Major Music Project

In preparation for our final gig called PLAYBACK on the 28th of May, the members of my class including myself were assigned roles to carry out in order for the final gig to be a success. Below is the list of roles that were vital for the performance to be successful as well as the member of the class who carried out that role:

Roles

• Press/PR
• Marketing 
• Art 
• Visuals 
• Lighting 
• Tech spec 
• Social media 

Press/PR

The person in charge of doing the PR was Garnett. The purpose of writing a PR (press release) is to promote an event by letting the press know about it and to encourage them to write about it in their newspapers/magazines etc.
Writing a press release for an event is extremely important in order for it to be successful because on average, roughly 21.7 million people in the UK read a newspaper or a magazine everyday. Judging from that information, if even 5% of that amount of people read a newspaper or a magazine and found out about an event that's happening, it's more likely that more people would attend the event through reading about it in the newspaper that they trust than just through reading a vague description of it on Facebook or Twitter.

Marketing

The people in charge of strategic marketing were Donavon and Yemisi, their role was one of the most important roles as most of the other roles revolved around marketing. Once the posters for the event were made, stating all the key information such as the name of the event, time, location and price, it was up to the marketing team to make sure that the posters were evenly distributed on notice boards and uploaded on social media sites to make sure enough people were aware of the event. Donavon took the promotion further but adding a countdown 5 days before the performance by adding a picture of the stage with the name of the event and what day the countdown was on.
Below is the official countdown poster for the day before the performance as an example of the countdown process:

On the 16th of May, my class and I hosted an event where we performed a set list of songs and afterwards when people started to leave, Donavon notified the audience about the upcoming performance on the 28th in order to promote it further.

Art

The people in charge of the artwork for PLAYBACK were Bianca and Demver, their role was important because without any kind of flier, poster or some sort of visual promotion, the marketing team , the social media team or the person in charge of the PR wouldn't have any hard proof of the event so promoting it would almost be impossible since most people would want solid information about an event before even considering to attend it.
Below is the official poster used to promote our PLAYBACK event.

Visuals

The person in charge of the visual aspects of the event was Dar. Dar created a video showing how our class has progressed over the two years and footage of our past rehearsals leading up the gig. The video was played at the start of the event before the live performances started, below is the official that Dar created:

Lighting

The people in charge of the lighting were Demver and Darlene, their job played quite a big role because certain lighting in a performance can change the mood of the performance. For example, if someone is performing a deep, emotional song and there are yellow and pink lights flashing during the song then it would seem like a joke and not some to be taken seriously.
Both Demver and Darlene asked the performers which colours they would like to shine when they're performing their songs so that it would fit the mood of their songs.

Tech Spec

The people in charge of the tech spec were myself and Shanice. Our job was very important because we had to take a list of all the equipment needed for the gig and then make sure that each piece of equipment was set up in the best position on stage from something as big as a bass amp to something as small as making sure there a guitar plectrums for the guitarists.
Another crucial part of our job was making sure the drum kit and the guitars were tuned properly for the best quality sound.

Social Media

The people in charge of the social media were La-shaun and Caitlyn. Their job was linked to the marketing and was very important because without them, there would be no promotion via social media sites so less people would be notified about the event and there would be a small audience.
La-shaun and Caitlyn have the largest social following in the group because of their musical statuses so this made it a much easier task for them. Posting the official poster for PLAYBACK on Twitter and Facebook combined with having a large social following meant that a lot of people would see it and be able to share it by retweeting it which easily helped promote the gig.

Overall I think the performance was a success. The performance featured different song varying from covers to originals and spoken words. The show at 2pm was a great turn out because a lot of students from similar courses (e.g. Musical Theatre, Drama, Level 2 music) turned up as well as students from all around the college. Cover songs such as Ain't nobody and Say my Name were especially popular with the audience because they were very well-known and appreciated. Although it was a success, I personally think it could've been better, For example, there were a few faults in a few of the songs (e.g. timing issues, forgetting lyrics) but other than that, the 2pm performance went very well.
The 7pm performance was a lot better performance wise, everyone performed very well with a very small number of faults, the only issue this time was the turn out, not as many people as the 2pm performance turned up which was a little disappointing considering that we played a lot better this time.
In future, for a bigger turn out at our next event, whoever is in charge of promoting the event would have to step it up different ways, such as:

• Hiring a group of people (excluding classmates) to promote the event in different environments to hopefully attract an audience that wouldn't mind listening to their usual preferred genre of music.
• Depending on the persons social status, they might be able to get in touch with someone working in a record label to hopefully get them to promote the next event further