WEEKLY DIARIES
18/11: For project 2 we were given the freedom to organise an event of our choice. Grace and I decided to put on a club night. We decided we wanted to do a silent disco at the Volks. We began to plan how the event would take place. I was very optimistic about this idea as a Silent Disco is a very good selling point and would help our event stand out from others.
25/11: We decided to get rid of the silent disco as we were worried about damage being caused to the headphone set. We thought we would see how our event went first and then think about using the silent disco in future events. However, we still wanted to hire the Volks as our venue and came up with the idea of a Jungle themed night.
27/11: I emailed volks about hiring the venue. Whilst waiting for a reply, Grace
and I began to look for decorations. We wanted to cover the speakers in
camouflage netting and make the volks look like a jungle with different kinds of
decorations. Here's some of the stuff we found:
We decided to come back to
sorting out decorations after we
worked out how much everything
would cost to hire. We also
started to think about how much we would sell tickets for. This started to become a bit stressful as we realised putting on this event would cost a lot of money and we may not make this money back.
1/12: Volks replied and said it was available to hire however everyone who attended had to be over 18. As Grace is still 17 we decided to try and find somewhere else. Although Volks said to get in contact when we were both over 18 so we had made a contact for the future. I found this stressful as it became daunting that we may not be able to hire a venue that would allow a mixture of ages.
1/12: We emailed the latest music bar to see if it was available on the 15th January. We decided this would be the best date to do it as it's far enough after new years for people to go out again but wasn't during mocks for our friends who did A levels.
3/12: The latest music bar replied and said that the venue was available to hire on that date and asked if we wanted to come in and have a look around. We said yes and arranged a meeting at 4:30 the next day. I started to feel optimistic about the event as I knew the Latest music bar allowed a mixed age range so would be perfect for us to hire.
4/12: Cathy, the correspondent of the venue, contacted us and said that there was filming going on at the venue so the meeting would have to be re arranged to next Wednesday, the 11th.
10/12: We didn't want to organise DJ's without having a venue confirmed so we decided to look how decoration ideas. We came across this idea on pinterest and thought it would really make our event stand out to our audience by making the venue look like a jungle. The events that have I have been to in the past that have stuck in my memory are the ones where the event organisers have made an effort with decorations and not just the music.
11/12: Grace and I went to the Latest music bar to discuss with Cathy about hiring the venue. We agreed on the date the 15th of January and £200 to hire. We decided to pay £70 deposit and then the rest a week before the event. This price included security for the event which would take place between 8pm-12am. We also decided we would be able to start setting up from 3pm on the date of the event. Cathy said we were allowed to put up our own decorations however they had to be fire retardant. The capacity of the venue is 90 people so we decided to charge tickets at £5.
13/12: Cathy emailed me an invoice for £200 to secure the booking for the 15th. We were confused as we believed we were only paying £75 now and then the rest a week before the booking. Cathy replied and said that as it was less than a month away they needed the full £200. This put Grace and I in an awkward position as neither had a spare £100. This also created a lot of stress for Grace and I as this was one of the only venues in Brighton that would let us hire with a mixed age range so we didn't wanted to lose the booking by not having enough money. I asked Cathy if we would be able to pay £100 now and the rest by the end of the December. Cathy agreed to this and I sent the money.
14/12: As we had reserved the dates of the venue I decided to sort out the DJs. A few of my friends DJ so I decided to ask them. My friends Archie and George DJ as a duo so I asked them first. Archie does the DJ course at Northbrook and George does a music course at BIMM so they know what they're doing and could also help setting up. They agreed to do it for free but I decided I would buy them beers to say thank you. George's college friend Max asked if he could DJ as well and also my friend Cam so we had 4 DJs booked. After organising the DJs I felt a lot more confident about the event as everything was moving into action. Grace made a poster for the event which we sent to Cathy to put with the tickets.
30/12: Cathy emailed us the link for tickets and I sent her the rest of the money. I decided to start properly promoting the event when I went back to college, although I sent the link to my friends. I was very happy everything was booked so we could properly start promoting the event.
7/1: On our first day back at college Grace and I sent the links around to all our friends and pushed them to get tickets. We also put the link on our social media which attracted other people rather than just our close friends. We also decided to re vamp the poster as we felt as it was a drum and bass event it needed a different look to it.
10/1: We sent the final poster to Phil to get printed off. We printed off 20 big posters and around 80 smaller leaflets. We then stuck them around the college and handed them out the students. It was exciting seeing the poster around college as it was our actual event we were publicising.
13/1: Grace ordered different types of green tablecloth for the decorations. This was a bit of a worry as we hadn't sold enough tickets to make our money back and we were still spending more money. Although, I knew a lot of people who wanted to buy tickets on the door so I knew we would be getting some more money that way.
14/1: We went to the stationary shop at college and bought tissue paper and craft wire to make paper tissue flowers. We found a video on Youtube to help us and began practising. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K59404x4D5w
