Live music events have been a central part of the music industry for many years. It offers an experience that cannot be replicated through recorded music consumption.  When organising a live music event, promoters need to adopt a clear and structured approach to planning to maximise the likelihood of success. People wanting to host events, such as gigs, club nights, or charity events, must possess a thorough understanding of the logistical, legal, financial, and technical considerations involved in event management. It is crucial when planning an event that it is financially sustainable and, in the case of Willow and Oak’s debut event, fully compliant with the “increased regulation” (Tum et al., 2012) imposed by statutes introduced by the UK government. Since the planning process began in September, our team has worked collaboratively, placing strong emphasis on effective communication and time management to guarantee that the event operates as efficiently as possible on the day. Careful planning will allow us to create a safe, welcoming environment for performers, staff and attendees. Additionally, this process has helped us identify effective promotional strategies, increasing the potential for financial success while also ensuring a positive experience for everyone involved. This essay will demonstrate professional event planning and stakeholder management skills through a critical examination of the production, presentation, and management of a live music event.

Event Concept

The event is designed as an intimate folk showcase, reflecting the genre’s emphasis on authenticity, lyrical storytelling, and close artist- audience connection. Indie folk audiences typically value small venues where sound quality and atmosphere are prioritised over spectacle (Holt,2010). The Lending Room is a suitable venue due to its established reputation in Leeds for hosting grassroots and emerging live music, particularly within indie and alternative genres. The artist line-up for the event is practical for my team as they are members of the group; in addition, they all create and perform Indie Folk music in their projects. We concluded that having the group members as the performers would not only be pragmatic, but it would make our event a more meaningful event for our team to put on. The chosen date of 25th February 2026 falls within the permitted assessment window and avoids clashes with major festivals or university holidays, increasing potential attendance for the event. Midweek shows in student cities such as Leeds can be commercially viable when ticket pricing and marketing are appropriately targeted (Bennett, 2018). The event is positioned as a discovery-focused night for indie folk fans, balancing commercial viability with artistic development. This reflects current industry trends towards curated line-ups and experimental live events (Brown & Knox, 2017). 

Time Management and Project Planning 

Time management is a fundamental component when event planning. To begin with, the team split the work up and delegated roles to make the workload shared and less stressful. Individual members of the group adopted either a time management, contingency planning, production planning, costings or promotion and marketing role. The planning process for our event follows a structured project management approach. It begins approximately 12 weeks before the event. Pre-production planning is a crucial component of the overall production planning process. It includes tasks such as artist booking and liaison, venue contracting, budget development, and risk assessment completion. According to (Silvers, 2012), event planning theory emphasises the importance of backward scheduling from the event date to ensure all milestones are met. We applied this planning theory to our event, and we confirmed our artists at the first meeting we had. Our event’s artists are members of the team, which is convenient as it allows sufficient time for marketing activity and technical advancing. On the 4th of November 2026 (which is 16 weeks before the event), an email was sent asking The Lending Room if there would be any availability in February to hire their venue, and that same day, the event, venue, and the artists were all confirmed. This allowed my team to have enough time to plan, produce and strategise for this event to be a success.  Week 9-8 suggests completion of the event budget, risk assessment and technical advance. On the 22nd of December, our team completed the risk assessment, as well as within the same week, technical advances were made. Having the team members also play the event meant that a lot of tasks that are planned for later weeks have already been completed. Allowing more time to focus on marketing and promoting the event. Marketing activity begins 7 weeks before the event is due to take place. This allows adequate time to encourage ticket sales and grow audience awareness, reflecting the industry norms for grassroots live music promotion, where excessive lead times may reduce audience urgency (Bennet,2018). 

The project timeline for this event begins approximately 12 weeks before the show date and includes the following key blocks of time: 

• Week 12- 10: Artist booking, contract negotiation and confirmation of venue availability.
• Week 9-8: Completion of event budget, risk assessment, and technical advance.
• Week 7-4: Marketing and publicity campaign rollout, press release distribution and social media promotion.
• Week 3-2: Confirmation of hospitality requirements, staffing, and final production details. 
• Week 1: Final checks, schedule confirmation, and contingency planning 

Approaching the event with this structure ensures adequate lead time for promotion and reduces the risk of last-minute operational failures. A detailed event schedule has been produced and is to be shared with artists, venue staff, and technical personnel. The advance will be included in the appendix, outlining load-in times, soundchecks, set times, and curfew compliance. Clear scheduling is crucial for artist satisfaction and venue coordination. 

Production Management 

Production management includes technical production, logistical planning, hospitality management and health and safety management. Even small-scale events require detailed planning to ensure a professional audience-artist experience, whilst also being safe and legal; failure to address these areas of production management may negatively impact both the audience’s experience and the outcome of the event. 

