Event Management - Chloe

BOOKING VENUE

I contacted 'Our Black Heart' to enquire about hiring the venue as i had been there recently to see a gig and saw how great it was. I emailed the event manager 'Josh' and we discussed dates for about 3 months before I finally agreed on June 14th. When the date was confirmed I could work of booking bands. I was in contact with the venue through out the entire process making sure they had all the information they need to update their website and Facebook pages. The venue was free to hire. The agreement was that I took all the door and they took all the bar.

BOOKING BANDS

I had a lot of trouble booking bands although when I started I knew exactly who I wanted to headline but after contacting agents they weren't available. I knew the genre of the night that I wanted to put on because I had confirmed my brothers band Rivals & Idols to be the main support but I found it really hard to get a headliner and support acts to fit the genre. I posted on loads of groups on Facebook advertising the slots and after a couple of weekend I did manage to fill the 4 slots. A Problem I had was that I had all 3 support acts before I had the headliner but I couldn't announce anything on social networks until this was confirmed.


MANAGING BANDS/LIAISING

Once the bands were confirmed I really had to keep in communication and make sure I got a biography, tech spec and logo as well as an image from the headliners First so I could start designing the posters. I used Facebook for all communication with all the bands and it worked really well. I didn't run into any problems, all the bands were quick to respond and gave me more than enough information to promote the event well and give everything to the venue.

MANAGING COSTS

There weren't many cost for this gig as the venue was free to hire so we just had to pay for the bands and the riders and any promotional cost like flyers and wristbands.


Here is the cost and ticket sales and the final totals after the night.

Sadly we made a loss on the night which is not great but if we were to continue to put events I think that we will be able to build a site with traffic coming through and people will be looking out for our events and they will become more and more popular. Overall I think it was a really successful night as the bands were all really great and they all worked well together.

SOCIAL NETWORKS

Social networking was another one of my roles for this project. I wanted to promote the event as much as possible so I created a event on Facebook and posted regular to keep interest.
After I announced the event I posted weekly announcing the supports acts with links and biographies.
It was important to keep the consistency up with all the posts on Facebook so people would keep up the interest and it would remind them every few days about the event.
I posted reminders of where to purchase tickets and occasional links to the bands video etc.

I also managed to get the event onto the venues website. This was another good online promotion because it would been seen by people who are visiting the venues website as well.

Another form of online promotion I used was resigning the event for online listings and magazines

POSTERS + LEAFLETING IN CAMDEN

I printed 50 x A3 flyers for the event which I walked round Camden of half a day putting up posters in several shops, cafes and pubs. The Events manager for the venue put a few up in the venue as well.  This was a really good way to get the event promoted in the local area to try and bring in some unknown locals. I also put up a few posters at the college events to try and promote the show as well. The audience at the college shows were similar to who I was aiming for at my gig.

WRISTBANDS

As an attempt to make the a really well thought out gig we decided to get custom wristbands with all the event information. You would be handed one of these on the door and it would allow you access to the venue all night.

RIDER

We got the bands a rider to share for the night which was a pack of 24 beers that we put back stage and also some soft drinks. This is an expense purely for the artists as free beer keeps them happy and thats what you need for your event. They are playing for you and you need to keep them happy and comfortable. Often the headliner will request a rider but as this was a fairly small event we just provided one that all the bands could help themselves too.

ONLINE TICKETS
We made tickets available for purchase online at wegottickets.com for £4. People who purchased tickets online were given a receipt/code that they had to show on the door to get in. This is a really useful way to make tickets available because its free and people have the opportunity to purchase tickets for many weeks leading up to the event.

Overall the event was a really big success. Not financially but in terms of the preparation and how the audience reacted to all the bands was really really positive. Its given me a huge amount of knowledge and confidence about putting on events and what to expect and what is needed to make it successful.  I had a lot of fun putting bands as they were all bands I was really into as for this I wanted to put bands on that I really liked and wanted to hear.