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Learning what it takes to start a promotion company 

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Learning what it takes to start a promotion company 

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As I was looking into making my own promotion company and putting my own gigs on, I decided to ask if I could come help out at a Queens Park Sound gig. It was super insightful on what goes on behind the scenes of a show since I have always been at the other end performing at shows I never realised what went into putting them on yourself. After learning about the different roles that are needed such as live sound engineer, photographer, door person and graphic designer, I also learned about the tasks that had to be done prior to the show such as: contacting the venue, finding bands to fit the bill, writing up the load in and set times and creating the gig poster.

Overall I found it to be the best way to learn about putting on a show and had ideas for my own show I plan to put on in the next few weeks. Finally, I was shown how to use a Revolut business account to take payments for tickets and also utilise a ticket app to manage and track tickets sold and who has turned up to the gig.

Here i've included the sound check that I watched during this experience.

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After seeing what it took to start a promotion company I decided my next practical task would be to start organising my own show and promote bands.

The first thing I did was reach out to pipeline about hiring out their space for the show. Thankfully I was contacted very quickly confirming that I could use the space on the date I proposed, I just needed to hire out their PA system and backline.

Once I had confirmed a date with pipeline, I then reached out to three bands that I thought suited the overall vibe and each other. Unfortunately, one of the bands were not available on the day I had organised so I found another to replace them. Once the bands' had all confirmed and I had solidified the date at with the venue it was then time to think about drawing up the details. Here I have attached the email conversation between pipeline and me.

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After having a full bill off bands and a date and venue, it was then time to figure out timings for the night. Pipeline has a very strict load in and sound check time restriction so time was very limited. I sketched out the load in times and the soundcheck times then needed to give each band enough time to pack down and set up between each set- this was not a particularly difficult task, though I needed to ensure that there was more time than less time incase something went wrong. After I had sorted out the timings, I needed to find someone that could do live sound on the date so I contacted a few people and managed to find someone within my budget and who was also free on the day. One of my friends offered to do lighting for free on the day so I saved money there.

I also looked into how I was going to take payments, I decided that Sumup was the easiest option for me so that I could take contactless payments on the day through my phone without a card reader and set that up on preparation for the show.

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The final steps that I had to take before the gig was to design the gig poster and the ticket link for the show. I firstly decided what price to sell the tickets for (£4 in ADV and £6 on the door) and noted down all the important information that was to be put on the poster. I used photoshop to design it as it is easy to get different aspect ratio's for instagram. Once the poster had been designed I double checked it with the bands to ensure that they were happy with the design. After everyone was happy and making a few tweaks to the font, I started on the ticket link. I decided to use Eventbrite as it was the easiest to set up. Now with around 10 days until the gig we were ready to promote and send out the poster.

I had been keeping in regular contact with the bands about information about the show, ie what the backline was and about promoting the show- everyone was great at putting the gig poster on their story's and sending it to group chats.

unfortunately, the gig takes place a day before the due date for the project so I cannot document the outcome although I feel as though this demonstrates a great example for my practical exploration.