Event Evaluation
This evaluation reflects on the delivery of Garage Takeover on 25th February 2026 at Headrow House, Leeds. My role on the night was Box Office Manager, placing me at the front-of-house boundary between the audience and the event. I was responsible for ticket scanning, door sales, guest list coordination, wristband allocation, and house counts, while also acting as the first point of contact for every attendee. I also contributed to the group’s marketing campaign by producing daily TikTok content in the weeks before the event. What follows is an assessment of each operational area, examined through the lens of my own responsibilities and the decisions we made as a group.
Event Evidence Video
Event Atmosphere
The atmosphere during the first two hours was strong. Emily Jacko’s opening set from 23:00 built early momentum, and AJ. sustained that energy through to around 01:00, with crowd engagement concentrated around the DJ booth (See Appendix 1). From my position at the box office, I could gauge the atmosphere through the pace of arrivals and the sound carrying from the event space. The problem was retention. Around 01:00, attendance dropped, and by the time Jae Depz began his headline slot, the room had emptied considerably. This exposed a scheduling miscalculation: the acts with the strongest local draw played earliest, while the most expensive booking closed the night to a diminishing room. On a Wednesday, when attendees had work or lectures the next morning, this pattern was foreseeable. We failed to account for how a midweek audience behaves differently from a weekend one, and the headline act had to bear the consequences of that oversight.
Box Office
As the first person every attendee encountered, my box office role carried both operational and promotional weight. I set up on a small table near the venue entrance (See Appendix 2), running the Resident Advisor ticket scanner on my phone while processing door sales via Square Point of Sale and managing guest lists for all four artists. A handful of RA scanner failures occurred when tickets purchased minutes before arrival had not yet synced. I resolved each case by cross-referencing the attendee’s name on a laptop, preventing disputes from escalating. This workaround functioned at our attendance level, but at a busier event, it would have caused delays in the congested stairwell beside the ticket checkpoint. The Square POS handled all six door sales at £8.00 each without issue, and operating cashless-only simplified reconciliation. We implemented a colour-coded wristband system as a group: gold/white for general admission and red for AAA (access all areas). I briefed the two team members assisting me on the correct allocation before doors, and this allowed security to verify entry status at a glance. Beyond processing, I spent time promoting the event to passers-by, which contributed to several door sales. Managing the dual function of a ticket agent and promoter was demanding, as each required a different mode of engagement, but it gave me direct insight into how the event was perceived from outside.
Security
Headrow House provided SIA-licensed security staff, positioned downstairs at the building entrance doors, where they carried out ID checks before attendees reached the event space. There was no security at the actual event door where the box office was located, meaning I was the only checkpoint between the building entrance and the event itself. This placed additional responsibility on me to manage entry flow and verify wristbands for re-entry. Inside the event space, one security officer was stationed near the DJ booth (See Appendix 3). No incidents occurred throughout the night, though it is difficult to separate this from the reality that 68 attendees did not generate the crowd pressures that would have tested these arrangements. The risk assessment had scored the limited number of security staff at 15 pre-mitigation, recommending that the promoter team supplement their presence. In practice, three of us were at the door and three inside the venue, fulfilling this mitigation. The interior security’s position near the DJ booth also addressed the concern about crowd access to the stage, where no mojo barriers were present.
Health and Safety
My box office position sat at the intersection of several risks identified in the group’s risk assessment, completed on 6th January 2026, following a site visit. The assessment noted that the ticket check area was adjacent to a flight of stairs, creating a congestion risk scored at 6 pre-mitigation. The entrance also sat next to the bar, scored at 8 pre-mitigation due to overlapping queues. Neither risk materialised at our attendance level, but the confined layout would have presented challenges at higher capacity, and my box office setup would have needed relocating to reduce the traffic. This is a lesson in stress-testing operational plans against capacity scenarios, not just the attendance you expect. Fire exits were checked before doors, and illuminated signage was visible throughout. The raised platforms on either side of the event space were flagged at 12 pre-mitigation as a tripping hazard, with luminous tape recommended to mark edges. Challenge 25 ID checks were enforced at the building entrance by venue security, addressing the underage entry risk scored at 16 pre-mitigation. The risk assessment’s requirement for “advance barcode sales for speed” and “disputes escalated via EM” both proved relevant to my operations, as the barcode system was the foundation of my entry process, and the escalation protocol gave me a clear chain of responsibility when scanner issues arose. Earplugs for sound protection were available to everyone (see Appendix 4).
Production
Production relied on Headrow House’s in-house systems, a decision that eliminated external hire costs and ensured compatibility with the venue infrastructure. The Pioneer CDJ-3000 players and DJM-900NXS2 mixer were set up on a secured LiteDeck table, with all equipment networked and firmware updated before the event, as outlined in our technical specification. Sound was delivered in stereo, a non-negotiable requirement for the garage genre; mono playback would have flattened the spatial depth of the mixes. An in-house sound engineer was present from load-in through to load-out, overseeing system performance between sets. From my position at the box office, the low-frequency response from the sub-bass units carried into the entrance area, which helped with door promotion as it gave passers-by an immediate sense of what was happening inside. The lighting rig cycled through programmed colour and beam changes with haze, maintaining energy throughout each set. No technical failures occurred. Using in-house production was validated financially and operationally, keeping costs contained while meeting the expectations of the booked artists (See Appendix 5).
