Music & Arts: “Act Locally” Benefit Concert
By Nick Corsi

FINALLY – SOME OUTDOOR MUSIC!

This past Thursday at the University of Pittsburgh, our Habitat for Humanity Chapter put on a Benefit Concert. As a University chapter, we have a long term goal of eventually sponsoring the entire cost of a Habitat home. This goal will see its fruition in years to come, but the fund raising is ongoing and provides a slow but steady stream of income to the account. Each year our Benefit Concert provides for this goal and also acts as a capstone event for the year.

PLANNING

My first stab at leading a team in planning a concert was both fulfilling and humbling.  The event was a total success, we made money towards our goal, the night went smoothly, and all in attendance enjoyed themselves. However, I learned massive amounts about the

grunt work ahead of time. Some of this is mentioned in my past articles on event planning,

however a few things weren’t.

SPONSORING

We didn’t want to charge for attendance, the concert took place on a campus lawn and we couldn’t afford adequate gate security.  Aside from asking for straight donations – which worked well, we wanted to incorporate a raffle. One of co-planners took it upon herself to write to a handful of local businesses, most of which offered gift cards, gift certificates, gift bags, coupon packs, and food donations. Following up on solicitation letters was key in acquiring the all the potential raffle prizes and free food.

Need sponsors? Don’t be afraid to ask! And remember to follow up and reciprocate with logos on promotional materials and proper attention during the event.

KEY TO A SMOOTH EVENING

Given my background in sound engineering, I was able to interface with the bands and the tech crew at the University of Pittsburgh.  But having a smooth evening doesn’t rely on the music alone.  Volunteers running food tables, raffle tables, donation buckets, decorating, setup and tear down are the lifeblood of the event.  As the planner of the event, allowing all these people to do their jobs and providing them with what they need is what makes the difference between a well oiled machine and one person running around micro-managing.

“ACT LOCALLY”

This past Thursday, folk guitarist Mark Williams, soul keyboardist Joy Ike, and funk rock band “The Jungle” provided an atmosphere of fun for a worthy cause. The tagline of the concert was “Act Locally,” all the money raised will go towards helping our Habitat Chapter Sponsor the entire cost of a habitat home in Pittsburgh.  This is a long term organizational goal that gets chipped away little by little every year. I would like to thank anyone who made it out to the concert, and also anyone who supports or who has worked with Habitat for Humanity. An organization that leads through enablement rather than charity, “Habitat isn’t a hand out, it is a hand up.”

Nick has been working with Habitat for Humanity since for 4 years. He has gone on 3 alternate Spring Breaks with the chapter at the University of Pittsburgh.  As he graduates, he will truly miss the great people who have been apart of this initiative at Pitt. Habitat has provided friends, fulfillment, fun, and a wealth of experience, it will be part of his life for years to come.

music & arts: Entry 3 of 3 in Music Festival Event Planning

MUSICAL FESTIVAL PLANNING

This post is the third and final in a series of 3. I have been exploring the planning of music festivals through the insights of one of Erie PA’s best event planners, Tammy Roche. Check out the first article “Music Festival: It’s All About Creation” and the second “Music Festival: It’s All About the Music.”

TIME TO MAKE IT HAPPEN

So far we have talked about planning committees, music selections and event strategy…all that is left is to make it happen. The final installment of Music Festival planning focuses on some of the logistical issues that are faced when planning and implementing a music festival.

WHO IS GOING TO PAY FOR IT?

There are a couple possibilities for revenue streams to fund a festival:

• sponsorship
• donations
• Ticket Sales (if you choose to charge)
• Internal Festival Business such as concessions, merchandise, or alcohol sales (with a valid liquor license!)

The utilization of any or all of these possible fund raising entities is dependent on the community you are offering the event to, the overall goal of the festival, the atmospheric context of the festival, and the available resources your team can utilize.

