Introduction

IIn this rationale I will be explaining in detail how our event team have organised our time management, technical, logistical, hospitality and health and safety production, contingency plans, finances and our marketing and publicity approaches to promote our event. Today social media marketing is a free way to spread awareness about an event. Webster states “The promoter is ultimately responsible for publicising and marketing the show… the promoter’s decisions and actions at this stage are fundamental to the success of the event and the experience of the participants.” (Webster, E. (2011). This is why we are using three marketing approaches emotional, print marketing and social media marketing to increase our audience engagement and create excitement before our event. “Event professionals are required to operate within established legal frameworks, industry standards and ethical guidelines to ensure the safety and satisfaction of all participants.”(Silvers, 2012, p. 18). Silvers highlights key points of health and safety to keep all attendees unharmed during the event. This is why we have completed a risk assessment that predetermines any possible hazards and complies to the precaution methods we can take if they occur (see Figure 3 in appendix).

Our event company ‘Optics Promotions’ consists of 6 members. We all shared the workload between us to optimise our time effectively under the given time restrains for the assignment. In the appendix under Figure 5 is a table highlighting the key roles each member took on to organize this event professionally.

Event Overview

This ‘Optics Promotions’ event is focussed on electronic live performance, and gaming culture surrounding the 2000s era. We aim to connect our audience through nostalgic projections and a night of experimental electronic dance, funk, and jungle music. The lineup of performers for the night include ShotbunGullet who explore live electronic sound manipulation in jungle and hardcore, Deff60 a 6-person fusion band inspired by funk, fast electronic dance music and jazz, and TONII who blends nostalgia and futurism through live electronic performance, creating the perfect songs to cry dance to. More information regarding artist tech specs can be found in the appendix under Figure 1. As the recent incline in artificial intelligence has put a fearful stain over technology. We want to display how technology can be used with good intentions to bring communities together. The event is called ‘TONII at Hyde Park Book Club’ as TONII is the headlining artist. The date of the event is the 19^th of February which falls in the given assignment date period (9^th February – 20^th March 2026). As I have briefly mentioned the event will be taking place at Hyde Park Book Club. We felt this venue suited our needs for a projection feature on stage and reflected the genre of music being performed, as the basement contains a projector and has low black ceilings, imitating a club like space. As we are inspired by the culture surrounding the late-night DJ scene in the 2000s this space works well to achieve our intention. However, we are replacing the image of one person behind the decks with an active looking stage full of musicians and dancers creating the same electrifying feeling. Our target audience we expect to be roughly around 80 participants; however, the venue can hold up to 150 standing at its capacity.

Time Management

The reasons we chose to hold the event on the 19^th of February was because it falls on a Thursday, meaning it will not clash with many events in Leeds that people might be going to already, as these tend to happen on Friday and Saturday nights. We appreciate Thursday night is an unusual day for an event of this character, having considered the options we felt it was better not to clash with other potential competitors. The 19^th of February is also in our reading week. Therefore, we are hoping many of our friends and peers will be free as we will not be attending classes that week. As our predetermined audience will be in the 19-25 age group, we are focussing the night around the 2000s electronic media. This generation grew up with a physical approach to consuming music, compared to today where technology can feel distant, alien and out of control. We hope to inspire people as we manipulate sounds through live electronic performance, showing we, the artists are in control of the technology we are using; while making our audience feel connected to the physicality we bring to the creation of the music when watching us perform.

Production Of Event

Technical:

Regarding the technical production aspects of the gig in our chosen venue package, we get a sound engineer that has experience working at Hyde Park Book Club. This ensures that the sound quality and lighting will be excellent to avoid attendees coming away from the gig disappointed. We have made the venue aware that we are using the projector and have asked somebody we know to produce the visuals. This will increase the efficiency of our events team as we can focus on the coordination of the event. Because ShotbunGullet and TONII will be using their own electronics we have asked them to test they are working properly beforehand to avoid any complications, which may affect our planned timeframe on the day of the event. Hyde Park Book Club do not include drum kits, guitar or bass amps in their backline for the basement. We have made this aware to our artist’s. This mostly impacts Deff60 and TONII (refer to appendix Figure 1 for the artist tech specs). However, they have let us know they are able to collect these from Leeds Conservatoire.

