Rationale
Summary
We wanted to plan a slightly niche night of music directed at the people whose musical interests are often overlooked, with the main themes being relaxation and upcoming talent. We have chosen three student bands – a reggae band, a pop solo act and a jazz band – to provide our audience with a slightly different night to the typical night out in Leeds and a selection of smooth songs after a busy half term. We are calling it ‘Smoother Sounds’.
Time-management
When thinking about our time management we split the event into the planning assignment, the preparation for the event post-assignment and the day of the event.
We spent the first month since meeting each other brainstorming what kind of event we would like to promote and where we would do it. We spent a lot of time in this ‘brainstorming phase’ (Shone and Parry, 2019) in which we evaluated even the ideas we were not convinced by, ranging from a heavy metal gig to a jazz gig and ending with this fusion-style event as it seemed both easiest for all members of our group to work with and in the highest demand. The next month was a team effort in getting the venue and artists that fitted our ideal event booked in and setting a date. The final two months were spent brainstorming general ideas and strategies for each category of the plan we would be submitting in this assignment, such as what colour schemes we wanted to promote the event under and how we would structure our night (the amount of time each artist would play for, in which order they would play etc.)
In the month lead up to the assignment due date, our main methods of keeping on top of time management were splitting up the tasks and setting ourselves deadlines. The tasks were split as such: I was to lead the marketing and promotion side (including poster design, paid advertising, press release etc.), Lily was to lead the venue contact side (including risk assessment, venue tech specs, booking the venue etc.), Pollyanna and Allister were to lead the artist liaison side (including sorting out artist photographs, biographies etc.), Paul was to lead the production side (including stage plots, artist tech specs etc.) and Avery was to act as a manager, creating a list of questions for us to answer on our specific departments in one shared file and checking that our event was being planned in time to submit the first assignment for this module. We split into the above roles and finalised our areas of the appendix before sharing them with each other, reviewing each persons’ work, chasing up any loose ends (we had to use Spotify and Whatsapp images from Jah Glory as we lost contact with the band for a few weeks before the assignment but we had left ourselves enough time to sort this out amongst other small hitches) and finally importing the finished appendix and completing the rationales individually.
Our preparation for the event consists of the implementation of the plans which we have created thus far, such as creating ticket links, promoting the event at the right time and making sure we booked equipment we needed in good time for the event; all the things that it is too early to do over three months before the event actually takes place. We have set February as the month of promotion as our event takes place one week into March and we wanted enough time to reach as many people as possible without shooting too early and risking the hype dying down.
The event advance below shows our schedule for the day of the event. Due to a noise restriction on amplified sounds before 5PM and an 11PM curfew we intend to set up from 4PM, sound check from 5PM and have our headliner finish at 10:30PM.
Production
Technical: The venue has the microphones we need for our vocalists and our artists’ other instruments will be amplified for free as we can bring the rest of the equipment we need (amps etc.) from the conservatoire. We struggled to get Jah Glory’s tech specs but we eventually got the list of instruments and will be able to create a stage plot and tech specs before the event, as soon as we have confirmation from the new supporting band about their tech specs. If they agree to play and send their tech specs we can complete the document from that but, if they were to decline the invitation, we can complete the document with a stage plot and tech spec list based on the promotion team’s ability to support Jah Glory. For now his tech specs are just his personal requirements on stage and the rest of the band will be added later.
Logistical: We plan to book an uber xl to carry amps to the venue and split the fare between us. The conservatoire is a six minute drive away from The Attic and so the fare should be low. The other artists have cars and have offered to take equipment to the venue as well so one uber should be more than enough. As the grand piano is already in the venue and we have paid for that there is no moving cost for the piano. All our artists are local to the area and will either drive or commute themselves.
Hospitality: The venue provides a green room with direct, private access which is comfortable and has a kettle, a fridge and wifi amongst other features. We will make sure our artists get photos here as they have requested them and the photographer is happy to do so. If the ticket sales have given us some profit for the promotion team we will provide snacks for the artists.