Technical Production 

The Lending Room provides in-house sound and lighting equipment suitable for the event. In addition, as part of the hire cost, The Lending Room offers a sound technician and a lighting technician who will be present on the day of the event, ensuring that the artists can be heard and seen properly by the audience. Technical production prioritises sound clarity and balance as acoustic and vocal performance quality is central to audience experience. Therefore, having clear technical communication is essential for high-quality live performance, particularly in acoustically sensitive genres such as indie folk (O’Toole, 2011). To ensure sound is heard accurately,  a full technical specification and artist advance have been completed and sent to the venue to ensure compatibility with the artist’s requirements for the sound technician. This includes equipment lists, stage plots, microphone and DI requirements, monitoring needs, power supply and backline provisions. When preparing for a live music event, clear technical communication minimises soundcheck delays and performance issues (Allen et al., 2011), ensuring efficiency on the day of the event. 

Logistics planning 

Promoters are expected to meet the necessary equipment and performance requirements for their artists. To do this, promoters should logistically plan the day ahead of time so that the artists have the best experience possible. Logistical planning consists of coordinating artist arrival times, equipment load-in access and times, equipment storage, and organising the green room space. The venue’s central location in Leeds supports easy transport access for both the artists and audience, reducing logistical complexity and cost. A few group members own motor vehicles, allowing for easy transport should our team require a car for transport purposes. These considerations are reflected in the event costings chart. Logistical planning also consists of “cross-checking” (Beddoe, 2024) the technical specifications with both the venue and the artist to make sure they align and to ensure the venue can accommodate the artist’s performance requirements. Due to the nature of our event, there is minimal set-up required; most artists need the same equipment, which makes ‘changeovers’ between sets more efficient and soundchecks quicker than usual. Usual practice involves scheduling staggered arrival times and clearly communicating access arrangements to all performers in advance; however, as previously mentioned, due to our performers being members of our promotion team, everyone will be present for the entire scheduled day and already have been made aware of their required timings. 

Hospitality Management  

Ensuring appropriate hospitality contributes to positive artist relationships and reputation building (Behr, Brennan& Cloonan, 2016). Hospitality is an important aspect of artist care. Basic rider provisions will be agreed upon in the Advance. This includes refreshments, alcoholic refreshments, and a secure green room for artists to access and use. Making sure the artists and audiences’ needs are looked after is important for the success of the event, as it allows for musicians and people to want to come to our event again and spread the word about our event company. As we have a restricted budget, we plan on going to ALDI (a low price superstore in Kirkstall, Leeds) using one of our team members cars- minimising taxi/ bus costs, to buy the rider. Our rider consists of a 24-pack of beers, a box of crisps and bottles of water. The total will probably equate to less than £20, which is in the budget for our rider. The bar in the venue space will also be open and serving alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages for artists and audience members to enjoy. There is one green room for all artists and promoters to share; however, again, due to the convenience of the line-up, the space will be quite comfortably shared. Taking such provisions to ensure the artists, staff and audience are all comfortable demonstrates professionalism and respect for cultural labour (Banks,2017), which are attributes our company aims to include in our event. 

Health and Safety Management

It is a legal requirement and an ethical responsibility to encompass health and safety planning when organising a live music event. Industry standards require comprehensive risk assessments addressing crowd safety, fire hazards, electrical equipment, and staff responsibilities (Silvers, 2012). A full risk assessment will be included in the appendix, covering crowd management, electrical and equipment hazards, fire safety, evacuation procedures and staff roles and responsibilities. As well as this, a fire risk assessment was completed for and sent to our team by The Lending Room, giving awareness to potential hazards and professional mitigation strategies to use should there be an accident. Crowther and Orefice (2015) emphasise that proactive hazard identification and mitigation strategies are crucial for professional event production.  By directly communicating with the venue and receiving these assessments, our team is well equipped to overcome any challenges that may arise on the day of the event, whilst also complying with industry standards and legal obligations. 