Logistical:

Our pre-production planning timeline started in October running through to December. The artists were booked; we curated the posters, gathered the tech specs/biographies from artists, wrote the gig proposal, completed the risk assessment and wrote up the costings for the event. This was delegated between members of our group. We aimed for this information to be completed by our Christmas break in December and we achieved our deadline. All these steps needed to be done in advance of the event because in January we are announcing the event, so people have enough time to put it in their calendars. The first announcement will happen on January 1^st, which will be a collaborative Instagram post. This is to tell people what the event is, who is playing and where it will be held. We recognise how important a drip feed of promotion is, but we are also aware that it is a balance between a steady flow of promotional material, that will achieve excitement around the event as opposed to over saturation that we have noticed other promotions and artist’s suffering from.

On the event day, a detailed production schedule will be used to manage load-ins, sound checks, doors, performance times, and load-out. Clear time slots are included to account for technical delays and performer changeovers. We checked Hyde Park Book Club’s venue specifications to build our event day schedule to avoid the show running past their curfew. Their Load in is 4pm and curfew is 11pm. Our detailed event day timings can be seen in Figure 1. Each performer has 20 minutes to load in and set up and then a 30-minute sound check. ShotbunGullet’s sound check finishes at 5:30 which is 2 hours and 30 minutes before doors open, which means if there are any technical errors found at soundcheck these can be resolved and if performers are late we have the ability to run over time till 6pm. This also means performers have time to eat and relax before the gig. We decided on the order of performers based on the logistical aspects with equipment change overs. Because TONII and ShotbunGullet use a table to set their electronic equipment on we have decided to space them apart so that during Deff60’s performance we can change round the equipment on the table. This avoids time delays especially as both TONII’s and ShotbunGullet’s set ups require many wires. This also adds a contrasting atmosphere in the evening by placing Deff60 in the middle, as their band leans more into alternative funk and groove genres.

Hospitality:

There are two bars available for attendees to use at Hyde Park Book Club. Their kitchen is open until 9pm that offers a vegan vegetarian dinner menu. This means our artists and potential attendees can eat and drink before doors open to avoid people either fainting or having. Artist’s also get a 10% discount off food and drinks. Hyde Park Book Club have a green room for the artist’s located at the back of the basement venue. The room is small but has shelving for storing instrument cases/bags, a fridge and sofa. ‘There is also parking located at the back entrance for crew and performers.’ (Hyde Park Book Club, 2025). They have space for artists to sell merch at the back of the venue and do not take any cut from the sales.

Health and Safety:

To ensure the safety of all our attendees we have completed a risk assessment (see Figure 3) for Hyde Park Book Club outlining 20 possible hazards and the solution to avoid any possible injuries occurring. Every potential hazard is scored by assessing the probability and severity of the possible injury to create a score that falls in one of these categories; 01-09 Tolerable risk, 10-19 Improve in 2/3 months, 20-36 Urgent action required. To put this into context we scored venue overcrowding and crowd control with a probability of 5 (highly probable) and severity of 5 (major injury). The overall score then lands at 25 before any action has taken place. However we can reduce this score by ensuring the venue cap is not broken and making sure multiple exit points from the event are marked clearly.

Contingency Plans

It is important to be aware of potential threats that may occur pre-event, during and after. For example, if our chosen venue closes because of unfortunate circumstances, we may have to reconsider the date for our event or find another venue at short notice to host our event. We have connections with other promotion companies based in Leeds such as ‘Not A Thing’ and ‘Symmetrical Feelings’, they may be able to help us relocate to a different venue at short notice. Another factor we need to consider is if an artist cancels or is unwell to perform on the night of our event. In this case we need to have backup artist options we know will still suit the theme and atmosphere we are creating. Artist’s such as ‘Theundeadcat’ and ‘Kiosk’ are two electronic inspired artist’s that we have connections with if we need an artist replacement close to the gig. We have asked TONII, Deff60 and ShotbunGullet to give 24 hours’ notice if they are unable to play.

