Tips and how to organise events

What is your experience in organising events?
Do you have any tips or recommendations?
Have you encountered problems while organising events?
Let’s talk!

I’ve done a few! Some thoughts on music-oriented events… Will come back later + add more!

I’ve made this ‘a wiki’ - I haven’t done this before here but assume that means others can edit it too?

Promotion

  • Sell tickets in advance, it helps you gauge how well your promotion is going (even though most will probably shift the day before
  • You can sell tickets on more than one platform (e.g. residentadvisor, eventbrite, locally-focussed ticket website), for extra reach
  • If you find another enthusiastic organiser, cherish them, they’re rare. Lots of people like the idea of organising, not many are up to putting in the all-consuming work of making an event happen
  • Even if you want to have a free party, in some sometimes people are more likely to show up if there’s a low ticket price
  • Having a guestlist is a great promotional tool. Add local influencers/organisers to the guestlist and ask them to help promote. For a first event in an area, this is a good way to build up an audience
  • Encourage other people on the bill to help promote
  • Make a facebook event as a way to spread the word too, although don’t trust that people who click ‘going’ will show up. In the past I’ve stopped promoting an event because I thought too many would show, and then had a pretty empty room
  • Social media boosts are an efficient way of reaching people
  • Collect emails, having a mailing list is still massively more important way to get the word out than social media
  • Make something great and people will be back and bring their friends!

Sound tech

  • If you don’t have a sound engineer, it’s not really rocket science, but
    • Watch out for ‘phantom power’ on mixers. Make sure it’s switched off at all times or everyone’s equipment could be fried
    • If you get nasty hum, try
      • running the laptop without your power plugged in
      • ask for a ‘DI box’ with ‘ground lift’
      • unplugging the HDMI/VGA to see if it goes away…
      • use a usb sound module (focusrite 2i2 is good value)

Money

  • Running workshops can be a better way of raising funds than live events
  • Try not to overload the programme so there’s more to go around (I’m terrible at this)
  • Try to save some money for yourself (also terrible at this)
  • Fundraising via grants etc can be great but I think is different depending on where you are…
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Hi! I started writing a guide to ‘how to put on a gig’ recently… you can take a look on google drive - any suggestions welcome!

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