Health and safety: In order to take care financially, I will bring a float for cash sales on the door and manage it myself throughout the night, ensuring I have at least one other member of the team with me at all times for security. If I need to leave for any reason I will ensure someone else takes my place. There is a desk for merch sales but, as far as we know, none of the artists will be selling merch so there will be no confusion or risk with money other than from the public.
The other members of the group have visited the venue and conducted a risk assessment, attached below. They found the venue to be safe when they were checking safety protocol, the integrity of the building (including anything which could be a hazard such as loose nails etc.) and rigging/cabling concerns (Hse.gov.uk, 2024). We will do our part by not filling the room beyond its capacity and implementing a few safety measures such as informing performers of fire and security procedures, learning where the first aid kit and who is a trained first aider, and securing artists’ equipment in the green room, refusing access to anyone who is not performing, part of the promotion team or in possession of a free ticket (Health and Safety Executive, 2024). I will be on the door to check people’s names and give them stamps, ensuring everyone pays and no one enters the room with an intent to disrupt. The venue has also been very clear in their venue tech specs that The Attic is a safe space and any trouble, discrimination or disruption will be dealt with accordingly so we feel comfortable hosting an event there. The venue also is step free with wheelchair access so we knew that we would have no safety issues regarding accessibility in this venue; another reason why we chose it.
Contingency plans
We agreed to try and have our event take place at The Attic, with some student bands performing, quite early in the planning process. The nature of student bands is typically that they will take any opportunity that comes to them, especially with jazz and reggae gigs being much less commonly promoted around Leeds than say Indie nights or DJ sets. This made us feel confident that the bands would be excited to play at our event and would work with us. However, with two members of our group already playing reggae music, we felt secure enough that we could step in for any bands who did not show up on the night or cancelled last minute and at least give the audience a night worth their money.
As for the venue, we found a second option, Society, who a member of our group talked to in-person and they also seemed interested in our idea, just in case we could not arrange the right night with The Attic. We also have two production students in our group who are comfortable with setting up equipment on the night, in the event that in house technicians are not available, and we would bring a backup microphone, amp and spare cables and would be able to replace any broken equipment quickly to ensure the event still takes place.
One thing that did go wrong was we lost contact with Jah Glory for a month or so before the submission. Two days before submission the singer informed us that his band had bailed on him. I offered to learn the bassline and he accepted. I also mentioned to the group that I could find replacement band members to support the singer as he is the songwriter and frontman and would only need support. I asked a friend from another reggae band if he would be able to help, and asked two musicians who I live with if they would also be free. Lily and Pollyanna also offered their availability to support and so, with the assignment almost due, we felt secure that we would have enough time to learn the parts and have enough support available to ensure Jah Glory could still perform.
Finance
When thinking about finances we split our thoughts into planning for maximum profit and for a bad showing ensuring that in each event we had a plan that would benefit everyone involved, ranging from the promotion team slightly losing money but the experience being worth it, to the promotion team making £72 each. The venue charges £180 for hire and we paid an extra £30 for their grand piano as the jazz and pop acts needed it.
We saved money on any amps or instruments as the jazz band has everything we need for the event and will be able to transport it to the gig, saving us money on transporting it as well.
We opted for a versus deal when paying our artists: we guaranteed them £80 each regardless of the ticket sales, which meant that we would need to sell 70 tickets out of 180 in order to break even after venue and artist payments. We felt confident we could do this and, with our instagram adverts only costing £20 for 7 days of a boosted reel targeting Hunslet and set to bring in more tickets, we were confident we could reach the 85 ticket sales target which would give our artists their percentage deal, 15%, instead of the guarantee while the promotion team still made a profit.
We have multiple free printers available between us and my friend helped me design it for free so our only costs in promotion come from instagram boosting. The same friend is offering free photography for a ticket hold and we have allocated 20 tickets for free for other videographers and other people the artists have supporting them such as drivers.
We set aside £30 for promotion but with all other methods of promotion being free, we will spend the whole amount of the Instagram account. We will be uploading the content and boosting it from Instagram.com instead of the iOS app as Apple charge an additional 30% fee on any purchases and this gives us an extra £9 out of our £30 budget to spend on boosting to more people in the same amount of time instead of on fees which just eat into our budget (Instagram.com, 2025).
