While the event itself doesn’t really come under the remit of this blog I think this video publicising the Epic Skate Park Beer Festival that was posted on YouTube is really interesting.
One of the biggest stumbling blocks for people putting on events is, I think, reputation. If you have a big name draw or a well known brand (such as Capsule’s Supersonic festival being headlined by Mogwai) then you’re okay but if you don’t have those then you’re only going to get your friends coming along. Everyone else is asking “who are these people?”
One way to get a reputation before you’ve really done anything is to present yourself, which is where this video comes in. Before viewing it you probably didn’t know much about the beer festival other than having perhaps seen a poster or flyer. Now you know what the people who are organising it are like and how seriously they take their beer along with having a better idea about the venue. A whole bunch of uncertainties have been banished.
Compare this (without criticism) to the Project X Presents event Like Fxck which also took place at the Epic Skate Park last summer. This was an event that was very hard to describe in advance and which was more about an idea than big names. It turned out to be successful but I found it very hard to get people I knew to go along. There were too many questions for what was a relatively high ticket price (at least compared to a gig at the Jug).
While the Project X people were probably too busy setting things up run a blog or photo diary on their site it would have been feasible to keep some kind of video diary, especially given there were already video people involved. Shoot some of the setup, interview some of the people involved, quickly edit it into a 5 minute piece, whack it on YouTube and embed it in the event’s website. I’d guess an evening’s work once you’ve got the filming done. (Note how the beer festival video was filmed on Wednesday and online by Thursday morning.)
The doesn’t just apply to large scale music events. You could do it with theatre, art shows, anything where the personalities that feed the event and make it what it is tend to be hidden on the day itself. It doesn’t have to be professionally polished, it just has to be honest. And then you’ve started building your reputation before the doors have even opened.
My turn to go to the skate park? « Andrew Dubber
[…] I love the fact that the local councillor got together with the guy who runs the skatepark and made a video that introduces it. Pete Ashton had nice things to say about the idea too. […]
yeah it was i did the video that was part of the performance and as you rightly say, i defintely was too busy for the whole week, generally 10am til 4am! there was a crew that documented the show, and i guess it was difficult to capture the true spirit of it in the same way it was to describe to your friends. for what it’s worth it is here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5K35jLbkGU
Thanks for the mention Pete. As Leon has already mentioned, you’re quite right in saying that in the run up to the first event we were all pretty much consumed by making it happen.
This time around, we are planning for an event in November and we intend to make much more use of this type of communication.
Ive already started blogging in the written word over at http://www.projectxpresents.com/blog and we hope follow this up with a series of video blogs – probably one from each main participant, highlighting just what the event means to them personally, so together offering a nice full picture of what we’re up to.
We might also include some more general bulletins.
We’ve always planned to be “open source” about what we do – initially as much as anything because of a genuine desire to share whatever useful experience we gain, but also to create community and we’re starting to realise how powerful a tool for marketing and pr it is too.
Rich
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