Will Smith Live and Music Events Management

Subwoofers 2018 was a huge hit with over 3000 human beings and some of their furry friends entering through the gates and seeing the enigmatic Bucks Live sign as they enter the first Subwoofers in the world (which I put up in a rush) as half of the signs broke as they entered the hard 27 acre ground of the home of Hearing Dogs for Deaf People. Im going to be honest with how much I have done and my opinions on the whole experience of Subwoofers over the next however many words I end up writing. 

In a way I struggled with this event, I was productive in stages, however unmotivated and uninterested at times. Often as I found other assignments more engaging and more suited to what I intend on doing in the future. I was also organising my own event in London around this point in time and was getting a tad distracted by this. I need to learn to mix work and pleasure. But I sort of want to go into the London Band Scene so at the same time I treated the organising of that event as work. I learnt a lot from that experience making contacts which I intend to use at a later date. There is a blog post below of more details. However not to say that this wasn’t a good experience. I was placed onto the Marketing team. Which I thought was great, I’d have preferred to have been on the Talent team but what can you do, can’t always get your own way. I was placed in the PR team, extensively to sort out the contacting of radio stations and shows in the area. This was a slow process at the start because the event didn’t have a name so it was impossible to do anything for half of the assignment. Before hand I was searching my mind long and hard of how to do some cool crazy publicity stunt. I had the idea of flying some sort of hot air balloon across Buckinghamshire with a banner of the event attached, or a hot air balloon shaped as a dog. To hope some cunning photographer could take a photo. Or the people in the balloon could drop loads of flyers across Buckinghamshire, even though the councils and the bucks would hate it for the amount of rubbish this would cause. I had to look for a dog shaped hot air balloon and it turns out after 22 pages on google it was impossible. I was in dream world, in a hazy dream that the budget of the event was a million pounds. Perhaps I was thinking too big, or maybe just my ideas never really come to fruition due to being too mental for the world around me. I had another idea of having a dog shaped car like in Dumb and Dumber drive about. I never actually voiced that idea or even researched it, thinking it would be too hard to pull off. (I'm a big fan of Dumb and Dumber) 

So we instead went down the easy cute puppy route, which is a good route. Just not massively creative. But I still think if done again I would bash my head into gear and think more. Perhaps more meetings were needed, outside of classes we met once or twice as a group. I intended on meeting with my team leader but this never happened. I do wish I had helped her out more as I think she was probably drowning in the amount she had on as more and more people entered the marketing team for ideas and stuff to actually happen. I started to contact radio stations, I was in contact with Wycombe sound and just had to organise a date for which I seemed fit. I contacted Marlow FM and had some luck me and Mark went on air to talk about the event and it was a lot of fun. I tried contacting BBC Three Counties and I found it ridiculously hard to find any sort of contact information and when I did nothing came from it. I asked for the contact details and tried again and nothing came from it. Eventually this left my hands and someone else completed the task. Wycombe Sound also fell from my hands as I clearly did not do it fast enough. So my whole radio extravaganza came to a close. So yeah I didn’t do the best, In future I need to get off my arse and sort a date, but whenever I rung It was always bad timing as when they could do it, I was busy. Three Counties I have nothing to say about that but have an email on your website that actually works.

One of my favourite parts of the leading up to Subwoofers was my time in the Rusty Buck outfit. Although hot and sweaty it’s not actually that bad comfort wise. Myself and others on my course went to the Wycombe Fire Station, took photos and videos for social media. Which by the way (the social media was mega) We took photos in the fire engine, around the site. And on those big ladder things that climb up and up. I mean I couldn't see much due to limitations on sight but Im a bit of a thrill seeker at heart so it was an honour to be looking like a Buck at that moment in time. This was not the only time I wore the suit as I rented out and went down to Wycombe Train Station and handed out flyers and danced about and waved to the rush of ongoing passengers from London and other places coming into High Wycombe. This was the hottest I think I've ever been, I left the suit and was literally wet. The next day I grabbed a load of flyers again, this time on my lonesome and went to some Rail Stations and handed out flyers in Beaconsfield and Gerrards Cross. Which was good to not only market in High Wycombe and at the Uni. I was unsure about the amount of marketing at the uni itself as it was a family event and I didn't really think it was a ‘student’ type event. As the acts weren’t massively young and modern so would students really pay the money to go? If the acts were bigger and budget we could have marketed in London. Which I would have enjoyed and engaged in more. But that’s dreamland I guess. I have to say however the inclusion of Skasouls was a great idea. Everyone loves a cheeky bit of Ska. But yeah if I were on talent I would have looked at acts in Oxford such as Willie J Healey and Haze. Also uni band Nightjar and Table 21. However maybe they weren’t appropriate? Who knows.

Alot has changed since my last post in December. My life has turned around, for the better. I have focus, and drive, this comes down to a whole host of things. I have put on and promoted my first event in London. Which was a huge success

Here is one of the posters from the event. I had 4 bands play. One of them being my band Static Personality, another reason why I am very motivated. I feel like I have learnt so much about the music industry actually going out and being in contact with promoters, venues, sound engineers and so on and so on. But the event was great, put it on at this out of the way venue in Highbury. Not the best venue in the world. But it's easy to put on an event there. The only real issue I had was the sound guy. He turned up late, I wanted him there from 5 he came at 6:30, this made soundchecking rushed and one band didn't get a soundcheck, I had to stop the third band Jerry soundchecking so that the running order could take place. As I wanted Brewer to start first as I wanted more people there to see Jerry. Just because they have alot of people coming and I knew them and preferred them. But yeah, all the bands were great. Plus performing last was crazy. One of our best gigs yet, we went mental and mosh pits occurred, throwing off pints of course happened and glass smashing happened... But overall I feel like I have abit more achieved than last year. I'm going to put on another one of these events soon, hopefully at Bethnal Green Working Men's club. I think October time would be good. Or perhaps Dalston ROCKSTEADY as they have a license till 2 for live music I thought about an all dayer type thing. Where I could get 8 or so bands in. It would be crazy. Alot of planning would need to go into this. But the venue would be perfect for it! But yeah the amount of people who came was amazing. Plus the response was great too!