TICKET SALES

Tammy talked about ticked sales briefly, she said to think of it in terms of “What are the attendees getting?” If the festival is adding value to the community, the attendees should recognize this. The event is not a burden but an enrichment, and maybe a $5 or $10 wristband for two isn’t going to break the bank to enjoy multiple musical acts over the course of a weekend.However sometimes a community has some generous sponsors that are willing to provide part of the necessary funds. Both of or a combination of these options should be seriously considered and thought out.

INTERNAL FESTIVAL REVENUE

As for internal revenue streams such as concessions or festival branded vendors, Tammy alluded to an event a few years ago, “Celebrate Erie,” an event that bring upwards of 50,000 people.  In order to raise funds, the festival planning committee acquired a temporary liquor license and became the exclusive alcohol provided for the entire event. The operation relied heavily on volunteers to man the stations, but in the end, it brought in approximately $13,000 to the festival. A testament to creative options of fundraising within the confines of your festival planning teams and volunteers.

PRODUCTION = PREPARATION

When planning small events the most forgotten or neglected item of planning is production.  Sometimes this can be thrown together at the last minute for small bar shows, but not for large scale festivals. Planning production can be done a few ways, but Tammy utilizes a hired production manager for a flat fee. By doing this all the lighting, sound, and staging is ideally taken care of. The production manager will hire, communicate, and coordinate all the production personnel before and during the event.  He or she will also act a liaison to the bands, their managers, and their personal traveling technical personal (i.e. their “sound guy”). I cannot stress this particular communication enough.  Having the band information ahead of time does wonders for sound engineers that are trying to coordinate multiple days of fast paced stage changes with people they have never worked with before. It is important to remember that a festival is not a well oiled touring act. Typically the musicians and production personnel don’t know each other, and they need to come together to set up the stage, sound check and play within a matter of 10 – 15 minutes. When the crew has input lists, stage plots, monitor assignments and any other pertinent performance information ahead of time, it makes the day much smoother and enjoyable for everyone.

MORE LOGISTICS – DEALING WITH THE DAY

One of Tammy’s keys to succeeding on game day is being and early and being ready.  Anyone who has worked in any live situation whether it is event planning or performance knows STUFF GOES WRONG! The measure of a planner or a performance engineer isn’t how you act when everything goes to plan, it is how you step up when things go wrong. Tammy gave a few pieces of advice to deal with the multitude of issues before they arise.

1. The Binder- Tammy keeps a binder with her at all times and a copy at the event    headquarters that is packed with information. Every contact and contract including vendors, utilities, artists, performers, emergency, volunteers, suppliers, sponsors, etc since the beginning stages of planning is with Tammy all throughout the event. At any given time a contract can be pulled for verification or supplier can be notified for an emergency order.
2. Start Early- Arrive with your team as early as possible, check and double check.  The earlier you show up, the quicker you switch those butterflies to adrenaline because you are making it happen.
3. Lead- You have your committees and volunteers in place. Let them do their jobs and help them help themselves.
4. Keep as calm as possible- No doubt easier said than done, but when problems arise, dwelling on what is not in place or not working does nothing to solve the problem at hand. Experience and personality type is often an important indicator with how to deal with stressful situations, but cool heads will be the savior of any crisis situation.
Tammy says her personality lends itself out to dealing with high amounts of situational stress. Over time you learn to call upon your resources, experience, and creativity to deal with stress. There will definitely be breakdowns along the way, but remember the people you have around you and try to remember what you still got working when it seems like everything is breaking.

BEING A LEADER, THE TOUGH PARTS

As leaders in business, making those hard decisions provide some of the most difficult and stinging lessons, but they are necessary.

As an event planner, sometimes you need to make the call. Deciding on shutting something down because of a unruly crowd or stopping the show because of unsafe weather may not be the most attractive idea to a lot of people, but remember that you are thinking about many more variables such as safety and well-being. No one has fun when situations are dangerous. Be as accommodating as possible, but remember to act when necessary, even when it may seem unfavorable, in the end you did what had to be done.

A SPECIAL THANK YOU

I would like to thank Tammy Roche for providing a great interview and some fantastic insights. There is no doubt I have learned more about event planning and my craft as a sound engineer through writing this series of posts and talking with Tammy.

