Bringing Club Nights from Criminal Records Company to the West Midlands in the UK - Case Study Example

Work based project report Project: Introduction of club nights to the West Midlands by Criminal Records Role: Assistant Project Manager 0 Introduction This is a work based report for bringing Club Nights from Criminal Records Company to the West Midlands in the UK. This is a project on which I worked as part of a team during my placement at the company. The report outlines the working environment of Criminal Records Company, the event, its background and aims, its outcomes, and concludes with lessons learnt. 1.1 Criminal Records Company Criminal Records is an alternative music record label which was formed in 2004. Since then the label has signed a number of bands and artists in a proactive attempt to support a new music scene that has emerged in the UK in within the last five years called underground music. Since its formation, the company has been heavily involved in the promotion of bands. Criminal Records ethos has always revolved around cultivation of talent, real talent that is organic unlike technology-induced productions. Today, the company is proud of the successes of its roster of musicians and has enjoyed the growth and widespread promotion of the music the artistes make. Some of the successes that the company has attain include collaborations in America, Japan and across Europe, selling out most of its UK tours, major TV coverage for its music videos and countless radio playlists, great reviews and inclusion of its music in TV, film and gaming sites (Criminal Records, 2013). 1.2 Work Description The work allocated to me while on placement at Criminal Records includes the following tasks; 1) Finding venues for events and managing the venue database 2) Researching and keeping up-to-date analyses of competitors 3) Analyzing and monitoring the targeted market for Company events 4) Planning for marketing activities for Company events Apart from the above tasks allocated to me and a number of other workers, I am also expected to carry out other tasks as may be allocated to me by the marketing manager in the Publicity Department, where I am designated. The tasks above are also to be carried out by a team in the department in which I am part and thus I am not working alone in accomplishing them. 1.3 The Work-based project Bringing Club Nights from Criminal Records Company to the West Midlands in the UK is a project that was conceived by the company several weeks to its realization and in which I was included from the planning phase to its implementation. The project mainly involves introduction of ‘Club Nights’ to the West Midlands area of the UK. Club Nights is a musical product from Criminal Records which is mainly based on the popular culture of ‘Clubbing’ but introduces a new aspect of different modern music mainly from unknown underground musicians with extraordinary talent. During the entire project a project team of members from different departments of the company plans, organizes and implements the project. I am a member of the event marketing team, a smaller team forming part of the whole organizing framework. This includes research and organization for publicity, advertisement and invitation of people to the event. The event itself involves a night of club music and dance in the West Midlands area in which our company’s artistes will present to the participants their new style of musical art in a number of performances running for three hours of a night. The project organization scales the whole range of arrangements for a music event from venue arrangement, music preparation, invitations to security and logistics. 1.4 Background of the Event Club Nights is one of the events organized by Criminal Records for music lovers in the larger cities in the UK, predominantly in the South East. The culture of Club Nights has been popular in London for a long time being a large city with countless traditional and contemporary forms of music being performed. However, in the past few years Criminal Records has introduced a new musical performance product targeting the new generation of youth in the City and beyond. The product is basically a new variety of music called ‘alternative music’ that includes a number of styles like rap, indie, rock, funk and others all expressed in a new unique way. Club nights are organized and run by Criminal Records in London and other large cities on a weekly basis mostly during weekends. The company makes use of these events to market and popularize its new breed of alternative music artistes by giving them priority during performances in these events; however, other artistes are also invited from time to time with the aim of creating links and enriching the scenes. This particular event will take place in Brighton, which is in the West Midlands of the UK with groups of musicians and students being invited from nearby towns like Wolverhampton and Birmingham. The event will basically be an extension of what has been happening in London and nearby cities for a while now, club nights of alternative music performances involving Criminal Records artistes and others. The event is the first strategic move at introduction of this form of entertainment culture in the West Midlands where it is yet to penetrate and open up a market for the company and its artistes. The West Midlands of the UK is one of the areas which have always been a bit conservative and in which pop culture has been slow at penetrating, however, the young generation find new art forms interesting and have been excited and receptive towards such new varieties in the recent past. Criminal Records basically wants to utilize this good will to introduce club nights to this particular group. 1.5 Aims and Objectives of the Event The event had the following aims and objectives; 1) To provide a great entertainment experience for the attendees of the club night event. 2) To introduce the popular culture of club nights to audiences in the West Midlands of England. 3) To promote alternative music and artistes from Criminal Records. 4) To bring together as many music groups and students as possible with the aim of opening up a new market for Criminal Records’ products. 