The Attic generally has a ticket price of £6 for smaller events with more community feel and upwards of £15 for acts with some more recognition (Linktree, 2025). When we looked at average prices for small-medium venues in Leeds with similar genres such as Hyde Park Book Club, Sela Bar and Brudenell Social Club, we found that tickets ranged from £5-£10 for unrenowned artists. We decided to price tickets at £6.50 as this was towards the bottom of that range, with some student events around the same time as ours costing £10 for the same number of bands. The price also meant that we would have to sell 33 tickets to pay back the venue and, with an estimated £300 in other fees such as band repayments, ticket fees and promotion, we would need to sell another 46 to recoupe that. This puts the target sales at 80 tickets to start making profit, which is definitely an achievable goal, while the ticket pricing is towards the lower end compared to other similar events in the area and hopefully entices the public to attend our event.
The promotion team’s PRS contribution have been set at 4.2% of ticket sales to the venue (prsformusic.com, 2018) which, if we sell every ticket, reaches a maximum of £50 and so wasn’t a huge consideration in our decisions for ticket pricing or artist payment.
Marketing and publicity.
In order to effectively promote our event, we decided to separate our marketing into niche targets and generic targets.
Our event will be a great endorsement for the slightly less popular music communities in Leeds, with Electronic, Indie and Punk musicians often overshadowing the talented artists in a wide variety of other genres such as Jazz and Reggae. Additionally, all of our acts are current students at Leeds Conservatoire and the event would be a great endorsement of the range of music coming out of our university and our generation of students in general. We want to play into this in a way Johnny Allen describes as providing satisfaction in areas of deprivation (Allen, Harris and Jago, 2022). Therefore, our niche marketing strategies revolve around the inclusion of Jazz society at the conservatoire and direct communication with Caribbean and Jazz societies in all universities around Leeds, while also asking the artists to ask their fellow student friends to come and watch them play which is not only free advertisement, but leans into the intimate feel we wanted for the gig.
The more generic marketing would be a mixture of online and physical promotion.
The first method of promotion we agreed on was a poster. I asked a friend in design to help me design a poster (provided below) which sets our theme for the event – greens, sophisticated writing and relaxation. We will use these same colours, themes and designs in the Instagram account mentioned next and our own promotion on our personal Instagram accounts in order to maintain a consistent message as to what our event will provide. We will add a QR code to the bottom-left of the poster once we have the ticket link and event instagram account set up. The areas we will be putting posters up will again be in university areas, this time in common areas so that any students can see them, and in other student areas such as university chaplaincies, university gyms and anywhere that will let us. We also plan to ask The Attic about how they normally promote their events, and provide our poster to them for their own use in ways which we may not have access to.
We also plan to create an Instagram event account. We will make our profile picture in the same theme as the poster and put a ticket link in the bio, then post the account on our personal social media. I asked another friend in marketing to help me set up a boosted Instagram reel, with which we will be able to target Hunslet residents and an 18-45 age demographic as we thought it was most likely to get interest from this age range. We think it will be beneficial to include videos of the venue and snippets of the artists performing to interest anyone targeted by our reel instead of simply providing a link to tickets as this does not give them any reason to buy one.
Technical Specifications
Press Kit
Press release
Artist Biographies
The Nightingales
The Nightingales is a jazz quintet sprung into being by the established bandleader Simeon Lord. The musicians met at the local conservatoire, all with a desire to explore earlier works within the jazz idiom.
Jazz Saxophonist Simeon Lord comes from a childhood rich with the music of many genres. He is heavily influenced by saxophonist Michael Brecker. Simeon always ties together his performances with personal anecdotes from his life, one where he has moved around much, yearned to help others and continues to make very poor Dad-jokes!
Simeon attended the Royal College of Music’s Junior Department before moving to Leeds where he is studying at the Conservatoire. Past performances include playing at the Royal Albert Hall and the 606 Club, with more recent endeavours round venues in Leeds (The Attic, Casa, Northern Guitars, Belgrave Music Hall and Headrow House).
