During the coronavirus pandemic we have been participating in online lessons and our teacher organised a few industry guests to come and speak to us all about their place in the industry and share their experiences with us,

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The first guest was Gurvinder Sandher and he runs a company called Cohesion, these are my notes from the session:

 

Fundraising is crucial

You can get funding from many places, he gets his from the arts council 

Won’t get the funding straight away will need to get funding for each event 

Stalls are good ways of getting funding

Donations are a good source of funding if your event is free. 

Venue was free, you have to get staging, security, toilets, electricity and bins

Need security there about an hour or so before the event and they will leave a few hours after the event

Starting budget was about £100

Now they are about £20,000

Factor in costs for artists and security

You don’t have to be there on the day of the event

Team of about 15-20 people (stuards, security, backstage stuff, managing stools, social media)

Artistic line up, small budget means not as adventurous, big budget youre more likely to take risks

If you plan something for July you should have contracts out for the end of Feb so you need to have your artists talked to 

If someone is performing you expect them to be there about 3-4 hours early 

Is there free car parking 

Will they get refreshments

Will they get a changing room 

As you move forward you need insurance 

Your artists will need to have insurance 

Risk assessment - provided by you, artists and stool holders 

Share them with the local council 

Safety advisory groups - council, police, nhs, firefighters - they provide feedback and you have to change them 

Even small events have to have risk assessments done

Make sure everyone knows the exits 

Things do go wrong and you need to be prepared for everything 

No members of the public onstage

Marketing is key

Posters, door to door flyers

Social media, YouTube for videos 

Whattsapp, Facebook, Twitter, snapchat, instagram 

Facebook for “elders”

Twitter for artists 

Snapchat for youngers 

Get feedback on artists and the whole event 

Young people get surveys on the day 

Ask for feedback from the artists as well 

Start small and you can replicate that in local communities 

If you want to get involved in the events try to get involved in the pre planning as well as the day of the event

Be flexible with what you do and keep a little bit of budget left over 

Be creative if the pandemic carries on

 

Mobile festivals 

Cheaper to organise, didn't have to hire the staging ect.

Takes place in the town center 

Events run during the busiest time of the shopping in the town center

Looking into social distanced events 

On the day you will get the team to post short clips of the festival and the artists will also need to do this as well 

Sometimes you need instant feedback so the social media updates are good for that

 

Look into doing a chat show on YouTube or something

Good for budget because you don't need anything to be paid

Most successful online events last about an hour and you need to get the event timetabled and fit as much content into the event as possible 

Possibly get the stuff prerecorded 

Possibly look into talking to the people about important things (BLM ect)  

When they first started out they put their own money into the events that they organised, try and get others in to put even only £50 so that its not all on you

Post covid there will be a mixture of online and in person events