BRO23085056 SHR6E037P~001 Portfolio: Event Planning

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Rationale

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Rationale and marketing:

When we solidified who was going to be in our group, we began the process of discussing our likes and dislikes at events and concerts that we go to. This opened up some ideas of what we could do with our event. We discovered that everyone enjoyed jazz and soul music. We talked about what artists we like and who we’ve seen to widen our idea of what direction we were going to take the event. This then led to us discovering that some of us were a big fan of Hannah Rowe, and that a member of our group had previously supported her and are good friends. This seemed like a straight forward, exciting path to go down. As we had already decided on a potential headliner, we were discussing potential supports, and because a member already had experience with Hannah, we thought this would be a strong option. After discussing potential artists, we then had to run through some venues that we could hire. So we talked through some that members had previously performed at, attended or liked the look of. After weighing up the pros and cons of each we decided to contact Brudenell. This was a venue that most of us hadn’t been to and were intrigued.

Through the whole process, we had some challenges to work through and problems to overcome. This meant that we had to change our concept slightly and take a different direction with the event. Our final and official idea is a Motown night with mostly upbeat covers. Instead of having our original headliner, Hannah Rowe, the original support act is now taking over and we discussed some other bands that would fit into this bracket that we have connections to and we narrowed it down to two new artists called Mikey & The G’s and Chloë. We also never received an email back from our first choice of venue Brudenell. To comeback from this we got in contact with a great venue that some members of the group have worked with before, Belgrave Music Hall, and locked this in.

By putting on this event, I want to gain practical experience in planning and running a live event whilst strengthening my logistical and organisational skills. I am also hoping this will help expand my professional network by connecting with artists, venue staff and promotors, leading the way to possible future events, job opportunities or collaborations whilst starting to build my reputation as an organiser. For the event itself, we want to deliver an enjoyable and high-energy experience whilst creating a supportive environment for the headliner through good sound, an enthusiastic audience and complimenting support acts. We are going to achieve an audience like this through thorough marketing and fully thought out promotional techniques such as early bird tickets, posters, and up to date and continuous social media posts that include exciting new information and updates.

The target audience for this event would be students or people aged 18-25. As Leeds is a student city, a large percentage of its popularity is people in this age range. Because our promotion will be heavily on social media and posters around different universities, this automatically reduces the attendance of people outside of this age demographic. Students also have a more flexible week schedule than full time workers, especially in the evenings. To add on to this, the younger generation, including students, are much more likely to attend gigs and listen to music by undiscovered artists. A recent survey conducted by the Harris Poll supports this. “Interest in discovering new music decreases with age. In general, 62% of music listeners agree that they like finding undiscovered music, compared to 79% of listeners under the age of 30 and 45% of Baby Boomers/the Silent Generation”

Time management:

At the beginning of our planning process, it was a bit of a slow start. We were all a bit awkward and didn’t really know how to begin. To get through this, I decided to take the lead and make a list of jobs that needed doing and split them between the five of us. My train of thought when doing this was to make it as straight forward as possible. For example, I gave the majority of the jobs regarding the artist to Antonio as he was in the band who are headlining. This makes the most sense as he already has most of the information needed. I gave myself most of the venue related jobs as I am the only member of the group in contact with the venue already. The rest of the jobs such as marketing, the event advance and costings chart, I gave out as fairly as possible. After making these decisions I sent it into the group chat and made sure everyone was happy with what they had been assigned to, which they were.

According to Projectsly, using a gantt chart allows “better tracking, provides high-level overview and boosts productivity”. Knowing this, we decided to make a gantt chart to help us keep to a schedule. Gantt charts are helpful because it is a visual timeline of how we want things to run up until the event and allows us to track progress and deadlines. The one we have created is made up of four key phases: Planning & Strategy, Content Creation, Execution and Analysis. Each phase is broken down into tasks such as venue discussion, content development, the event itself and post-show review. The horizontal bars represent the time frame that we have for each task across the months from September to March. This allows clear visualisation of overlaps and dependencies. 

We chose this order and these specific tasks because we thought they were the most important and beneficial things to focus on. Within each task, there are lots of things to do. We planned it into four phases to make the workflow intuitive: we start with planning, move to creating content, execution and then analysis.

