Director/manager . A director is a person who is in charge of the whole operation they are working on. In my case this is the gig that we are putting on. They make sure that everyone else is doing their job right, which means having a good sense of leadership, confidence and a general knowledge in all the areas of what you’re working on. The scale of my job role is a lot smaller than what the usual director does, however it is still the same job that I am doing.
The skills and jobs that a professional to do are:
- Schedule management
- Personnel management
- Budgeting
- Proactive communication skills
- Problem-solving
- Multitasking and organization
- Leadership
- Networking
(Berklee)
Most of these jobs and skills apply to me for this gig, however some of them are done by someone else as that is their specific job. There is an artist liason so I won’t be dealing with personnel. However, I have been in contact with bands. That is only because I know the local music scene as I am a part of it, so there’s more chance a band will say yes if I ask them. Once the band is confirmed, the artist liason will do the rest. The schedule is decided by everyone, not just the manager. I will need to budget, as we are thinking of splitting the profits between the artists and a charity. So I will need to figure out how we are splitting it and how much each act gets. There is some networking to be done, as I have to write a formal letter to parents and a formal email to staff inviting them to the gig. This is very specific to this gig that I’m doing, as it is a university gig. Most gigs you wouldn’t send a letter inviting people. But I thought to take advantage of the situation that I’m in and get as many people as possible to come down. The rest of what it mentions are skills that I need. I’m not the best at any of the skills it mentioned, however I have played quite a lot of gigs so I have experience of what a gig entails. I am also ready to take on the challenge and I think I can do a good job of it.
“Depending on the organisation they work for, a Concert Manager role may overlap with that of promoter. They may have responsibilities for programming, negotiating deals, budgeting, ticketing, licenses, taxes, work permits, deal memos, contracts, sponsorship, public funding, production, staging and promotion.”(Johnston)
Ususally managers work quite closely with the promoter, as they need to make sure the gig is selling well, the promotion and marketing are of a good quality. But as I am one of the social media managers it works quite well. Managers also work with pretty much everyone who is involved with the gig, as they oversee the whole thing.
“Social media managers are ordinarily responsible for developing strategies to increase followers, creating and overseeing social campaigns, producing content, reviewing analytics, and communicating with key stakeholders in a company. As a social media manager, your specific responsibilities will depend on the size of your company. For example, while many social media managers at larger companies typically approve copy or videos rather than create them, it’s common for social media managers at smaller companies to take on more content creation.”(Coursera Staff)
I will be the social media manager for this gig. This means running all of the social media, which includes Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. As the college is not already established as a venue and it is a one time gig, I will have to make the social media accounts. Usually you wouldn’t do this as a social media manager as it is usually established. I will have help from the events marketing team to create these social media posts.
Skills and jobs I need to do:
Increasing followers and driving engagement
Strategising content and campaigns
Analysing data
Reporting metrics to key stakeholders
Posting and monitoring social media platforms
Writing
Editing
An understanding of social media platforms
An eye for design
Analytical tools
Flexibility
Timeliness
(Coursera Staff)
Some of these I won’t have to do as they are not applicable in my situation. Such as analysing data and reporting metrics to key stakeholders. This is because these only apply to social media managers who are working with a much bigger audience and scale. There and no stakeholders for this gig, and there isn’t any worthwile data to analyse. Also I won’t be needing to do any design work, as there is a graphic design team for this gig. I will need to use the designs they make on the social media posts though. My main job will be arrange when and what to post to the social media platforms, make the videos/posts and then post them on time. I have experience in managing a social media account, as I run The Moors’ instagram account with the help of the rest of the band. So I have a very basic understanding of social media platforms, as well as content creation (which includes writing and editing.) It will still be a challenge as The Moors have an audience, it is just reminding them about the event. However with this gig, I have to build the audience from scratch as well as reminding them. This will be quite a difficult challenge as it is quite difficult to stand out on social media due to the sheer volume of content on it. I think I will do a good job on this as I have some experience doing it and it is a skill and a job I am wanting to learn.
It is not only me who is doing this, both roles are shared with someone else, so even though the work load sounds like quite a lot, it is manageable.
The other jobs that have to be done are: Graphic designer, stage management, event marketing and artist liaison. These jobs all link in to each other, and in some cases would be combined to make just one job. Graphic design, event marketing and social media manager; in a professional setting this is usually done by the same team or the same person, depending on the scale of the event. The jobs have had to be divided to fit in all the students, the only issue with this is if either one of these roles fall behind for whatever reason, it puts all of the promotion on hold. Stage management and artist liaison could also fall under a similar bracket in a professional setting. As once the artist liaison has contacted the artists, they will let the stage management know about their set up and what they would like so the stage management can do their job right.