Finances

To hire out Hyde Park Book Club’s basement with a sound engineer and monitors it costs £210 with VAT included, whereas the venue alone costs £70 plus VAT. There are pros and cons of both packages, but we considered the expertise of a sound engineer that knows the venue well worth the extra cost. Also, the added convenience of having established monitors already in place and negating extra travel expenses was a factor in the decision. Hyde Park Book Club offer a box office that can be supplied upon request. We decided not to take advantage of this as we are a group of 6 and so we can cover this ourselves. The price point was fixed at £5 upfront and £8 on the door. We know our audience are mainly students and as an emerging band, we felt these figures represented a fair price. To have attendance numbers guaranteed before the event explains the difference between the upfront price and the price on the door. To purchase a ticket pre-event, they are available from the 19^th of January through Eventbrite which ‘is a global self-service ticketing platform for live experiences that allows anyone to create, share, find and attend events’, (Eventbrite, 2024). Eventbrite pay the event promoter 100% of their set ticket price, in our case this would be £5. They add a ticketing fee onto the face value price increasing it by 6.95% or £0.59. Therefore, our pre-event tickets would cost £5.59 for our audience with the added service fee. Eventbrite pay remittance three business days after the event ends. The funds take 8-10 days to enter your chosen bank account if you are located out of the United States. As the gig is on a Thursday night, we will receive our pre-event ticket sales on Tuesday 24^th of February. Regarding purchasing tickets on the door, we will use the app ‘SumUp’ which is a mobile card reader. SumUp take 1.69% each transaction. On the door our set ticket price is £8 meaning we will in receive £7.86. This is also another reason why we have increased the ticket price on the door. The reason we have chosen to use an online card machine is because logistically it will be easier to manage for the person at the box office. We will be able to access this money the following day to transfer it. This money will arrive in 1-3 business days into our designated bank account. By using Eventbrite and SumUp we can pay our artists on the 24^th of February the following week. It is professional and industry standard to pay your artists within a few days after and event. To breakeven on our venue cost of £210 we need to achieve 42 tickets sold pre-event. Whereas on the door we must achieve selling 27 tickets. Realistically many people will buy the pre-event tickets which means our marketing must interest a wide audience to be able to breakeven and make profit. As most of our event team are also performing, we are not too worried about not making profit as we will still get paid our promoters cut. We plan to split the costs into 4 parts between each band and the promoters. To put this into context if we breakeven selling 42 tickets at £5 the 3 artist’s and the promoters will get £52.50 each. As members of our event team are also performing, we thought this was the fairest way to equally share the gross income.

To try and prevent a financial risk from occurring we have also completed a Financial Risk Plan. This can be found in the appendix under Figure 4. Every event promoter needs to be aware of the potential risks and factors that will occur if the event does not reach the intended breakeven point. However, there are steps one can take to decrease the severity of the risk and achieve a higher selling point as a result.

Marketing

To promote the event, we are using three marketing approaches. ‘Emotional marketing appeals to a consumer’s feelings and desires. It seeks to create a connection between the product or service and the consumer’s emotions.’ (Mario, 2019). As our event is about connecting our audience through electronic music this marketing approach aligns with our intentions. Emotional marketing can be done through social media by using colour and graphic design to sell the vibe, feel and atmosphere potential attendees can expect on the night. The live visuals we will have at our event will be reminiscent of the early 2000s technology outbreak, which ties in this feeling of nostalgia. We can use this as a marketing ploy for people to reconnect with their childhood memories from this time. Emotional marketing will evoke our audiences’ emotions to create a memorable experience. Another marketing strategy we will use is Print marketing. ‘Print marketing is the use of print media to generate brand awareness about your company. Print marketing includes advertisements in magazines, brochures, and billboards.’ (Mailchimp, 2024). At our university many bands and projects use posters to make people aware about upcoming events. Posters are eye catching and gives people a visual idea of what to expect on the night. This helps build anticipation. We have also been asked if our gig would like to be included in a zine about independent artists in Leeds upcoming music scene. This zine will help push our event to a wider audience, in turn hopefully helps to exceed our expected attendance number. Lastly, we will be pushing the event using social media marketing around 3 weeks before the event. This will include a range of different content from each band performing. We aim to stylise our social media content reminiscent of the branding from 2000s to tie in elements of nostalgia through our promotion. The main platforms we will use are Instagram and TikTok as these are the platforms that the bands performing have the most audience engagement.

Conclusion

This proposal and rationale demonstrate the necessary processes one must achieve to host a successful and professional live music event. These steps are supported by extensive documentation regarding time management, health and safety, logistical and technical production, financial risk planning, possible contingencies and promotional marketing material and approaches. By applying professional planning into our management approach, we have been able to design an event that operates legally and technically within the required timeframe.

Technical Specifications – Figure 1

Gig Proposal – Figure 2

Risk Assessment – Figure 3

Financial Risk Planning – Figure 4