Contingency Planning

Live music events are commonly quite unpredictable, and there are often various reasons why an event may not go to plan. Within this event, contingency planning is strategically incorporated across operational, technical and financial areas.  Academic research in event risk management emphasises that successful contingency planning focuses on reducing the impact of adverse events rather than attempting to eliminate risk (Getz and Page, 2016). Therefore, by making a contingency plan, one can mitigate risks through proactive planning. According to Tum, Norton and Wright (2006), effective contingency strategies reduce the impact of unforeseen disruptions and enhance operational resilience. Professional promoters will therefore incorporate contingency measures into contracts, schedules and budgets. A risk that could arise may be an artist cancellation; an artist could cancel or be late due to sickness or travel disruption. Standard industry practice includes contractual clauses outlining cancellation terms and artists’ performance obligations, providing clarity and financial protection for all parties involved (Allen et al., 2011). However, due to the artists in the event also being members of the team, they will be needed at the event before sound checks, as we are all required to be present to help set up the event, ruling out any artist delays. Technical risks are prevented through pre-equipment testing, the availability of back-up systems and clear communication between technical staff and event management (Silvers, 2012). These safety measures reduce downtime and prevent minor issues from expanding into major disruptions. Risk assessments are commonly used to identify potential threats and establish response strategies before the event occurs. See the appendices for the full risk assessment. Financial contingency planning is equally important, especially for small-scale events, where there is a limited budget. This approach ensures that there are no unforeseen expenses that could compromise the event.  Creating ticket sale projections and including a contingency fund within the event budget is common practice in the live music industry. 

Marketing

Marketing and publicity are crucial elements to the success of our live music event. Industry marketing practices have shifted massively towards digital approaches, which reflects the changes in the audience’s behaviour and music consumption patterns (Baym,2018). The target audience for this event consists of 18-30-year-old indie folk music listeners, mostly students and young adults living or studying in Leeds. Audience segmentation allows for tailored messaging and platform selection (Kolter et al., 2019). As there is a large indie scene already in Leeds, most members of our team are either part of it or joining the indie scene. Therefore, the team know where to direct our marketing towards. We aim to not only target that audience via the use of social media platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, creating content such as short reel video form content, but also promote on a physical form. We plan on printing posters and putting them on the walls around our university campus, in bathrooms and stalls of our university, at record stores, in commonly visited indie music venues or student pubs such as Hyde Park Book Club, Brudenell Social Club, etc. Press and publicity remain relevant, especially at local and regional levels. A professional press kit- including a press release, artist biographies and images- has been made to send to local indie societies and blogs to post about in hopes of gaining more of an audience. Having a press kit improves the likelihood of media coverage. Narrative-driven marketing is increasingly recognised as an effective promotional strategy. Storytelling enhances audience engagement by creating emotional resonance and memorability (Fog, Budtz, and Yakaboylu, 2015). For our event, the debut performance of Gracie de Wolfe and HOAD provides compelling narrative angles that can be used across various types of promotional material.  By using both academic marketing theory and industry practice, the marketing strategy supports our team’s attendance objectives and hopefully, ticket sales and revenue. 

Financial Management

Financial planning underpins the feasibility and sustainability of live events. A detailed costings chart will be included in the appendix, separate from the financial risk assessment. By separating the event costings and risk assessment, it allows promoters to model potential loss scenarios and plan appropriate responses (Getz, 2012). Industry practice prioritises realistic income projections, cost control and financial clarity. The primary income of this event will be generated by ticket sales. As mentioned, ticket pricing is set at an accessible rate of £5-£7 to attract students and indie music fans, consistent with market norms for grassroots venues in Leeds. Research indicates that audience willingness to pay is influenced by genre, venue reputation and perceived value rather than artist profile (Brown and Knox, 2017). This knowledge helped manipulate our group’s decision and is why our event is called ‘ An Indie Folk Night’, rather than a headline show for Thomas Jason. The aim is to gain attention from the promotion to generate more ticket sales. There is no merch being sold at this event, as the artists are debuting and emerging and don’t have merch to sell at the moment. Even so, the money is secondary income and primarily benefits the artist rather than the promoter. In business, expenditure is any payment from the business that helps the business grow, operate or maintain assets, representing money flowing out of the business. For our team, the expenditure includes artist fees, venue costs, marketing expenses, hospitality, and contingency allocation. Fortunately, the artists of the event are also members of my team. Therefore, there are no artist fees as all profits are being directly split equally amongst group members, as all of us contributed to the cost of the venue, etc. The venue cost our team £130 to hire out, and included in this package is a sound technician and a lighting technician for the evening. Each member of the team contributed £26 towards the venue. Selling tickets to the event at £5 each means we would need to sell 26 tickets to break even from the event. We plan to create posters to put up and around Leeds Conservatoire, as well as in other student-populated areas, to gain some attention for our event. However, the team plans to print these posters using our printer credit at our university library to reduce the expenditure costs. As well as this, we plan to use the app SumUp, which I’ve used multiple times before for free of charge, to collect tickets on the door for our event, again reducing the expenditure costs for our group, as there is no need to pay out of our budget for a card reader. An expense our group will face is petrol costs to and from places for our event; however, there isn’t a lot that needs to be bought, and due to the venue’s central location, the petrol expenses won’t be too costly. 