Evidence of Rehearsals
Project Evaluation
I did quite a lot for this gig, such as my two roles and I also did some liason work. As I am in a band myself, I know other bands and have good contacts with them. So I got the Counting7s to headline this gig, as it was much easier for me to do it rather than the people who had the artist liason role. These are two emails to show contact between me and a member of the Counting7s.
On the social media side, I only posted on instagram and only made two posts. This was due to the events marketing team not helping me with any ideas for these social media posts and I was quite busy. The graphics design team did create a poster, which is what I used for the Instragram posts.
The Counting7s made one post about this gig, as they had some deal going on with how they use their social media accounts, so they couldn’t really help promote this gig. Due to this, and other factors the Counting7s didn’t bring any audience at all. Which is a shame, as they are a good band, they definitely played a good set. However a big reason as to why we were wanting another band is to bring some more audience in. However they didn’t, this is partly my fault as they did mention they weren’t able to promote it. However they did say they could bring some form of audience down. This was just an unfortunate situation that sometimes does happen in these situations. If I were to do this again, I would spend more time communicating with the other bands so that the promotion can be good, and they can hopefully bring some audience with them.
As there was not loads of promotion for this gig, there was not a massive audience for it. It was only really family and friends. There was approximately 30 people there, and it did look quite full with the way the chairs were set out. It wasn’t an issue, and it was a good gig for us and the other university band. It was a shame that we couldn’t promote it well enough to gain a bigger audience. If I was to do something similar to this, I would put a lot more research into social media, and as I mentioned I would work with the other bands a lot more to make sure that we pull off a good event. Also due to it being family and friends of ours that came, after we finished our set many of them decided to leave. This had an affect on the Counting7s set, as they didn’t have an audience really for their set. This wasn’t all to blame on us, as they brought no support, however it isn’t a professional look when all the audience leaves before the headline.
I didn’t do much research for this project, I only researched about job roles. It would have been good if I researched about performance, such as how to conduct myself on stage and how to work on dynamics on a drum kit. Something else I could’ve done is some evaluations of recordings of rehearsals. This would’ve helped me pick out specifically where to improve, and it would also help the rest of the band. The research that I did do wasn’t really that useful, as I didn’t do that much social media stuff but it did help me gain more knowledge about event management.
If I were to do something similar again, I would put a lot more effort into the planning and the events side of it, as that is what has let us down a bit. This could include creating a theme for the event, so that it is less disjointed. Having a theme and a general idea will create a more cohesive event as you know what you want out of it and everyone is on the same page. This gig was just made and we didn’t set out with a plan of what it was going to end up like. A lot more effort would be put into promotion such as research into how to promote on social media successfully and communicating with the other bands to make the promotion the best it can. However I don’t think I would put myself in charge of the social media accounts, as it is not something I am naturally good at, and I think I am better at things such as being a manager. I think on the performance side of it, I did quite a good job, however there are still things I need to work on. I am constantly doing gigs with my band, so things such as dynamics and my stage presence, I will work on anyways. I had fun doing this gig, I enjoyed playing a gig and watching two other bands. I also liked working with a new group of people and look forward to working with them again musically. I didn’t enjoy the management side of it as much, this is due to the fact that not many people were putting effort into it which made us fail on that side of it, and it wasn’t that fun as we didn’t do a great job of it. Event management could be something I have an interest later on in life, I am around gigs all the time in my life and I find it interesting. Performing is something I will continue to do in my life. Social media management wasn’t something I did very well here, and it isn’t something that I would be interested in having a career in. However it is something you can’t avoid, as I will continue to run my bands social media account.
The job roles that we were given, we didn’t really stick to. This was due to us not deciding what we wanted to do and being given roles instead. I did give the artist liasion the contact details of the Counting7s so they could do some work on that, and the graphic designers did a bit of work. There wasn’t much other work done, this was partly due to me and my partner as managers not getting everyone into gear as much as we should. I did try to get people to do stuff, however it is not my strong point. If we were to do this again,I would spend more time in the pre production/planning, as that is something that I think was lacking in this event. As without good planning, you don’t account for the variables. Which means when something eventually goes wrong, there isn’t a back up plan. Good planning just ensures that your event will go smoothly.(Brookes)
We also had specific roles on the night, there were 3 people on the door, 3 people serving drinks and I was “floating around.” This meant that I made sure everyone was happy. I think that we all completed these roles quite well, no audience member or band member was unhappy. What ended up happening is there were more people “floating around” as we didn’t need three people serving drinks and three people on the door. This worked though, and showed good comradery between the group.