When planning any event Money Management is a key concern. You need to be within your own budget, and make sure that somewhere down the line the money is made back. Plan out where your expenses are going, cut those unnecessary costs, count up the figures and work out what you need to do to maximise your profit. Get in touch with some sponsors, how can you make more money to help you with your cause. Local businesses in the area may offer money or business with you if you advertise them at your event. This is a good way to get income, and one of the main way big events, such as festivals, get the financial support they require.
So, what is profit? Let's say you've spent £100 on planning a gig, you make back £200 on ticket sales, easy, you've made £100 profit. In a linear world this would be true, unfortunately life's not so simple, there's bumps and uncertainties at every turning. How much of this "profit" money is spent covering other expenses, what about the costs of getting your equipment home? Have you paid the door man? What about cost of drinks? How many of your profits are going out as expenses, at the end of all of this you may only have £20 profit.
When putting on your event how do you know people are going to come to your event? Who are you expecting to be at your event? Is your Drum and Bass rave going to attract an audience of 2000 retired pensioners in a quiet area in the country? Probably not, what kind of people will your event draw in? Use this to your advantage, if you know what kind of audience will be at your event, you can advertise to them. Where do they hang out? If they go to a certain venue a lot, see if you can put up posters in the venue, put them around the local town and at points where people who will be interested might see them. Do they use facebook or other social networking sites? Put up an event, make a group, find some way of finding out who will be actually coming (Remember, the "Attending/Not Attending" section on a facebook event will never be 100% truthful!) You need to sell your event as much as possible if you want it to be a success, this is why you need to be on top of your promotion and marketing for the event. Advertise your event, on the street, on the web, get on to local magazines and papers, make flyers, make posters, spam your contact list with messages, counting down until the big day. Don't just go out and tell every person you see, tell every person who you think might actually be interested.
So, you're going to be putting on an event, and if everything thus far has gone to plan, there should be people coming. But, what if something happens to these people? What if somebody is trampled in a crowd of people and breaks their ankle? What if somebody dies? As the host of the event if you're not careful then something like this going wrong could be your fault, make sure you have public liability insurance, this will cover any costs of damage to the venue or damage to a person, or any damage you may cause to somebody else's property. Making sure you're covered will stop you from getting a nasty lawsuit if something goes wrong. Have you got a PRS contract saying you're allowed to have musicians performing at your venue? If you don't pay for a PRS license you could find yourself having to pay up a hefty sum of royalties, so make sure you invest now, the last thing you want is to be called up about a gig somebody played last year! Is your venue suitable for the disabled? Is there a seated area, is the volume going to be at dangerous levels? Make sure you do the research before just jumping in, or you could find yourself paying up for laws and regulations you never new existed.
Promotion and Marketing will be one of your primary concerns for putting on a gig, this is where a lot of your money will be spent, but if spent wisely, where a lot of money can be made from. If you don't put time into promoting your event, then there will be nobody there, which means all the money you have spent will go to waste. To be a successful promoter you need to cover a lot of ground, it's not necessarily about staying out every night until 9pm, standing in the street, telling anybody who passes by to come to your gig. You need to sit down, and do a little bit of work first. Make up some posters, make it appealing to your target audience, if you're putting on a gig for people aged 16-21 and into Thrash Metal, then take that into consideration, make something that would attract a 16-21 Thrash fan, rather than something they'll walk straight past. Be consistent; use the same materials, if your event has some kind of logo, make sure it is on all of the promotion resources, make sure they all have the sufficient information on, if you're making flyers and posters, make them all follow a similar theme, don't confuse people by putting up different kinds of posters for one event.
If you have planned out where your expenses are going, minimized your unessential spending, budgeted correctly, got yourself a bunch of sponsors, found out who you're target audience is, then put up posters and flyers wherever they might be (And everywhere else too), put an article in your local newspaper (Or college newsletter, if necessary), made a facebook event, invited your friends list, posted on all the music blogs that might be relevant to the area you're holding the event, got yourself insured and tied up any other legal constraints, then you should essentially have yourself a successful event. Although, a successful event is only possible if everybody taking part in it fulfils their role, if the admin team decide they can't be bothered budgeting or cutting expenses, then the whole event will collapse from lack of money. If the promotion and marketing team decide they don't want to tell people about the event, then nobody will arrive and no money will be made. If the legal constraints are just left and somebody gets hurt, you could end up getting sued and losing a whole lot of money. You see, it's very important that anybody that has a role in this event sticks to that role and makes it work, otherwise it can negatively effect everything else that happens in the event.
