Foot In The Door
EVENT MANAGEMENT PORTFOLIO
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About: The Foot In The Door event is a music industry conference and live music event.
Founders | Beverley Smith & Kaia Garrity
We created this event to encourage anyone who is interested in starting a career in the music business. Our goal is to help expose the struggles and triumph that comes with the process of obtaining a music business position. The goal is also to push people to get out there and try to find information and/or guidance for their aspiring field from industry professionals. We hope that the stories and insight shared will spark relatability and inspire confidence to get a foot in the door in the music industries.
IF MUSIC IS YOUR LIFE, MAKE IT YOUR LIVING
OUR REASONS FOR CHOSING THIS EVENT:
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Together we have a fair amount of event organising, live event/gig planning, artist liaison and networking experience
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Some connections with Industry professionals
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Passion and motivation to create a great event focusing on something that is important to us
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We want to create the opportunity and the ability to bring light to a very important and prevalent topic worth discussion
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The possibility of meeting and talking to industry professionals that might impact our future careers
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It would be a great achievement to create this project within our local community with the hope and motivation of making a larger impact on a wider scale.
POSSIBLE SETBACKS WHICH AFFECTED US:
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A very serious threat is a possibility of not obtaining enough funds. Our solution for this would be sourcing funding from local businesses who offer funding, grants, loans etc. For example, we could the local Perth council for creative funding opportunities
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Competition is always a threat for any event, and because networking events are a large part of the Scottish music industries it might be difficult to wedge our event into the networking world. This is why our marketing strategies will hugely benefit from a tester event, figuring out which social platforms have the most interest and which venues or artist’s we could possibly collaborate with etc.
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The lack of interest might be a serious threat as well because it can affect our chances of breaking even and having an event that’s worthwhile. This is why we will put full effort into the plan and structure of both the tester and main event, making sure we hit out targeted market/audience and still Pursue our main goals and objectives for our project.
EVENT IMPLIMENTATION:
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Date: 06/04/2019
Time: 4 pm – 7 pm
Event:
1st- Networking/discussion panel (3 members)
Our main topics for the event are;
(A)Independence/Entrepreneurship
(B)minority representation
(C)struggles within the music&creative sectors.
2nd- Live performance (2 Performers)
Panel participants: Dee Grewel, Shaun McClusky, Emma Ochia
Presenter: Sophie Wallace
Music performers: Lora Macleod, Eddie (duo)*
Sound tech: Jamie
About the event and what we set out to achieve:
We set out for this networking and live music session to be a fun, relaxed and informative evening for independent artists and entrepreneurs.(and for anyone interested in the subjects) Offering advice, creative encouragement and networking opportunities as well as covering a sup-topic surrounding the current minority struggles within the music/creative sector A networking session put together by aspiring artists, musicians and music business students. Set out to create a platform that can bring together all acts, artists and representatives We want to fill this event with innovative and encouraging information and ideas, demonstrated throughout our panel conversations and live music performances for all to enjoyWhether you are a student in any of these fields or are interested in gaining general knowledge, you can take away a unique insight about all music and creative industries and interact with some aspects demonstrated by our panelists and music representatives. Venue £0Equipment £0Speakers £0-£20 (1 or 2 for 30 mins)Live performances £0-20 (an acoustic artist? *minimum equipment and travel costs)TOTAL = £0 ~ £40Venue £50-200Equipment £100Paid contributes/speakers £30-40 for 1 hour (including live performances)=£390Live bands: 3 or 4 acts, 15-20 minute slots each = £300TOTAL = £700For the main event (event no.2) we will have a ticketing system put in place with general prices at £5 and £2.50 for students. Tickets will be available online.’
The ticketing system idea did not go to plan, we had the website and ticket option set up although purchases were at a minimum. We decided after considering what would be most beneficial, to have the event as a free music conference and live performance day. We thought this would be the best option as the interest to pay was low, therefore we may have had 0 people attending.