Conclusion 

This essay has presented a comprehensive rationale and project management strategy for an indie folk live music event. Strategic, operational and creative planning has been used and outlined to ensure a successful event on the 25th February 2026 at The Lending Room in Leeds. Through structured time management, thorough production planning, financial control and targeted marketing, the event is in a position for both artistic and commercial success. Using both knowledge of theory and practice into consideration when approaching live event management, as well as balancing risks with opportunity and supporting emerging talent in local areas, is how our team hopes to find success. This project meets standards within the live music industry and meets the learning outcomes of this module. 

Artist Biographies

HOAD

Hoad is an Anglo-Mauritian singer/ songwriter based in the UK. With a diverse musical history varying from complex classical music to in-your-face punk rock, his style is unique and ever changing. His recent compositions have been compared to the likes of Elliot Smith
and Kurt Cobain, from haunting acoustic songs to electrifying indie-grunge.

Hoad is making his debut in 2026 with a number of solo and band gigs, as well as some studio recording releases.

You’ve not heard of him yet, but you’ll remember him soon enough.

GRACIE DE WOLFE

Gracie de Wolfe is a British singer/ songwriter whose goal as an artist is one thing; to make people feel, take it as you will. Known for her floaty melodies and emotionally captivating lyrics, her music is truly bound to take you on an emotional journey.

Having experience as a session singer, Gracie wants to explore being her own artist. She is currently working on her debut EP, taking inspiration from artists such as Lizzy McAlpine, Chappell Roan, Adrianne Lenker and more.

THOMAS JASON

Thomas Jason is a singer-songwriter with a raw, honest intensity beyond his years. Originally from Berkshire but now residing in Leeds, Thomas Jason has just released his debut single ‘Hard Day’s Loving’, which traverses the difficult days of a relationship and the struggle of unresolved emotions.

“When I grew up I was angry at the world and I didn’t understand what was happening around me.

Songwriting was a way for me to articulate these feelings and explore the ups and downs of growing up.”
Fresh from supporting Oxford’s Unbelievable Truth at Headrow House Leeds, Thomas Jason brings an emotional intensity to his lyrics that points to Noah Gundersen, John Morland and Zach Bryan, that has captivated audiences in his hometown of Leeds. By using a dramatic range of dynamics and intensity, Thomas Jason has a knack for keeping an audience hanging on his every word.

“Thomas has truly shown his humble spirit & his dedication to the craft.” – Matthew Mayfield

Artist HD Photographs

Risk Assessment

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Replace this example with your risk assessment as a PDF.

Additional Material

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Reference List

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Allen, J., O’Toole, W., Harris, R. and McDonnell, I. (2011) Festival and Special Event Management. 5th edn. Milton, QLD: John Wiley & Sons.

Banks, M. (2017) Creative Justice: Cultural Industries, Work and Inequality. London: Rowman & Littlefield.

Baym, N.K. (2018) Playing to the Crowd: Musicians, Audiences, and the Intimate Work of Connection. New York: New York University Press.

Behr, A., Brennan, M. and Cloonan, M. (2016) Cultural Labour and Live Music. London: Bloomsbury Academic.

Bennett, A. (2018) Popular Music Scenes and Cultural Memory. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Brown, S. and Knox, D. (2017) ‘Why go to pop concerts? The motivations behind live music attendance’, Musicae Scientiae, 21(3), pp. 233–249.

Crowther, P. and Orefice, C. (2015) Strategic Event Creation. Oxford: Goodfellow Publishers.

Fog, K., Budtz, C. and Yakaboylu, B. (2015) Storytelling: Branding in Practice. Berlin: Springer.

Getz, D. (2012) Event Studies: Theory, Research and Policy for Planned Events. 2nd edn. London: Routledge.

Getz, D. and Page, S.J. (2016) Event Studies: Theory, Research and Policy for Planned Events. 3rd edn. London: Routledge.

Holt, F. (2010) The Economy of Live Music in the Digital Age. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 13(2), pp. 243–261.

Kotler, P., Kartajaya, H. and Setiawan, I. (2019) Marketing 4.0: Moving from Traditional to Digital. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

O’Toole, W. (2011) Event Feasibility and Development: From Strategy to Operations. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann.

Silvers, J.R. (2012) Professional Event Coordination. 2nd edn. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Tum, J., Norton, P. and Wright, J.N. (2006) Management of Event Operations. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann.

Tum, J., Norton, P., Wright, J.N. and Dodd, M. (2012) Event Management. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann.