Rationale

Introduction 

In this document I will be discussing the live music event that my group have decided to plan and promote as well as providing information and reasons behind each decision that we have made so far in our process. 

Summary of the Event 

Our event is set to be a Live music event consisting of three student-based rock bands and will be taking place at Key Club in Leeds city centre. Due to a small unpredicted push back regarding the event (which will be covered later in this rationale), we have yet to confirm an exact date in which our event will take place however we are expecting it to be hosted around march giving us plenty of time to promote the event. The event itself is a rock/metal event and will be focused around the three student bands that we have decided to promote. We have chosen to promote this type of event as a group as we are all situated in and around the rock/metal scene and therefore we could all use our combined knowledge and experience to help us to plan and promote it, in addition as it is an area that we are all involved in we would have more motivation to promote such an event as it is something we are all passionate about. As previously mentioned, each of the bands are student bands and are all either known by or consist of members within our group for this module.  

For this gig we have decided on a specific running order so as to attempt to maintain keep the energy and attention of the crowd up all night. The event will open at 7:30 with our first band Janata kicking us off at 8pm, we have decided to open with Janata as they have the smallest following out of the three bands we have selected and as they are a progressive rock band their tone and tempo is much more suited to starting our event as we mean to continue. Our second support act is the alternative rock/metal core band “How do you plead?” who’s style we believe is much suited to providing the build-up in energy that we need before our headliner on top of this, we believe their heavy metal guitar riffs will help to capture the attention of our audience and prepare them for what is to come. Lastly our headliner for the evening is the punk band New Damage whosecreative use of rhythm and jazz harmony combined with their onstage chemistry is sure to finish the night off in style. 

As mentioned above, our gig will take place at Key Club in the city centre of Leeds, we considered a range of venues to host our event at however after some research and contacting venues we settled on key club as our venue of choice as it regularly hosts rock and alternative gigs and club nights meaning our event would fit in perfectly with the other events and the average attendee of key club. 

Time management and group delegation 

For this module we are required to work in groups to plan and promote our chosen events and so effective time management and delegation of roles among group members was required. Initially our group started off as a group of three consisting of myself (Oliver Hargreaves), Ben Goslin-Davis and Brynley Martin, but then later increased to five once Tom Harte and Luke Hannay joined. We originally decided to form a group for this module as all three of us were keen on promoting a band based live music event, with all of us agreeing on the genre/genres of music that we would like to put on. From here we created a WhatsApp group to communicate on and began to research and come up with ideas for what our gig was going to be, starting with the venue and bands and then working our way through the finer details. 

The first five weeks of term were spent delegating groups and then planning the early stages of events and such, having confirmed our plans for a rock-based event, we began our research into the local venues and which would be best suited to the type of gig we were hoping to promote. From our own knowledge and research, we narrowed our options down to Key Club, Santiago Bar, Boom, Lending room, Wharf Chambers and Oporto all of which we then proceeded to contact to enquire about the possibility of hosting our event. With our venue options narrowed down we began to discuss the bands that would feature at our gig and it was around this time in week six that our fourth group member Tom joined us as he had been touring during the first half of term. As it turned out, he worked within the promotion and live music industry and happened to have an inside contact at Key Club which was one of our more preferred venues of choice, this came in handy as we were able to directly speak to someone inside the venue and enquire directly about information such as possible dates for the event and how much it would cost. On top of this he also had a copy of the tech specs for Key Club which meant we could plan things more accurately and didn’t have to wait for the venue itself to provide us with the specs.  

Once we had enquired further into Key Club, we began to discuss which bands we would feature. Our initial plan was to feature two student-based bands as support acts followed by a larger and more known band from the area who would help to bring in numbers. With this in mind we made note of a range of student rock and metal bands that we knew of in and around the conservatoire before narrowing it down to the two support acts that we ended up sticking with, Janata and How do you plead. We also contacted a growing band from around Leeds who we had heard about, and also felt would fit the style of our event, called Love Rarely and enquired about the possibility of them headlining at our event. Unfortunately, as thing progressed towards the end of term one and the start of Christmas break, our group schedules became more busy and the responses from bands and venues became less frequent. So, the progression of our project became slower, a few weeks before we broke up for Christmas, our contact at Key Club got back to us with a list of dates available that we could use for our event however we needed to decide which bands were featuring before we could book the venue and so proceeded to wait on a response from the manager of Love Rarely. Over the Christmas break we did receive a response from the band that we were hoping to headline however unfortunately they were not interested in our offer leading us to attempt to contact a few smaller bands in the area which proved difficult as their contacts were out of office until January and ultimately also turned us down when eventually replying. As much as this greatly affected our progression it also sparked the decision to change our approach and target a third student band for our headliner, this also came with a small benefit as with the plan for our initial headliner we would have to pay them a standard fee or a proportion of the profits whereas with a lineup of all student bands we would be able to save money as they would either charge much less or not charge at all as the exposure of playing at an established venue such as key club would greatly benefit their band.  