Various individuals have played with the group, though it consistently features Daniel Harrod on piano, an established player on the Leeds Jazz scene and Simeon’s choice pianist having played together at the Royal Albert Hall and 606 Club, as well as Katherine Loftus whose gorgeous vocal tone is reminiscent of jazz in the 1920s.
Isaac Aylward
Emerging in 2021 from Leeds, United Kingdom, Isaac Aylward blends pop, synth pop, blues, jazz, comedy, and folk into his songwriting.
Based in Leeds, I’m a pianist and songwriter with lyrics conjured from the ‘everyday’. Ideally, you’ll leave my shows with a chorus in your head, and some sentiment about how its okay if your train’s late, becuase you’re worth more than that.
Born in 2004 in Bedfordshire, my Dad taught me piano at an early age, something I’ll forever be grateful for. Since then I’ve been mainly self-taught with the exception of a piano tutor around the time of my GCSE’s (Which were rudely interrupted by the pandemic). I’ve spent the last 4 years at Leeds Conservatoire, where I’ve honed in on both my songwriting and playing abilities.
I feel very lucky to have had the chance to play at the Wardrobe, in Leeds, during the 2025 LCSU Showcase. This opportunity arose after joining the upcoming prog-rock band ‘Darling?’ who trusted me with some wicked synth lines, as well as supporting piano and organ parts. This year I also joined ‘Metora Cliffs’, who feature colourful prog, keytars, big riffs and catchy hooks! We’re headed to the heats of ‘Metal 2 The Masses’ this year, where we’ll be competing to play at the metal festival, Bloodstock.
I’m hugely excited to see my songs leave the practice rooms and head to the stage in 2026, particularly ahead of my performance at The Attic, Leeds, on 9th March!
Jah Glory
Jah Glory writes, sings and creates roots Reggae music and hails from Georgetown, Guyana, part of mainland South America, but directly linked to the Caribbean influence. His style takes on board the traditional reggae vibe adding a unique voice to create uplifting and catchy songs with a new, clean, clear lyrical content.
Nurturing his passion to create music, he began his exposure by performing stage shows for the Guyana branch of the Twelve Tribes of Israel during their yearly celebrations. His first single ‘Injured Earth’ was played regularly on the radio in Guyana since 2010 in the early morning Inspirational Hour and this was followed by ‘Don’t call me after 9’ playing between 8 and 9am. Both songs were officially released in 2014 inspiring the UK Open University to commission ‘You Can Do It’ to promote Amerindian- community best-practice in the rainforests in the fight against Climate Change. ‘Jail Dem!’, a song against corruption, created a strong underground following since its release prompted the Guyana Government to ban all of his songs on the local airwaves.
Since then Jah Glory has been working closely with lauwata Amaha Selassie, the renowned instrumentalist, and released his first song- packed album in 2017. Jah Glory also enjoys free- styling, for which he has a natural talent, and has built up a good local following in the UK Newcastle upon Tyne where he currently resides.
Artist HD Photographs
Risk Assessment
Additional Material
Reference List
Allen, J., Harris, R. and Jago, L. (2022). Festival & special event management essentials. Milton, Qld: John Wiley And Sons Australia, Ltd
Hse.gov.uk. (2015). Event safety – Managing an event. [online] Available at: https://www.hse.gov.uk/event-safety/managing-an-event.htm [Accessed 7 Jan. 2026].
Hse.gov.uk. (2024). Venue and site design – HSE. [online] Available at: http://hse.gov.uk/event-safety/venue-site-design.htm [Accessed 7 Jan. 2026].
Instagram.com. (2025). Help Center. [online] Available at: https://help.instagram.com/570215404599013/ [Accessed 7 Jan. 2026].
Linktree. (2025). theatticleeds | Instagram, Facebook, TikTok | Linktree. [online] Available at: https://linktr.ee/theatticleeds [Accessed 7 Jan. 2026].
prsformusic.com (2018). Notice regarding implementation of a Modified Tariff LP. [online] Available at: https://www.prsformusic.com/licences/live-performances/popular-music-concert-tariff-consultation [Accessed 6 Jan. 2026].
Shone, A. and Parry, B. (2019). Successful event management : a practical handbook. Australia: Cengage.