An event advance is a vital part of the planning process for a lead-up to an event. One of the members of our team was responsible of completing this for the gig. Its purpose is to make sure that everyone involved, including the venue and the artists, have a clear and shared understanding of how the run-up and the day itself is intended to plan out. In the event advance, there is a full confirmed schedule, starting from load in all the way to pack down, along with key personnel contact information, and what we are expecting from the venue by clarifying what equipment would be provided by them. By producing this event advance, it enables us to keep a clear path of communication to confirm essential information clearly to reduce the risk of last-minute issues. Overall, it will help us keep the event running smoothly, organised and professional.

Logistical production:

Production is very important for putting any type of event on. I believe I took the main role in sorting out the logistics for the production. We identified the concept of the event as a team but then I took the majority responsibility for planning and coordinating the organisational and technical components of the event. As outlined by Shoflo, an event producer is responsible for overseeing “the logistics and technical components, including audiovisuals, vendors, crew, equipment, budgets, and more”, which reflects my role within this project.

After discussing with the venue, I found out some information regarding the hospitality side of things. I asked if there is a green room or a private room for the artists, if there was any discount on food or drinks for artists, if there were any separate toilets for backstage members, and if needed, any showers. They sent me the venue spec where my questions were answered from the information within. They have two lockable dressing rooms and private toilet and shower facilities. With this information, I lined it up with the hospitality expectations of the artists to see if we had everything they wanted. The artists were happy with the private space and wash facilities, however they didn’t require any food or drink other than water. Our budget for hospitality is £100. For now, we wouldn’t need any of this, but just in case an artist changes their mind, we will keep this aside.

Health and safety is something we had to look into as well. After discussing with Belgrave, they have explained that they will arrange security for the entrance. They also said that there will be no barriers outside but we are not expecting a rowdy crowd so this was completely fine with us. After more discussion, I learnt that Belgrave doesn’t have any lifts but they do have an external staircase that is often used for customers that need a little more time or space to get up the stairs. We did complete a risk assessment and is attached below.

Travel expenses or equipment transport costs will not be needed for this event. All of the artists live locally and will be able to arrive at the venue independently along with any personal gear they will need for their performance. Any larger or shared equipment that need transporting will be handled by our team, so there is no need for additional travel arrangements. This allows us to focus recourses on delivering a smooth, high-quality show for the audience, without worrying about extra travel costs.

There were a lot of points I needed to check off when thinking about the production side of things. I gathered all of the information I received from my group and the venue and was able to get answers to all the possible questions. Belgrave is a standing venue so there will be no seats needed, we have hired a sound engineer recommended by the venue but no light engineer was needed, the venue already has a built in stage and we don’t need electricians or riggers. There is a cloak room and there is no parking. We are able to access the venue from 3pm till 10:59pm so we have decided that we will start setting up at 3pm. There is five of us in the group so we believe us and the sound engineer will be enough people to set up and keep the event running smoothly. From 7:30pm to 9pm one of us will be on the door collecting tickets and excepting money for on the door tickets. Artists and people with back stage access will have a pen mark with OCP (OnCue Promotions) on the back of their hand. This allows us to keep the money we would’ve had to spend on wristbands to put to something else. We don’t plan on using any visual equipment for the event or putting any decorations up as Belgrave is already aesthetically pleasing as it is and has no problem appealing to audiences. Regarding equipment, the venue already has some equipment that we have permission to use, but we will have to provide some extra equipment that are needed for the bands. Our headliner, Pockets, has a lot of the remaining extra equipment that we need and they have given permission for the other bands to also use. However, each band will have to bring their own cymbals along with any specific instruments they want. We have an excel spreadsheet that indicates who is bring what. I have made sure to take note of the venues contact info in case anything goes wrong, and I have given them my mobile phone number as well as the member of the group who is headlining as back up. To prevent any miscommunication, I have written a confirmation email for both the artist and venue, outlining how the day will play out including the times of when things are happening, what we as OnCue Promotions will be supplying and what we expect them to provide.

