As entertaining as live music events can be, a lot of work goes into putting them together. Here are tips for people organizing these events for the first time.
Live music events will be worth $31 billion worldwide by 2022. The live music industry is steadily growing and has proven to be one of the key features of U.S culture.
Music events have become so successful because of the willingness people have to spend money on experiences over material things. Going to a concert is exhilarating but organizing a concert can be difficult to do right, especially on your first try.
Want to put on your own event but don’t know where to start? Keep reading for tips on how to put on live music events!
1. Get the Proper Venue for Your Musical Artists
Choosing the right venue is arguably the most important part of planning live music events. Your aim is to sell out the venue or to get close to that. A rookie mistake for event planning is booking a venue that is too big for the number of people that would actually come to see the musician you booked.
It is better to book a smaller venue and sell out tickets than to book a venue that is too large and not selling enough tickets. It can be upsetting for the artists as well as for the fans to look out into a room that Is half filled.
It is important to note what parking spaces are available if the venue has appropriate acoustics, and if the venue provides a sound engineer or if you have to provide your own.
You can begin to look at theatres, schools, and bars in your neighborhood to inquire about renting. When you’re talking to the managers ask about any restrictions for putting on live events. Decide if you want a standing or sitting venue based on the crowd and the vibe the artists bring, is it more of a band you want to dance and jump around with or something a bit more low-key?
2. Give Yourself Enough Time to Plan
There are a lot of moving parts to organize a live event, so it can become complicated in the blink of an eye. The musical parts of the event are easy in comparison to all the smaller details.
Give yourself three months to properly plan for small-medium events and 6 months to plan for larger-scale events. This is to avoid being days away from an event and realizing you don’t have all the equipment you need to rent out.
3. Know Your budget
This is the most important part of planning a musical event. Knowing what your budget is and being aware of how much you’ve spent so far is the only way of knowing how much profit you ended up with. Set costs for everything and don’t go over your limit. When planning, take into account things like lighting, sound engineers, and security.
4. Know Your Demographic
Appeal to the people who live in your city. You shouldn’t book pop artists in a city that loves metal.
Even if you get an amazing artist, people in your area may not attend if they don’t know who they are or don’t appeal to their music taste. Do some research, who is popular in your city? Look on social media to see what shows have sold out in the past and what local bands have the most followers.
5. Finalize the Date for Your Live Music Event
By this point, you should have an artist or band chosen and have a venue in mind. Now it’s time to set a date for your event. This date will not only be based on the availability of the artist but you should take holidays and other important events happening in your city into consideration.
Setting the date as early as possible is recommended so that you can book your venue, and begin thinking of your marketing strategy for your target audience.
6. Ticket Pricing and Distribution
Because ticketing is how you get paid, it is a very important step in planning a live event. Now that you know your budget, expenses, and the ideal number of people going to the event, factor in an extra margin to cover extra expenses and set your ticket price.
Create various types of tickets ranging in price to give the attendees more options. Setting an early bird ticket at a lower price is a good way of selling tickets early on. Phase two of the ticket purchase should be the full price of the ticket. Phase three should be sold at a higher price because you have fewer tickets.
Make sure that your promotional material clearly states how to attain tickets for the event. Consider these things as well: how will you make the entrance to the venue work? Will you require a printed out ticket or use wristbands or stamps?
Ironing out these details before the event will assure that there will be no confusion for the attendees on the day of the show.
7. Promote your event
Part of organizing an event is making sure people know it’s happening. Do not overlook proper marketing. It’s best to hire a good graphic designer and people who can brand the event and the organization that is throwing it.
Creating a message that is personal and unique that targets the audience you want at your event is not an easy task, it can also be quite difficult to do the proper content distribution.
It is worth looking into a professional content marketing agency such as Motion that will create a marketing strategy, identify your target audience, and customize your content.
Ready to Organize Your First Event?
As you can see, live music events require a lot of attention to detail and foresight. There is a lot of coordination and endless factors you need to plan ahead for but with the proper research and organizational skills, you can pull off a successful event.
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