2.0 Event Management 2.1 Defining an Event What is an event? There is little agreement on standardized terms of defining an event or categories of events. A useful starting point when looking at definitions and terminology is The Chambers Dictionary (1998) which defines an event as: any incidence or occurrence especially a memorable one; contingency or possibility of occurrence; an item in a programme (of sports, etc); a type of horse-riding competition, often held over three days, consisting of three sections, i.e. dressage, cross-country riding and show-jumping. It can be concluded from this definition that the term event may be viewed in a variety of ways, with other texts and dictionaries offering similar definitions. The Accepted Practises Exchange (APEX), Industry Glossary of terms (CIC, 2005) defines an event as an organised occasion such as a meeting, convention, exhibition, special event, gala dinner etc (Bowdin et al, 2011). All the definitions for an event from the dictionaries including the Oxford dictionary are similar in many ways. Although the definitions are rather general, they indicate the most basic understanding of the term event. Events are portrayed as being special, sometimes occurring out of the routine, and mainly memorable happenings. Definitions of events are also found in various books depending on the context and area of coverage of the books. One book, ‘Event Studies’ defines an event as ‘an occurrence at a given place and time; a noteworthy occurrence; and a special set of circumstances’ (Getz, 2007). It is evident that for our purposes, the first and second definitions are more appropriate. By definitions an event always has a beginning and an end, and always has a series of different parts in the schedule. The event always also confined to a special environment in a particular place, either indoor or in the open. The entire above mentioned are characteristics of an event, all of them are quite important in creating a special experience for the participants of the event. An event can have any aim or objective and most events serve more than one objective at the same time. One objective that may be served by an event is that one of marketing. Many events serve the function of marketing either directly or indirectly. Events have been described as special events that can activate the impulse of participants (Consumers) through live experiences and therefore help a company achieve its marketing objectives (Bowdin, 2006). Similarly, events offer a good opportunity for messages to be transmitted about a product or the host company. Events are a good opportunity for consumers to engage with a specific product or company over a considerable period of time, they have been indicated to be particularly useful when the ‘practical’ product itself is demonstrated in the event or if the experiential character of the product itself is associated with the event (Kotler et al., 2008). This is a definition that is well in tandem with the aims and purposes of the Club Nights event by Criminal Records in which the experience of the participants is supposed to market the products and services of the company to the potential customers through introduction of a new and captivating product. 2.2 Event Management The approach of project management is widely acceptable and has been utilized in event management throughout the world. The definitions and characteristics of a project can greatly assist in the understanding of an event. A project has been described by the project Management Institution as a temporary endeavour that is undertaken to create a unique product, service or result (Zhi, 2007). A project is characterized by having a clear objective and an expected result; the execution of the project consists of accomplishment of interrelated tasks that make up the project; various resources including human resources should be input; and finally the project must be a one-time endeavour. These requirements exactly place the event organized in Birmingham by Criminal Records within the definition of a project. The event will take place on the one night for three hours, there is a project team to plan for it and resources have been allocated both for the planning phase and the implementation phase, this firmly places this event within the definition of a project. 2.3 Entertainment event management As has already been outlined in the definition of an event, there are many types of events. Events can be broadly placed into three different categories; mega-events, medium events, and micro-events (Bowdin, 2006). Entertainment events like the one being organized by my company, Criminal Records fall under the category of medium events as illustrated in figure 1 below; Figure 1: Types of events: Medium events (Goldblatt, 2005) Medium events are not planned or organized at having the greatest power impact like mega-events, however they are considerably big. Normally, medium events are regional, organizational or national activities by nature. Most such events are planned although in the case of nature events, some occur spontaneously providing occasions for various different human activities (Goldblatt, 2000). The success of medium events depends on their status, uniqueness, or their timely significance according to the intentions of their planners to create interest and attract attention (Bowdin, 2006). The Club Night event in which I am involved in the organization falls under the banner of a culture-event, being a musical event. The musical event is a reflection of the progressive transformation of the music entertainment scene in the UK over the years. Modern music and dance culture is coming up with the new generation bringing to the forefront music forms such as alternative music, which is now being promoted by Criminal Records and which will be largely showcased in the event in Brighton during the time of the great escape. As an assistant in the management of the event (Project) I am expected to perform a number of functions that fall under the general description of event management, these functions are being carried out in conjunction with members of the entire team for the organization of this event. Event management can generally be defined as the activity of organizing a group of people and resources to achieve a desired event, the activity actually falls within the well established principles and roles of management including planning, organizing, leading, coordinating and controlling (Olum, 2004). My role in the management of this event falls within the precepts of the five principles of management, I am involved in planning, organizing, providing leadership in event publicity, coordinating participation and controlling a number of aspects as designated to me by my senior. Event management is a whole new profession now with the growth in magnitude of events globally and the professionalism required in managing them (Goldblatt, 2005). 