When putting on your event how do you know people are going to come to your event? Who are you expecting to be at your event? Is your Drum and Bass rave going to attract an audience of 2000 retired pensioners in a quiet area in the country? Probably not, what kind of people will your event draw in? Use this to your advantage, if you know what kind of audience will be at your event, you can advertise to them. Where do they hang out? If they go to a certain venue a lot, see if you can put up posters in the venue, put them around the local town and at points where people who will be interested might see them. Do they use facebook or other social networking sites? Put up an event, make a group, find some way of finding out who will be actually coming (Remember, the "Attending/Not Attending" section on a facebook event will never be 100% truthful!) You need to sell your event as much as possible if you want it to be a success, this is why you need to be on top of your promotion and marketing for the event. Advertise your event, on the street, on the web, get on to local magazines and papers, make flyers, make posters, spam your contact list with messages, counting down until the big day. Don't just go out and tell every person you see, tell every person who you think might actually be interested.
So, you're going to be putting on an event, and if everything thus far has gone to plan, there should be people coming. But, what if something happens to these people? What if somebody is trampled in a crowd of people and breaks their ankle? What if somebody dies? As the host of the event if you're not careful then something like this going wrong could be your fault, make sure you have public liability insurance, this will cover any costs of damage to the venue or damage to a person, or any damage you may cause to somebody else's property. Making sure you're covered will stop you from getting a nasty lawsuit if something goes wrong. Have you got a PRS contract saying you're allowed to have musicians performing at your venue? If you don't pay for a PRS license you could find yourself having to pay up a hefty sum of royalties, so make sure you invest now, the last thing you want is to be called up about a gig somebody played last year! Is your venue suitable for the disabled? Is there a seated area, is the volume going to be at dangerous levels? Make sure you do the research before just jumping in, or you could find yourself paying up for laws and regulations you never new existed.
Promotion and Marketing will be one of your primary concerns for putting on a gig, this is where a lot of your money will be spent, but if spent wisely, where a lot of money can be made from. If you don't put time into promoting your event, then there will be nobody there, which means all the money you have spent will go to waste. To be a successful promoter you need to cover a lot of ground, it's not necessarily about staying out every night until 9pm, standing in the street, telling anybody who passes by to come to your gig. You need to sit down, and do a little bit of work first. Make up some posters, make it appealing to your target audience, if you're putting on a gig for people aged 16-21 and into Thrash Metal, then take that into consideration, make something that would attract a 16-21 Thrash fan, rather than something they'll walk straight past. Be consistent; use the same materials, if your event has some kind of logo, make sure it is on all of the promotion resources, make sure they all have the sufficient information on, if you're making flyers and posters, make them all follow a similar theme, don't confuse people by putting up different kinds of posters for one event.
If you have planned out where your expenses are going, minimized your unessential spending, budgeted correctly, got yourself a bunch of sponsors, found out who you're target audience is, then put up posters and flyers wherever they might be (And everywhere else too), put an article in your local newspaper (Or college newsletter, if necessary), made a facebook event, invited your friends list, posted on all the music blogs that might be relevant to the area you're holding the event, got yourself insured and tied up any other legal constraints, then you should essentially have yourself a successful event. Although, a successful event is only possible if everybody taking part in it fulfils their role, if the admin team decide they can't be bothered budgeting or cutting expenses, then the whole event will collapse from lack of money. If the promotion and marketing team decide they don't want to tell people about the event, then nobody will arrive and no money will be made. If the legal constraints are just left and somebody gets hurt, you could end up getting sued and losing a whole lot of money. You see, it's very important that anybody that has a role in this event sticks to that role and makes it work, otherwise it can negatively effect everything else that happens in the event.