Over the Christmas period, the fifth and final member of our group, Luke, joined after having a slightly rough start to the academic year. He then suggested his band New Damage as the third band in our roster who happened to fit in with the styles we had chosen and also had experience with gigging in other venues in Leeds such as Hyde Park Book Club where they drew a crowd of around 100 people, due to this we decided that they would also headline as they had a slightly larger following than Janata and Love Rarely. As we are still in the later stages of confirming the event however, we are still keeping our options open by discussing other potential bands and the option of having four bands instead of three to try and draw in more people. 

When planning and completing the necessary documents for our event we decided to divide our efforts as best we could so as to be as efficient as possible and designated each member of our group with our own roles/tasks. I was in charge of the Budget sheet and Press release, Ben was in charge of the Tech specs and our main contact for Janata, Brynley was in charge of the Risk assessment and our main contact for How do you plead, Tom was our main contact with the venue and was the one who attempted to contact our options for a headliner, and Luke was in charge of creating the poster for our gig and was our main contact with New Damage. Going forward with the continuation of finalizing and promoting our event, we will attempt to manage our time as effectively as possible by splitting roles between our group members and conducting weekly meetings either over call or in person to discuss progress. 

Production (Technical, Logistical, Hospitality, Health and safety) 

When planning our event, we needed to take into account all of the production aspects which needed to be covered by us. We started with collecting all of the tech specs for both venue and artist and compared them to make sure that we had the necessary requirements and equipment for each band. Our first issue was to decide whether we wanted to rent a back line from the venue or attempt to provide our own as it would be cheaper, ultimately deciding upon renting the backline from the venue as although it would cost more it would save time and transport as it is already at Key Club and would require swapping over between bands as all bands would use the same back line equipment. We also had to consider the size of each band relative to the size of the stage as well as the amount of required channels, microphones and monitors for each band. As shown in the tech specs document below, each band has provided its own stage layout which we compared to the stage map on the venue specifications, our largest band on the night is How Do You Plead with six members (With the other two bands both having four members and sharing a similar stage layout). So we compared the largest bands tech specs to the venue’s tech specs to see whether they would fit and have enough room to perform as well as looking through their required equipment and comparing it to the equipment available at the venue, a process that was repeated for all bands.  

The stage at Key Club is 5.2 meters by 5.2 meters making it 27m squared in area giving each band a significant amount of room, this being said How Do You Plead will take up more space than the other two bands as it has two more members and extra equipment, despite this they will still have enough room to perform and on the day we will make sure to provide each band member with as much space as we can. Each band will require a slightly different set up and set of equipment and it was a necessity that we check that we have enough equipment for each band. The first support band Janata consist of four members: a drummer (Backing vox), two guitarists and a bass player (The lead singer) and so will require two vocal microphones, a drum kit (can provide breakables), two guitar amps, a bass amp and four monitors. The second support act “How Do You Plead?” consists of six members: a Drummer, Bassist, Lead guitar (Backing vox), Rhythm guitar (DI instead of amp), DJ and the lead vocalist, this band will require a drum kit, bass amp, guitar amp and DI, two vocal microphones, six monitors and possibly a DJ deck. Initially we thought that providing DJ equipment could be a potential issue however as Key Club run their own club nights, they are willing to provide DJ equipment upon request. Lastly our headliner New Damage consists of four members: A drummer (Backing vox), bassist (Lead Vox), guitarist and Saxophonist, requiring a drum kit, guitar amp, bass amp, four monitors, and two vocal mics (the band will provide a mic for the saxophone). Having compared the required equipment to the tech specs of Key Club we were happy to find that everything necessary was listed and could be provided.  