Check out the Erie Art Museum’s Website

The Blues and Jazz Festival is one of Nick’s favorite gigs at Raven Sound. Not only is it amazing to experience the atmosphere and music, it is just as great to be apart of it. His experiences in festival situations have illuminated the importance of preparation and quick thinking when working on stage. Lessons he no doubt owes to his fellow engineers and mentors at Raven.

Work Hard, Take It Easy

Nick Corsi

Follow Me on Twitter: NickCorsi

music & arts:Entry 2 of 3 in Festival Event Planning

MUSIC FESTIVAL PLANNING

This blog post is the second in a series of 3. It is a look into musical festival planning through the insights of one of Erie PA’s best event planners, Tammy Roche. If you haven’t read the first article, “Event Planning: Its All About the Creation,” check it out here.

WHAT IS THE CORNERSTONE OF A MUSIC FESTIVAL?

The music! Tammy has an entire committee dedicated to band and art sit selection, communication, negotiation and booking.  When you are planning on booking any acts, it is best to start as early as possible; especially if you are trying to acquire a national act.  Once the contact is made, the rest is all about striking the deal and following through.

ACQUIRING MUSIC

Typically with a national act, you need to get in contact with the agent. A lot of times, musicians will provide the contact information on their website, or the promoter of the event, pending their experience, may have a rolodex of contacts.  After making contact with the representing agent, Tammy’s music committee establishes themselves and their purpose.  The first two things that are brought up are availability and range of performance fee. These two pieces of information are the first cut off in whether or not that musician will be booked for your event.

WORK AND WHITTLE

The music committee, and whomever handles the festival finances, has an idea of their price range for performers.  This criteria is used to whittle down the multiple contacted artists into a pool within which a verbal agreement is made and immediately after, a written offer is sent. A similar process is used for regional and local acts, but typically, the contacts are not agents but band members or close relatives that act as managers.

TYPICAL CONTRACTS

Once verbal commitments are made, a legal contract is drawn up and processed.  Some of the clauses included in a performer’s contract could include:
- back line and provided instrumentation
- a technical rider and requirements for the PA
- hospitality including transportation, hotel, food, alcohol, etc
- merchandise sales
- promotion
- recording rights

A lot of times contracts will include a cancellation clause. It is really important to look at this line of the contract. This clause could specify weather, or stage conditions in which the performer WILL NOT have to perform. Make sure you check this or your show may not go up due to a small drizzle!

MUSIC = EXPERIENCE

The music you pick will be the ultimate vibe setter at the festival.  It is what will set your event apart from any other experience. People don’t often remember the vendors or promotions that went into the event. They remember the show that they saw! So keep the music in mind when planning all aspects of the festival.

Event Planning: Its All About the … Planning – Next week’s post will focus on logistics, people movement, and how to handle the actual day of the event.

The Blues and Jazz Festival is one of Nick’s favorite gigs at Raven Sound. Not only is it amazing to experience the atmosphere and music, it is just as great to be apart of it.

Work Hard, Take It Easy

Nick Corsi

Follow Me on Twitter: NickCorsi

music & arts: Entry 1 of 3 in Festival Event Planning

WITH WARM WEATHER COMES SWEET SOUNDS

Believe it or not, the summer is actually coming, and nice weather means one thing for music…outdoor concerts! But these concerts don’t just grow out of fields and shutdown streets, they grow from the fertile soils of hard work, teamwork and planning.

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing one of Erie, PA’s premiere event planners, Tammy Roche, Director of Marketing and Development at the Erie Art Museum. Each year the Art Museum puts on a fantastic Blues and Jazz Festival at Frontier Park in Erie, PA. Tammy plans the whole thing and has been nothing but successful. Here are her insights into outdoor festival event planning.

THE BASICS

We are assuming that the concert is an existing event, that is, it occurred last year.  For a multi-day event, Tammy is typically in the planning stages 9 months ahead of time. Planning starts with a debriefing for the previous year.  The team discusses issues such as the overal success and areas for improvement.  Once the initial bumps have been ironed, its time to be proactive.

