Rationale
Summary of the Event:
For this module, me and my group have decided to organize an event to take place at the Attic on 17thFebruary 2026. This event we have entitled “A Crescendo of an Evening”- an evening showcasing 4 local artists ranging from acoustic to electronic music, accompanied with local stallholders and a pancake stand. Our target audience for this event will be the student population in Leeds, specifically hitting these criteria:
- 18-25 years old
- all genders
- lives in Woodhouse, Headingley and Hyde Park
- lower income
- enjoys live music/day festivals
Our aim is to create a safe and inclusive environment for our audience, celebrating the diverse community we have across our city. With organizations like “The Angels of Freedom” (an LGBTQ+ Leeds group founded in 2017) and an ever-growing student population (estimated to around 60,000 students within Leeds according to Study.eu [2024]), Leeds is ‘widely regarded as a friendly and open city, home to a very strong LGBTQ+ community presence’ [Residence Life News 2022]. Community to me is a massive part of what makes Leeds such a nice place to be, so as promoters it was important to us to design an event that encapsulated these values of safety and inclusivity.
We decided to host the event on Pancake Day (also known as Mardi Gras and Carnival Day). According to studies conducted by TVC Leisure [2018], bank holiday spending is 120% more than a regular weekend with the average British person having an extra £113 to spend. The ticket website Skiddle [2024] states that on public/bank holidays, “people have extra free time” and “they’ll be actively looking for something to do”. In lots of cultures across the world, Pancake Day is used as a carnival. Popular hubs for this are: New Orleans (Louisianna), Venice (Italy), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) and Nice (France). Celebrations include huge parties filled with music, colour and fun! We wanted to bring this carnival tradition to our event to bring life and colour to what can be a very cold and wintery month. By combining a traditional pancake service with the carnival theme of music, art and colour we hope to create an uplifting festival to boost local moral within the winter month.
Finally, with this theme of carnival and inclusivity we wanted to include something other than music. In recent years many local businesses have struggled to remain open, with over 120,000 jobs being affected [Meechan 2025]. Especially in the music industry, this is a major issue with multitudes of local promoters, venues and artists losing their jobs due to financial struggles. To align with the carnival theme, we thought it would be a nice idea to incorporate stalls into our event hosting local businesses. Every stall will sell to the festival attendees free of charge, by doing this we hope this adds a unique selling point to our event and draws in more engagement.
Time management:
“Mastering time management is crucial for gig workers to thrive in a flexible and dynamic work environment”- [Admin 2025]. Creating an effective schedule is key to organizing a gig, it allows for a stress-free process and often leads to a more successful event. When it came round to organizing our timeline, we first looked at designating specific tasks for each of us to do. We decided Benji would be the main artist liaison, communicating with all the artists and stall holders. I would take on venue communications and financial strategies, this involved tackling the spreadsheets and emailing the venue. Kham would take on the technical responsibilities, creating the technical spreadsheets and stage plots and finally Danny would organize the food aspect of the event. We would all work on the marketing together as we knew this would be a big task. We decided eclectically to follow this timeline to ensure all tasks would be completed in time:
- Confirm venue and Artists by 7th December 2025
- Complete all spreadsheets and risk assessment by 31st December 2025
- Roll out marketing campaign and ticket sales from 26th January 2026
- Buy rider/ food supplies buy 16th January 2026
For communication during the project, we set up a group WhatsApp chat. We chose this format as it was user friendly, allowed us to share documents easily and the ability to group call on it. For all the documents we also created a shared google drive, so all spreadsheets and marketing material were in one place.
We then went onto discussing the event advance. An advance is “a document (often electronic) sent either by the touring party or the venue that informs both sides about what to expect” [Spotify 2019]. We created a digital advance as this would be easier to send to all parties involved. We structured the day out as following.
- Load in at 3pm (promoters and stall holders arrive at this time)
- Sound engineer arrives at 4pm
- Sound checks start at 5pm (4 acts to soundcheck)
- Doors and markets open at 7pm
- Event runs 7pm-10:45pm
- Curfew 11pm
Initially when in communications with the venue, they stated that the load in time was 4pm. With sound checking 4 bands plus setting up all the stall we thought this would be too tight for time, therefore requested an earlier load in. They agreed to let us have access to the venue at 3pm on the day of the event to load in, however the in-house sound engineer would be unavailable till 4pm. This was perfect for us as it would give us time to complete the layout of the room (in terms of where the stalls would go) and make sure the venue was safe before musicians arrived. With this extra hour as well, we were able to schedule full soundchecks for each of our artists whereas initially we would have only had time for a basic line check.
Technical:
The technical part of an event refers to the equipment that will be used throughout the performance. When organising our event, we first looked through the venue’s tech spec included within the venue pack; here we could see what equipment we would need to provide for the evening and what equipment would already be there at the venue for us to use.