We next had to consider the logistics and hospitality aspects of our event. The venue is located in the city centre of Leeds situated close to most direct travel routes and so is relatively easy to get to and from, on top of this, all of the bands are students local to Leeds providing an easier journey to the venue. There is a situated loading bay around the back of the venue where equipment can be brought inside and also space for parking, The bands will load in and sound check in order of priority with New Damage loading in and sound checking first and so on (running order can be found within the tech specs document) this decision was made so as to prioritise the headliner and make sure that even with any delays they would still be sound checked. The venue also has a dressing room and green room available to artists however catering is not provided by the venue and so this duty will fall upon us as the promoters and so has been allocated its own small portion of the budget. Despite the lack of catering, the venue is situated near to a large variety of local amenity’s all within a five-minute walk and can provide the artists with any extra food and beverages on top of what will be provided by us, which will be discussed with the artists closer to the event date. 

Lastly as we were getting closer to confirming the event we needed to conduct a risk assessment upon our event and venue as shown below. Within this we needed to pick out all potential risks within our gig and present solutions in order to decrease the likelihood of the risks occurring. On top of this we also used the Venues tech specs as well as their online safety page (see Bibliography) to help us provide solutions and protect our artists and people attending the event. We also checked with the venue to see if they have the required health insurance to cover any incidents which they have (also listed in tech specs). As a group we discussed any risks that generally occur at live music events such as fire hazards, damage to hearing, injury or medical incident in the crowd, use of illegal substances and unwanted contact/sexual harassment, and then began discussing ways in which we could help prevent some of these incidents such as safety precautions regarding all equipment (pat tests etc), trained staff in case of a medical emergency and also the use of safety policy’s such as ask for Angela, walk safe Leeds and street angels all of which are employed by key club. 

Finance 

For the financial side of this project, we were required to create a budget sheet listing all expenditures and forms of income as shown below. Our largest costs within this event are going to be the venue and equipment hire as well as the potential added cost of hiring a sound and lighting technician. We were provided with two separate costs for Key club the first being a standard fee of £235 which would provide us with use of the venue for the evening as well as one security guard for during the event, the second more expensive option included an extra security guard and provided us with the venue for most of the day for a fee of upwards of £300. As a group we agreed to use the first option as it was cheaper and still provided all that we needed for our event. 

Our second biggest cost would come from hiring staff for the evening specifically front of house technicians. These could be provided by our chosen venue for a fixed rate (which we are yet to be fully informed) or we could potentially hire our own with some members of our group having contacts who would be willing to work for a significantly reduced fee of around £25 this decision is yet to be made as we are still waiting on a response from the venue regarding some questions we have surrounding the subject. Aside from this our other costs will come down to our catering (of which I have designated £50) and our advertisement costs (of which I have allocated approximately £100) totalling our overall costs to roughly £600 (rounded up from the figure on the budget sheet). 

Within the budget we have also included an estimate of our expected attendance which would be anywhere from 100-150 people, the venue capacity is 300 people however as we are promoting up and coming student bands, we have decided to account for the potential of a smaller audience. With this in mind we decided to set our ticket prices at £6 for pre bookings and £8 on the door, which we believe is a reasonable price for students and event goers alike. From this and our expected attendance we are able to estimate that we will be able to make a minimum of £600 from our event which would cover all of our costings, this being a slight underestimate so as to allow some headroom. 

Marketing and Publicity 

As our event is based around student bands, we have decided that our best form of advertising will be using posters and flyers and putting them up within universities and student areas. We will most likely target the conservatoire and the university’s that some of the other members of the bands are from so as to attract the biggest audience. On top of this all bands will promote the event on their social media pages, and we aim to have Key Club helping us to promote the event as well. Lastly, we want to encourage fellow students at the conservatoire to attend and so plan on setting up a stall in the cafe bar which will be used to promote and sell tickets including some giveaways to provide more incentive to people. 

Contingency plans 

To be safe with our event we must always keep in mind any contingencies in case of an unexpected change. With this in mind we will keep in contact with other bands and venues that we have previously explored to provide a safe and secure backup option should anything go wrong. 

Technical Specifications

Press Release