2.4 Event Product The event product is a unique blend of activities, which are the tools for achieving the overall event aims and satisfying customer needs. Event design should be customer oriented, and event organizers should create a mix that satisfies the largest number of potential customers. Getz (2000) points out that many events suffer from a product orientation that is, they try to sell their event with little or no regard for what potential customers need, want or will pay for. In the case of our event, the product is supposed to be entertainment through music and dance and all our planning goes to ensuring that we meet and even exceed the expectations of the customers (Attendees in this case). 2.5 Event marketing and my role in marketing the Club Nights event in Brighton Event marketing involves the informative and sensational advertisements created for an event (product or service) that a company intends to hold, targeting a particular market (Stevens, 2008). Event marketing must therefore be integrated into the communication concept of the company; it is only in this way that the coordination between the event marketing and other communications instruments of the company in terms of content and time can be guaranteed. For these reasons, event marketing cannot be an exclusively independent strategy but it must work as part of the communication mix of the company (Stevens, 2005). In the case of the event we are marketing for Criminal Records, the event marketing is a strategy that makes use of all the communication outlets of the company so as to reach as many customers as possible. These include direct invitations through e-mail, networking through e-mail and social networking sites, radio, television, internet, and in some cases telephone and fax. Basically integrated event marketing communications involves the identification of the target audience and realization of a well-coordinated promotional program to obtain the desired response. The event-marketing communications focus on immediate awareness about the event, image, preferred goals in the target market and management of customer relationship over the long term. For this reason the marketing of the Club Nights event in Brighton is viewed also as attracting new customers and enthusiasts to the company and its music products, as well as creating long lasting connections and networks with fans, musicians and bands. 3.0 The operating environment of Criminal Records Formed in 2004, Criminal Records is mainly involved in the promotion of bands and artistes producing alternative music. The company boasts a wealth of talent working for it in the form of entertainment managers, producers, studio managers, event managers and organizers, promoters and many other players needed in ensuring the successful running of a music production and marketing label. The company working environment is further enriched with quality equipment and good working space both for staff and artistes. 3.1 SWOT Analysis (Internal Environment) Strengths Criminal Records as a company has a number of strengths that boost it as a music label and make it a strong player in the entertainment industry both in the UK and globally. The first strength lies in its excellent human resource which consists of workers that have been sourced and employed on the basis of high qualification, talent and deep experience. In all the departments, the heads and most people working under them are people of exceptional quality when it comes to the music industry. The second strength is a good financial base for its operations; the company has healthy financial books and access to capital for investment and operations. The company has also invested in quality infrastructure to enable its operations to run smoothly and produce the best music. However, the greatest strengths of the company are mainly its artistes and its national reach. The company is working with highly talented artistes who get the best assistance to produce high quality music. On the other hand the label has a good national and even global reach for its products. Weaknesses The main weakness that Criminal Records faces is that great competition between artistes working with the label sometimes makes it difficult to satisfy all the musicians and disagreements come up every now and then. Most artistes have work that they would like to produce at a faster rate and also expect that their work will be distributed mush faster, artistes also expect to perform much more regularly than is possible. This is mainly a weakness of capacity which the company needs to address though rapid expansion which requires considerable resources. Opportunities There are many opportunities within the company for growth and improvement. The first opportunity is that there are many great workers within the company who are willing to work over the top especially with artistes to produce more and improve the quality of performance. Another opportunity is that the company is working with financial institutions that understand the market and are ready to finance expansion and growth of the company. Threats The main threat to the operations of Criminal records comes from upcoming competitors who have been attracted by the pioneering success of Criminal records in promoting alternative music in the UK and are coming up to compete for a share in the market. A number of labels have come up in the past few years to offer stiff competition to Criminal Records. 3.2 PEST Analysis (External Environment) Political factors Criminal Records is affected by a number of political factors in its business and activities. First, the music production, distribution and promotion industry in the UK and globally is transforming quickly due to technological and cultural changes. This has necessitated the UK government to come up with various different legislations and regulations affecting the business of music labels, new regulation and legislation affect issues such as music production and distribution, music performance permits in relation to environmental considerations e.g. noise e.tc. Alternative music is also known to have political undertones in some cases; this is a major source of friction with authorities although various freedoms have been guaranteed in law. Economic factors Economic factors affecting Criminal Records relate mainly to affordability of music and the capacity of consumers to afford music especially in the wake of the global financial crisis. Due to hard economic times, many young people, who are the major consumes of the music by Criminal Records find themselves increasingly unable to purchase as much music and they wish or attend many club nights for example. Production and promotion costs have also risen in the past few years due to the escalation of costs in almost all sectors of the industry. The main problem for the