Contingency plan:

In this process, we have already had some things go wrong that we as a team have had to overcome. At the beginning when we were discussing what acts we wanted for our event, we landed on someone that we mutually enjoy – Hannah Rowe. She originally had agreed to headline our event and was happy with any date and time. As we first got in contact with the venue, we explained that this would be a jazz night with this headliner. However, we got informed by Hannah that due to medical reasons, she wouldn’t be able to partake in the show. This was obviously understandable, but this quickly became difficult. We had to reorganise the event, think of a new theme, recruit new artists and update the venue. This was tricky as Belgrave had already worked with Hannah before, so we didn’t know if a new artist that they hadn’t heard of before was still appealing to them. After a few back-and-forth emails between the production assistant and I, they were happy with the changes.

With an obstacle forming so quickly in this process, we decided to write a confirmation email to both the venue and artists. It outlines how we are expecting the day to play out. It includes the specific times of: load in, each bands soundcheck, when the doors will open, when each band will be performing, when the audience will have left, and when the stage will be packed down. On top of this, I explained what we as OnCue Promotions will be providing and what we expect them to supply. We chose to write a confirmation email to prevent any miscommunication that could delay the fluency of the event.

Even though we are confident about how many tickets we are going to sell because the headliner that we have has previously sold out many gigs, there still could be some set backs. To prevent any surprises, we have made it so we won’t lose out on any money. If we don’t sell out, we have made sure that we would only have to sell 50 early bird tickets at the price of £5 and 86 normal tickets to break even. Because there is 5 of us in the group and 2 9-piece bands, we are confident that all of us would be able to cover this. Our pricing of a normal ticket is £9, with a £1 booking fee that DICE collects. We understand that this event will have a mostly student audience, so factoring in that large bands are playing and that the headliner is well known by the student community, we believe that this pricing is reasonable.

An example of a problem that another event has overcome is some of Guns & Roses shows on their “Use your Illusion” tour in the early 90’s. The tour was generally known for its erratic schedule due to lack of communication between the promoters and artists. However, a lot of the shows were delayed because of Axl Rose refusing to go on stage or even cut short because the singer was unhappy with the sound. To try and counteract this, curfews were enforced to make sure  that times weren’t overrun by the artists. This would be sensible for us to consider as a possible obstacle to overcome. If any artists were late, it would be important for us to stick to the schedule that was confirmed with the venue. Belgrave has an event an hour after ours finishes in the same room: this is a perfect example why it is essential for us to stick to specific timings. Even though “Guns & Roses were notorious for starting shows hours after their scheduled starting time” says UCR Classic Rock & Culture, “According to Matt Sorum, the performances were actually better because of it”. This does show that no matter what goes wrong, the number one priority is the audiences safety and experience.

Marketing and Publicity:

Our promotional approach was specifically aligned with our target audience and the venue’s existing reputation. Because Belgrave is well known and heavily student focused, our strategy was to use digital promotion alongside physical advertising. Social media plays an important role as it is the most effective platform for reaching the student demographic. We have planned to deliver regular up-to-date posts, including: countdown content, ticket availability, and artist features. This will hopefully maintain visibility and create excitement in the lead up to the event. On top of this, we will also be distributing posters around our university and student heavy areas (where it is legal to). By using timely, engaging content and strategically placed posters, our promotional approach is aimed to increase awareness of the event and drive ticket sales, whilst using our venue’s already established reputation as leverage to build trust with our potential audience.

An example of an event that used promotion in an extremely effective way was Primavera Sound in Barcelona. They created a clear visual identity, along with releasing early-bird tickets, strong social media storytelling and constant updates. This kept audiences engaged and confident in buying a ticket. On top of this, emphasised by Festival Finder, Primavera Sound has created a brand that “highlights diversity, equality, inclusion and accessibility”. This automatically appeals to all types of audiences, so much that 60-65% of attendees come from outside of Spain.

I also researched about the ineffective promotion that contributed to the cancellation of Woodstock 50. After many setbacks and lack of communication, confusion and distrust was installed into their audience. For example, tickets were announced before permits and venues were fully confirmed meaning there was constant venue changes on top of the already changing lineup, which made the messaging unclear. This resulted in the hype of this promised event, overcompensating what the event could actually deliver. The media covered all of the organisational issues, which further disheartened its potential attendees. As a result, the festival could not go ahead and was cancelled. From researching some sold out and failed events and comparing them to our strategy, I believe we are on the right track.

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Technical Specifications

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Press Kit

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Press release