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Our budget decreased after our first plan/draft once we clarified our event. We looked into applying for funding, hoping to raise enough money for our aspired event budget.
Visiting web pages such as: Creative Scotland, Culture & Business fund, Dewar Arts Reward Perth&Kinross Council and the Pebbles trust. Our main options (for this type of event) were the Perth&Kinross council and Pebbles Trust, as due to time management difficulties we had a short time to apply and receive funding (roughly 6 weeks).
Unfortunately, we did not qualify for the funding criteria after sending our form twice. This how ever did not stop us from completing our event to the best of our ability.
MARKET RESEARCH DATA & PROMOTIONAL STRATEGIES
Our original market research plan:
“As this will be a music creativity and industry based event, we will use online platforms (social media) for promotional purposes. Creating event pages displaying the idea around the event, a BlackSmith Records introduction, lecture volunteers (including workshops) will be listed also with a small bio/introduction about each individual.
We are planning to work in partnership with the University of Highlands and Islands, Perth council, music pages, artist promotions companies (local area) and possibly BBC.”
We estimated the best days for an event like this which was either Friday or Saturday evening. We came to this decision as most weekends students and workers have free time, so the weekend would be beneficial. Of course one of the attendance contributors would be the area/location of which the event is being held, within the Perth/Kinross area, the music scene has developed although the interest for the music business itself is generally low.
We had leaflets and posters of our events printed from the college, which we posted up around the college area and within coffee shops within the Perth city centre. We also targeted venues and live lounge such as: Perth Record store, TwaTams, Montary jacks, The GREEN room and the Auld House.
We put out as many posters as we felt would be useful but didn’t want to put out too many in public as they might be wasted. Although we did put out more of the leaflets as the leaflets were portable and would’ve gained higher engagement as people are more likely to take small leaflets.
Our original plans for marketing and promotion - That will consist of, again, our use of social media (Facebook, Instagram etc.). We are also considering the use of posters and flyers for this event because we will be staying local to Perth College UHI and assume that it would be effective for drawing in students especially. As for further marketing strategies, we have the option of sponsorship/promotion which may increase the budget if you use Facebook and Instagram.
Our promotional activity was mainly on Facebook and Instagram. We uploaded information about the event, pictures (our logo) and about those who are involved such as our panellists, musicians. We consistently shared the page on our private profiles also and our friends forwarded the posts and so on. This allowed us reach a verity of people over social media, also uploading any changes to the event for example, the ticketing issue.
We did have some difficulties keeping on top of uploading to the page for the first few days, though once we had everything confirmed including the artists and the free entry we were consistent with promotions and sharing information with the general public. Our post’s had a reach of (ranging between) 50-300 views.
These are a few images of our panelists, the venue and our performer Lora.
RISK ASSESSMENT
We followed the expected risk assessment of Healthy & Safety
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It was only the two of us as staff so it was all about making sure our guests, performers and panelists.
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Fire Safety
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Beverages and Snack safety
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emergency expectancy
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Personal Health for everyone entering the Building
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​Equality Awareness ​
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Making sure that everyone has their basic needs of safety and support was a top priority not only because it was our responsibility but also to enable everyone to have a good time.
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EVALUATION
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I think our event was executed well for the most part! However, as mentioned earlier, there were many things that could have definitely been approved. The major improvement would be towards marketing and promotion. We ended up focusing so much of our time on the actual booking, the market research and the set up process and left the marketing as one of the last things and we therefore did not get the turnout that we had hoped. There was also feedback from one of our panelists that mentioned that having the event on the Saturday was possibly a mistake as well because many people don't want to give up their Saturdays unless they really feel like it's worth it.
We did feel like we executed the rest of the event in a relatively High quality. We were able to problem solve when our panelists and performers backed out, we were able to professionally present ourselves and deal with the issues of the venue, and we had a clear vision of what we wanted the venue to look like and made sure we knew what our guests would enjoy. All in all besides the lack of marketing, turn out and promotion we exceeded our expectations.
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