The Attic provides the following backline:
- PA
- Monitors
- Lighting
- Mixing desk
- Projector
As shown, the venue supplies little to no instrumental backline therefore we would have to provide this on our own. There were a few options of where we could hire this backline from, for example Hobgoblin Music in city center offers short term rentals for responsible prices. However, we decided to borrow from the Conservatoires music store. This way we’re able to cut costs on this area allowing more budget to go into riders, food and marketing. The only item we’re unable to hire out is a set of DJ desks (this is not something the conservatoire has out hire), therefore we had to look for an alternate source for this. We decided (to help keep costs low) to borrow a set of decks from a friend, these decks have been PAT tested and used at several gigs so we knew they would be of good quality to use for our event.
With live events, is very common/standard that the musicians will bring their own instruments to play along with amps, pedalboards and leads. The danger with this is that there could be a fault with this equipment, leading to major health and safety risks. This is why for our event we have specificized to all musicians/stallholders to only bring equipment that has a valid PAT test. A PAT test is “the term used to describe the examination of electrical appliances and equipment to ensure they are safe to use” [Gov.Uk 2011]. Although PAT testing isn’t a legal requirement, as promoters of the event it is our responsibility to keep all parties safe (as referenced in The Health and Safety at Work Act of 1974) [Ranyell, 2020]. If equipment has passed it’s PAT it will receive a green sticker, prior to soundcheck we will check all equipment for this to see if it’s safe to use in the gig.
Even when equipment has been, there is still a risk of something going wrong with the equipment. Therefore, we have completely a risk assessment to highlight any pit falls within the event that cause possibly lead to harm, I will be referring to this risk assessment later in the essay.
Logistical:
As promoters we have a duty of care to all parties involved in the event, it is our job to make sure all musicians and stallholders have a safe way of travelling to and from the venue. Most of our artists are local to the area therefore will be travelling either by car or public transport. The Attic is approximately a 13-minute walk away from the city’s bus station, as me and Benji both drive we have offered all our artists and stallholders a lift from the bus station to the venue.
Backline we have hired will be transported to the venue via car from Leeds Conservatoire. The load in area is situated around the front of the venue, with temporary parking provided. Load out will be from the same area.
When it comes to transporting money from the venue, we have investigated some safe options to prevent robbery and theft. In 2025, violent crime was the highest type of crime within Leeds at 39.1% [Plumplot, 2025]. Violent crime includes robbery and assault, often caused by unsafe transportation of valuables. To prevent crime being afflicted on our event, all stallholders will have the option of storing any physical money in the venue safe. For us promoters, either me or Benji will transport the admission float home within a car.
Hospitality:
To look after our performers, we will provide a rider. A rider is “a list of requirements, requests and conditions that a performer” has requested [nmp live 2025]. We have allocated £30 of our show budget towards this hospitality rider. As we have a food stand at this event, we will provide each artist and stallholder with a free pancake on the house as an addition to the rider. Benji (the artist liaison) has collated a list of everyone’s dietary and sensory requirement for the event in advance so we can accommodate accordingly.
Health and Safety:
For our event, we have completed a thorough risk assessment to minimize health and safe risks. Here are some key areas we focused on.
Food- this was an important area of our risk assessment as a lot of things can go wrong with food, leading to serious illness if poorly prepared. We investigated the Food Standards Act of 1999 to make sure everything was legal and up to standard. For us to serve food, at least one person must be FSA certified which Danny is. As well as correctly storing food at temperature, ventilation, fire safety precautions and hand wash stations. The council must also be alerted 28 days prior to the event, and the venue must have a food license.
Wellbeing- as part of our event values of inclusivity and safety, we wanted to focus heavy on the wellbeing of our guests. This includes providing emotional support for individuals with sensory issues, making sure all staff are familiar with the Ask for Angela Scheme and providing free water stations to avoid dehydration.
Tripping hazards- as we will have multiple tables set up across the venue, it is highly possible for an attendee to fall/trip over objects inflicting injury. To avoid these, we have developed a room plan to make clear walkways, allow for ventilation near to food station and hopefully avoid overcrowding.
Contingency plans
As with any plan, things can go wrong very quickly. It was important for us to develop a contingency plan just in case things feel though, here as some examples we thought of:
Venue Closures- there could be many factors as to why the venue may close or be inaccessible on the day of the event, for example the venue may go bankrupt or due to our event being earlier in the year there is a high likeliness of bad weather such as snow/ice. This is one of the reasons why we have planned our event earlier in the assessment period, because of this is the venue does fall through at the last second we have a couple of weeks to rearrange. If we were unable to host at the Attic, we have made strong connections with other venues within the area like HEART and Hyde Park Book Club so we could host at alternate places in the event of closure.
Artist Changes- this is something we faced whilst initially planning the event, a couple bands backed out after the artist confirmation period. Luckily this worked to our advantage as a smaller lineup allow for us to plan a more cohesive, time effective event. Due to the time of year, we are putting our event on, illness is a very possibly threat to our artists. As well as other uncontrollable circumstances, artists pulling out of the day of the event is very likely. To plan ahead, we have developed strong connection with artists and, musicians within the conservatoire that we could call upon incase this happens.
