GMG Media & Productions – Elevator Pitch

GMG Media & Productions are based in Oxfordshire, and create solutions for live events, and media productions. We aim to provide audio-visual services for bands musical acts, and theatres across the UK, elevating their live events, by creating stunning lighting shows, promotional content, and high-quality audio mixes. We offer a wide range of services at competitive prices.

We consist of three core team members:

We also work with many other individuals who come to work at events or sessions as part of a support crew.

Collectively we have worked with many organisations & acts such as: BunkFest, Wallingford (festival); The Kenton Theatre, Henley-on-Thames (theatre); Millie Moyler (solo artist); Wycombe Arts Centre (venue); 4U Churches (church ministry); St. Georges’ Leeds (church), and Lighthouse Central (Christian organisation).

GMG Media & Productions – Business Plan

What do we offer?

GMG Media and Productions provide a service to create, and improve live events, and produce high-quality promotional media.

We have three main parts to the company, sound, lighting, and visuals. We can provide any of these to venues or events around the UK. We have an experienced team consisting of an audio engineer, lighting engineer, and a videographer/photographer. An example of what we can do is that we can create high-quality videos using the latest technology at any location in the UK. We are a completely mobile business, and can transport all our equipment to any location of choice. We have our services split into two halves. Half one is creating the event, and organising anything for the client, then the second half is performing the event that we have organised. We start by talking to a client in a meeting to discuss exactly what they need us to do. We will then take their initial concept, and build on it to create a rough plan of how we can make their concept a reality. This will then get sent to the client for approval, then, if approved, we will create a finalised plan for the day, and organise any details with external companies/venues. By organising the whole event for a client, it removes a huge amount of stress on the client, and allows them to put more faith into us and our work. After organising an event, we would then execute any plans to the best of our abilities on event days. We would then do any post-event work such as editing or mixing after the event, and will aim to have all projects finished within one week of the initial event.

What is our target demographic?

We aim to provide our services to a wide range of different demographics. We can offer sound services to small scale events for venues or festivals, lighting services to theatres for shows, video services for live broadcast at any events, PA hire for small events, live video creation services combining all three aspects of the business, wedding/function services & much more.

We mostly aim to reach musicians that are starting in their careers so we can help give them an experience that will take their shows and promotion to the next level.

What differs us from our competitors?

Most of our competitors only provide equipment hire services or engineers to work at events, we also provide a service for video, allowing us to create amazing looking and sounding videos for promotional purposes. We also strive to eliminate as much stress for the client as we will organise everything for a job from the location to extra equipment hire.

How much money will we require to operate our business?

To achieve the high quality promise we would have with clients we will need to invest £40,000 in equipment to get going. This investment will go towards buying equipment to run shows & shoots. The equipment would include a digital audio mixing desk that is able to record multitrack directly from the control surface for audio recordings. Recording multitrack from a mixing desk allows me to record the audio uninterrupted by monitor mixes that would be sent to in-ear monitors or stage foldbacks. We would also need to purchase microphones, cables and other accessories to enable me to record full bands. It is important that we buy enough equipment to cover a full band, then if we need additional equipment, we can hire anything that we would need from external companies at an extra cost to the client.

Here is a basic list of all the equipment we would need to operate our service:

In addition to purchasing equipment for use at each job, we would need to buy a van or trailer to transport all our equipment to different places. For a brand-new Ford Transit van with the appropriate amount of storage in the back, we would be looking at upwards of £30,000. This may be an investment we would make in the future as it would be the most valuable part of our equipment. However, a decent second-hand van would cost upwards of £7,000 which would work perfectly well. Upon purchasing our van, we would need to complete extensive modifications to make it would suit our needs. This would include adding shelving and other ways to organise everything to limit the amount of time needed to unload & load at a location. We would also need to consider the running costs of such a vehicle. Fuel costs may be high depending on the distance to the location/venue, and fuel economy of the vehicle. Insurance and road tax are also a cost towards running the van.

We would also need a secure location to store our equipment. As we are a small business, we shouldn’t need much storage space, so renting a lockup in a storage facility is the best option for us. According to SafeStore UK, to rent a 200 square foot lockup, it would cost us £58.94 per week (location based in Reading, Berkshire). This would cover 24/7 security for all the equipment, and access at any time of the day, which is essential as jobs may carry on late into the evening.

Another cost would be the wages of the roadies working for us at jobs. The roadies will receive the minimum wage of their age range on a zero-hour contract, and free food & soft drinks at events/venues if they have the facilities to provide. By paying for our employees’ food and drink it will boost morale within the team, and create a better working environment.

How much do we quote?

Upon initial contact and briefing of the client’s needs, we will create a quote that fits what they need. We would base the quote on a number of things starting with what services they require. Each of our main services have different pricing depending on what is needed. For example, it would cost extra to provide a PA system to an event alongside a mixing desk and audio engineer, and it would also depend on the size of the event and how much equipment is needed to cover it. Another thing that we would take into consideration is how far away the job is. If we need to use more fuel, or even stay at a hotel overnight all those costs will be woven into the quote we give to the client.

Here is an example quote: A client has asked to create a live film for their 5-piece band in a church in Wales, who have given the space for us to use fore free. They have asked for a very basic lighting setup, but the best sound and camera work possible. The shoot would be 10 hours long, and the video is to be released two weeks after filming.

In this quote, we would need a mixer, full microphone hire, full monitoring hire and all the cabling for it all. We would also need some décor lighting with power cables, multiple cameras and tripods. We would charge £400 for the hire of all the equipment, and £120 for the wage of the audio engineer on the day. We would also charge £50 for all the lighting, and £300 for all the camera equipment hire. For a shoot with multiple cameras, we would hire in at least one camera operator to help film the shoot. We charge £120 for the wages of any camera operators; we would have two for this type of shoot. Finally, we would charge £250 for the work post shoot to get the film ready to be released. In this quote the venue has been provided for free, but if there was a cost to hire a venue, this will be added to the quote. This brings the total for the quote after a service charge of £50 has been added for fuel costs and other costs up to £1,410.

How will we market & promote ourselves?

Social media is a huge part of this business. There is a great number of creatives who use social media to promote themselves, we would also do the same. We can create videos explaining what we do to post online to attract attention. We can also use videos we have created in previous projects to show off or preview what we have to offer. We would also strive to build relationships with different companies who can then recommend us to potential clients, or even to partner up with.

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