“I want the event to be unlike any other event in the community” – Tammy Roche

COMMITTEES AND CATEGORIES

Planning is done with committees, by leveraging expertise and talent, more work is done, and it is done by qualified and passionate individuals. This is the key to event planning is being a facilitator, the  overall genius comes through individual contributions. In order to direct the proper talent to the proper outlet, the event is broken down into categories.  Normally there are sub-committees for each category:

• Music
• Logistics/Technical
• Vendors
  Crafter/Artisan Subcommittee
• Food/Alcohol
• Community Programming
• Promotional

MEETINGS AND CONTRIBUTION

After committees are established, a regular meeting schedule is derived within which tasks are created and feedback is required from everyone at every meeting. According to Tammy, the key to productive and effective event planning meetings is to make everyone feel like the are contributing … everyone leaves with a task and everyone reports back.

CREATING THE EXPERIENCE

Planning a cultural event needs to have some strategy behind it. Typically, Tammy thinks in terms of: “What does this event bring to the community?” The planning team must decide how the event will be something unique, fresh and new, and most importantly, something that you can’t always experience.  Thinking about the goal of the event is important. It is where the blue print for the experience comes from. Some goals include cultural development, community economic development,  or a cultural/charitable benefit.

DOWN TO BUSINESS

Once the entire committee is on the same page about strategy and goals, the rest of planning has a benchmark with which to work from. Everything from venue, music selection, vendor selection and gate payment will be build from the strategy.

EARLY PRIORITIES

Let the planning process truly begin. The proper committee proceeds by locking down the venue as far in advance as possible. Typically, with an ongoing festival, this is done immediately after the THIS year for the NEXT year.  Then permitting and ordinances need to be worked out.  If it is a public park or location, the proper public leaders need to contacted to establish logistical items such as parking, restroom facilities, after dark permits, electricity, noise, etc.

EVENT PLANNING – ITS ALL ABOUT THE MUSIC

The next step is the musical experience. Next week’s blog will completely focus on the musical aspect of the festival.  We will explore selection, booking, contracts, and production.

The Blue and Jazz Festival is one of Nick’s favorite gigs at Raven Sound. Not only is it amazing to experience the atmosphere and music, it is just as great to be apart of it.

Work Hard, Take It Easy

Nick Corsi

Follow Me on Twitter: NickCorsi

music & arts: ode to event planners

CONCERTS: MORE THAN THE MUSIC

Have you ever gone to a concert or festival with ONLY music? You may think yes, but if music was all that you noticed, it is because some event coordinator really did his or her job. The performers on stage are not the only ones at work behind the success of an event, many more forces are at work.

WHAT KIND OF EVENT ARE YOU PLANNING?

Festival? Arena Concert? Benefit Concert? Music Series? Club Show? All of these types of music outlets lend themselves to different types of planning, communications, and protocols.  However, most of them share common threads. Here is a very broad overview of the common components shared by all music events.

WHERE TO BEGIN? WHERE TO GO?
Here are a few items that go into planning a music event:
1. Who is putting on the concert?
2. Artist
3. Venue
4. Promotion
5. Production
6. Contracts and payment
7. Vendors/Artist Merchandise
8. Ticket Sales or Donations
9. Police and Security
10.”DAY OF” Logistics

ASK THE PROS
Read next week’s blog, as I will be providing insights from Tammy Roche, one of Erie PA’s best event coordinators. Her resume includes Erie’s most crowd attracting and prominent events: The Erie Art Museum’s Blues and Jazz Festival, First Night Erie, and “Celebrate Erie,” which has been know to bring crowds of over 50,000 people.  She was gracious enough to provide me with her experiences and methods of planning outdoor music festivals. To anyone who is involved with event planning, music production, or community development, you will not want to miss it.

We will explore planning stages, location and production logistics, artist contracts, and much more!

Nick has been interfacing with event planners since he has begun working at Raven Sound. Learning the art of the coordination people, companies, and equipment is something he has started to learn through live production and working with some of Erie’s most talented individuals.

Work Hard, Take It Easy

Nick Corsi