Artist Liaison
Artist liaison was handled by Maya and Luca, as my box office responsibilities required me to remain at the entrance throughout. All four artists had access to a dedicated green room from 22:00 (See Appendix 6), and rider provisions were purchased from a supermarket beforehand, with costs shared across the group. Jae Depz submitted the only formal rider, requesting four bottled waters, alcohol-free Corona, alcohol-free Rekorderlig in strawberry and lime, and fresh fruit. We fulfilled the rider in full, with one adjustment: alcohol free Rekorderlig was only available online in bulk quantities that exceeded what we needed, so we substituted alcohol-free Kopparberg as the closest available alternative. My intersection with this area came through guest list management: I coordinated with Maya and Luca to confirm guest names for each act, then processed entries at the door with the correct red AAA wristbands. This communication ran through group chat and face-to-face updates, keeping both areas informed. The liaison process ran smoothly with no disputes or unmet requests. For future events with more complex artist requirements, the liaison and box office roles would need a formalised handover procedure to prevent miscommunication during busier periods, particularly if multiple artists’ guests arrive simultaneously.
Stage Management
The shared DJ setup meant changeovers required only a USB swap and a brief level check, keeping transitions tight. Load-in and soundcheck ran between 22:00 and 23:00 as planned, with the in-house engineer confirming signal paths and equipment functionality before doors. The running order held to schedule: Emily Jacko from 23:00, AJ. from 00:00, Jae Depz from 01:00, and GREENHOUSE closing from 02:00 to the 03:00 curfew (See Appendix 7). No equipment malfunctions occurred, and the LiteDeck table remained stable, meeting the technical specification’s requirement that it withstand movement (See Appendix 8). Booth access was restricted to artists and their authorised representatives. While stage management was not my direct responsibility, the smoothness of transitions affected the box office because any delay between sets could have prompted early departures, compounding the attendance drop-off we experienced after 01:00.
Online Marketing
Instagram was the primary channel, with @eclypseeventsuk generating 22,765 views across a 90-day campaign, 79.8% from static posts. My contribution was concentrated on TikTok, where I uploaded one to two videos per day in the final weeks. The account reached 34 followers and 889 likes, with individual videos ranging from 117 to 2,850 views. While these numbers demonstrate reach, TikTok does not support clickable links in captions for small accounts, meaning every potential buyer had to navigate from the video to the profile, then to the hoo.be link, then to a ticket platform. Each step loses conversions, and the data confirms this: thousands of views produced very few sales. Concentrating effort on Instagram Reels would have been more effective, as that platform housed our strongest engagement and offered a more direct path to purchase. The event was listed across Resident Advisor, DICE, Fatsoma, Leeds Gigs, and Ticketswap, ensuring discoverability, but spreading across platforms may have diluted urgency on any single one (See Appendix 9). What the campaign lacked was a conversion strategy. We generated attention without building a low-friction path to purchase.
Promotional Materials
The majority of the artwork was created by Luca using Adobe Creative Cloud, with group feedback ensuring consistency across platforms. The visual identity was cohesive, maintaining a unified look from Instagram posts through to the DICE and Fatsoma listings (See Appendix 10). Leeds Magazine published a press release on 23rd December 2025, providing third-party credibility during the early sales window. Physical promotion was less successful. Posters were distributed within Leeds Conservatoire, but planned placements at the University of Leeds never materialised as we did not secure permissions. We also reached out to Gryphon News to cover the event through student media, but they never responded. We did promote through student halls group chats, which was one of the more direct routes into our target demographic, though the reach of this approach was limited to whichever halls our personal networks could access. These gaps in physical and student media promotion were a missed opportunity. The £4.00 student discount on Fatsoma was our strongest-selling tier, accounting for 15 of 32 sales on that platform, which confirms that student audiences were receptive when they were aware of the event. Our promotional reach into that demographic was not wide enough.
Financial Outcomes
The settlement sheet records 68 tickets sold: 14 via RA, 32 via Fatsoma, 16 via DICE, and 6 on the door through my Square POS (See Appendix 11). Gross income was £419.50 against total costs of £906.21, producing a net loss of £486.71 and a per-member loss of £81.12, falling well short of the 128-ticket break-even target. Fatsoma attracted the most sales, partly because it hosted the student discount, while RA and DICE split the remainder. Splitting tickets across three platforms was intended to maximise discoverability, but it fragmented purchasing momentum and made it difficult to track sales velocity during the campaign. A single platform would have given us a clearer picture of whether our marketing was converting. Artist fees totalled £497.50 before travel and rider costs, with the headline act alone at £257.50, constraining our ability to lower ticket prices enough to attract impulse purchases on a midweek night. We were competing directly with Mischief at The Warehouse, which sold out its Wednesday student night, and with other established weekly events across Leeds. For a debut collective with no track record, this was a structural disadvantage. If I were to promote again, I would consolidate ticketing onto a single platform and move to a Thursday or Friday to reduce competition. I would also push for a smaller artist budget that allows sub-£5.00 pricing. The financial loss was more instructive than breaking even would have been, because it forced me to confront the gap between promotional reach and actual conversion, which is the most transferable lesson from this project.