company now is to balance between the costs for production, promotion and event management with the music and event pricing so as to allow more people to consume the music. Socio-cultural factors Social-cultural factors in the UK and many places in the world have mainly favoured the operations of the music label; in fact social-cultural factors played a large part in the formation of the company. The transformation of pop culture and the changing music tastes among the young generation is the main factor that has contributed towards the growth of alternative music all over the world. This has made it possible for Criminal Records to come up and reach audiences it could not have reached in the past one decade or so. This socio-cultural change favours the growth of the industry and enables Criminal Records to cut a niche in the entertainment industry for itself. Technological factors Technological factors have also largely played to the favour of Criminal Records label. Constant growth and improvement in technology has encouraged developments within the music production and promotion industries that make it much easy for the company to produce music, record and market its music and events. Modern production facilities make work easy and improve the quality of music while on the other hand the internet makes it possible to sell music online, advertise music and company activities and market events. Computer networking also enables the company to manage its activities easily and communicate with its customers constantly. 4.0 The project and its outcomes 2 4.1 The Event The event, called ‘The Impossible Escape’ will take place on the night of Tuesday 14th May 2013 in the basement bar of The Latest MusicBar, Brighton. This will be a Criminal Records showcase of its musicians, their music and dance, and it will take place between 8 pm and 11 pm. 4.2 The event Product The event product will constitute mainly of entertainment by a number of Crime Records artistes who will be performing various alternative music shows for three hours. The sessions will include a whole array of alternative music showcases ranging from rap to rock accompanied by dance and disco sessions led by DJ’s from the company. 4.4 My role in management of the event and project challenges Working as a member of the project (event) promotion team, I have several roles allocated to me to play as an individual and also working with the team. The first role I had was to identify potential guests for the event and update the relevant database with their details for communication. I am then supposed to send out messages to the identified participants and generally advertise the event through friends, social network connections and members of bands. The methods I am applying include social network (Skype, Facebook, Twitter, and Google+). I also call some of my friends or send them e-mail with the right message for them to spread word and invite other friends and groups. As part of the publicity and marketing team, we have come up with an advertisement of the event through Facebook where interested people can log in and confirm their attendance. Other activities include doing phone calls and designing posters for the event. Figure 2: Image of the Facebook page for the event 4.3 Expected project Outcomes As a company the expectations attached to this event are big considering that similar events organized by Criminal Records have always been successful. We expect that the venue will be filled to capacity and that most of the invitees will arrive for the event. Most important we expect that the attendees, whom we consider company guests and customers, will be satisfied and fully entertained by the event. The main expectation however is that this event will reach its aims and objectives sufficiently and increase the attraction of the Mid Western England to alternative music. The guests that will turn up for the event are considered as ambassadors to spread the word to fellow students, bands and pop enthusiasts about alternative music and the great music produced by Criminal Records so that demand for similar events and music can increase in that area. This is supposed to help the company in its objective of establishing a new robust market for its products in this region of the country just like the one it commands in London and its environs. My expectation and that of the entire publicity team is that we will reach sufficient people to elicit a good response so to our event. Over and above that we also expect to link up with a good number of new friends, bands and other important connections in the Mid Western area so that we can grow our database and have people to work with in the future in that part of the country. We also hope to recruit a few more ambassadors of our message to the area. 5.0 Challenges, Lessons learnt and Conclusion 5.1 Challenges and lessons learnt The main challenge we are facing as the publicity team in marketing of this event is that we do not have sufficient connections in the Mid Western area of England, especially in Brighton. Although other methods are being used in publicity for the event, it would have been great to find people residing in the area with whom we have worked with before so as to launch a greater ‘personal’ campaign. It is however encouraging that we have been able to reach out to a few people who are very committed to the cause and are doing a great job. As an individual on placement I have learn a number of great lessons about practical event management and organizational working as well. I now know the rigors and demands of practical event organization especially the challenges involved in long distance organization. I have also learnt the importance of good interpersonal relationship in event organization and publicity. I have been able to exercise my communication skills and can now effectively use an array of communication means for advertisement and publicity. 5.2 Conclusion This report highlights event organization, its meaning and application in the entertainment industry apart from detailing my placement experience as a student working in Criminal Records Company. My experience as part of a publicity team has been an eye opener in terms of practical application of theoretical skills and the general functioning of an entertainment company. Bibliography Bowdin, Alenn et al. (2006). Events Management, 2nd edition. Oxford. Elsevier Ltd. Bowdin, Allen, Johnson OToole, William Harris, Richard McDonnell (2011). Events Management third edition. Butterworth-Heinemann publications. Criminal Records (2013). Criminal Records Company information. 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