however when doing a similar broadcast in the future I would have a clear planed structure or what is happening and what would be expected to help the video run as smoothly as possible. I would also purchase a tripod suitable to hold a phone for streaming to help improve the general production quality of the video. I feel also that this style of video under the Big Pappi Records Presents has a lot of potential for further development and would even have cobranding opportunities.
Overall I feel both events were run well and were successful despite the obvious improvements that can be made. I feel that I have learnt a lot from the experience and in the future the events I run or co run will be even better due to the important skills and lessons that I have learnt.