Food not being approved- due to the multitude of health and safety risks that come with setting up a food stand, it is a possibility that the university may not approve the idea. If this happens, we have thought out a few ways around this. If the issue is to do with fire safety or temperature regulations, we could buy shop-made pancakes and top them with ingredients that don’t need chilling (e.g- maple syrup). With shop-bought pancakes the ingredient listing will be clear so allergens can clearly be identified.
Finance:
As independent promoters, it was important to us to keep costs low for our event. Before organizing anything, we had a discussion as a group to decide how much money we were all willing to put towards everything, deciding around £50-£60 each would be our budget (£200-£240 total).
The first cost we looked at was venue hire. Originally, we wanted to use HEART in Headingley however this was too expensive for our budget. Therefore, we looked at alternate venues and decided on The Attic. This was a better choice as it was within our budget and personally, I thought it had much more to offer as a venue opposed to HEART.
The other cost we looked at was promotion. Poster/Leaflet printing can be very expensive (for example LS1 print in Leeds charges £10 per A1 poster). Therefore, we decided to handmake the posters, designing them ourselves and printing them at the conservatoire. This was a cost-effective idea and meant we could potentially make more posters/leaflets to distribute then if we were buying them. For the distribution, we plan on doing that ourselves to also save money, as well as digitally promoting the event on free social media sites like Instagram and Facebook.
As well as making posters/leaflets, we decided to make some merch pieces to sell at the event (our thinking being with the designs being handmade, it’ll be nice memorabilia for our audience. With our target audience being students, posters and badges are sort after items). As Benji has a badge maker, this will eliminate manufacturing costs. This we thought would be good as an extra stream of income from the event.
When it came down to deciding ticket prices for the event, we started by doing some research on the what the average ticket price was for gigs around Leeds. Infamous local promotion company ‘Not a Thing’ usually charge between £7-£11 per gig, and events at The Attic are usually between £10-£17. To cater towards our student target audience, we decided to make all tickets £5 (OTD and Advance). Usually, the OTD would be greater than the advance, however as students ourselves, we know that students don’t often know what they’re doing from week to week and struggle to commit to events. By having a lower OTD price, we hope this will encourage more people to come with the intention they’ll buy products inside the gig. This will even out the cost lost in having a lower OTD price.
As our event is community focused, we decided to split the event profits evenly with all promoters/musicians and stallholders. Due to limit budget, we were unable to offer the artists a financial advance, but this was clearly commutated to everyone before they committed. We feel as promoters this creates a fair, inclusive statement between all parties involved, and financially is the most profitable way for everyone.
We did look into arts council and PRS funding at the start of this project, however with more research we discovered that the application process would take too long for the time frame we had.
Marketing and Publicity:
Before deciding how to market, we took time developing a strong brand image. Colour theory was something we discussed upon a lot. According to Dragonfly AI, the most eye catching colours are yellow, red and blue. It was important for us to choose a colour scheme which represented our brand (reflecting our aims of safety and inclusivity), after more research we discovered blue marketing signifies trust to viewers [DragonflyAI 2025]. Therefore, the poster and marketing would be centered around blue (with pops of red, yellow and green to intertwine with the carnival theme).
With our target demographic I referred to earlier in this essay, the most effective way of marketing is social media. With Instagram and Facebook having 3 billion active users monthly [Statistica 2026], it would be flawed to ignore how effective these platforms can be. “Video content is now the most engaging and widely consumed format in digital marketing” [Kiwi Education, 2024], therefore we have decided to create short videos including a person dressed up as a square to play on the well-known saying “be there or be square”. This we feel will be unique and engaging on these social platforms. As well as social media, we have contacted Dan from ‘Not A Thing’ to put on his promotion’s website.
As well as online content, we want to equally focus our attentions on physical marketing. With our values being focused on safety and trust, we feel the best way to spread this message is having face-to-face contact with our audience. We plan on doing this by flyering/ sticking posters near and inside the universities (Leeds city council states you must have a flyering badge from the council to advertise, however our venue may be able to provide this. If not, we’ll just flyer inside the universities and go around the target audience house’s flyering through doors). We also aim to set up a stall in the café-bar at the conservatoire to advertise, as well as contacting the student radios across the city to get a feature.
Artist Biographies
Alex Milling- An artist of sonic architecture, taking his audience on a journey through immersive guitar and amplification. Alex is a master with experimental, improvised electroacoustic composition, creating a truly unique experience with his music.
Kaeya- Kaeya will take your heart and squeeze until you’ve heard what he has to say. He is a self described ‘sparkly, drag-paint, indie-folk’ artist who will tug at your heart strings with moving lyricism and ethereal melodies. A hauntingly captivating experience for audiences.
Benji’s Folk Ensemble- A Leeds based folk quartet creating beloved melodies, protest chants, and foot-twitching ostinatos. To turn tears to laughter, together
DJ Kham- Leeds based DJ that has all the breaks, beats and drops! Prepare to move like you’ve never moved before.
Artist HD Photographs
Risk Assessment
Settlement sheets:
Additional Material
Reference List
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