For a university project I was placed into a group with my friend Alfie. We wanted to host a live gig but with a twist. We quickly decided to host a live jam session at the college. This was an interim event to decide how we are going to approach the event. We decided to host a gig at a local venue and wanted to end with a jam session. As we started to plan we came to the conclusion that the full moon would be a good sized venue reasonably close to the college campus and the town centre.
The Full Moon is a small pub venue located outside of Newcastle town centre and is perfect for a small scale gig of about 30 - 40 people. The Full Moon have their own PA system which we could use and a reasonably sized stage which could fit 3 people and a drum set on easily. The venue also has fully functional lighting system. The Full Moon also has bar staff, door staff and a live sound engineer to help us with the event. We hope that putting this event on will show the staff at the venue and audience members that the band is talented and can bring in a big audience, we hope this leads to either reoccurring gigs at The Full Moon or a boost in audience members in future gigs.
We decided to split the work in to job roles. My main job roles would consist of;
Marketing and Promotion
Booking the venue
Live Sound
I chose these job roles because I have experience working live sound desks and PA systems. I recently volunteered at a small festival working at the signal 1 acoustic stage. I have also had previous experience creating posters for events.
Alfies' job roles consisted of;
Stage Management
Band Communications
Performing as the drummer for the band
Alfies' jobs included arranging times for sound check, what time the band would play and when we would invite audience members on stage. Alfie was perfect for these job roles because he is part of the band and could easily communicate these times to them. Another one of Alfies' jobs was to come with a stage plan, I/O Plan and an equipment list.
Me and Alfie conducted a meeting on the 11th of April to discuss plans and agree on what the objectives of this event was. We came to the conclusion that we wanted at least 30 people to attend the event and 2 audience members to come up on stage to jam. We decided that having an entire event based around a jam session was a bad idea as we were relying on too many people to fill the time in the event, by having a band perform then hosting a jam session after we would ensure that wouldn't finish the event too early. Doing this also made it easier to market the event to a wider audience. We also decided not to ask for payment as this would make the venue more difficult to book and also we thought this as more of a promo gig for the band.
I messaged The Full Moon asking about if they would be interested in hosting the event on the 26th April 2016. They said they were defiantly interested so i informed them on what the event would consist of and asked them if they were available on Saturday the 14th May but was busy so we had to rearrange the gig for 13th Friday.
I then started to work on poster designs. My target audience was musicians inside the performing arts centre and musicians around the town. Once I had an idea i shared a rough version of Alfie so he could check if the band was happy with the design. I chose big bold writing so it would stand out and can be read from a distance. I tried not to overcomplicate the design much and keep it simple. I then finished the design and sent The Full Moon a copy to promote with. I posted the poster on a facebook page dedicated to gigs and venues in the stoke area. I also printed the posters off and started to put them around college and Newcastle-Under-Lyme town centre.
A meeting was conducted on April 27th to discuss live sound needs and equipment lists. An I/O and stage plan was created in this meeting. This was planned with the best sound possible in mind. We decided at this point that having a keyboard would be far too much trouble to try and fit on stage so we decided not to book it out.
Once we had made the stage layout we double checked that it was okay with the band and then started to promote the gig. The next meeting was on the 2nd of May. In this meeting i spoke to Alfie discussing plans for what time sound check was going to be and when the band should play. We decided that we should begin to set up at 7:30pm and aim to sound check for 8:30pm. This gives us half an hour to let people arrive and also double check everything is running smoothly. It was at this time that Alfie informed me we had Adam Pearsall coming to the gig to perform in the jam session.
The week commencing May 9th we decided to book all the equipment. Unfortunately the equipment was not available to book. We had left it far to late to book the equipment and we had to think of a plan so the gig could still continue. Luckily, between all of the band and myself we had enough equipment to be able to use the same amount of microphones and still get a good sound.
Instead of using Shure Sm57's for the guitar amplifiers and snare we used my Ashton DMP100 drum mic set, we also used the kick drum mic that came with this set instead of the AKG D112. We asked members of the band if they could bring additional cables and microphones. Luckily we had enough equipment to cover the microphones we needed. We used two Daves Shure Sm58's as vocal microphones. Dave also informed me that he was going wireless with his guitar which meant we had to make sure we had plenty of batteries spare and also brought a spare jack cable encase the wireless system failed.
On the night of the gig we double checked with the venue that the gig was still happening and met up with the band at 6. Using the equipment list we double checked that everything had been placed inside the van to transport it to the venue. Once we got the venue I asked about then PA system and mixing desk, after a bit of confusion we were able to get the PA working. Unfortunately there was a misunderstanding about using their PA as they thought we were using ours but i reassured them i could use their PA with confidence and reminded them that they agreed to let me use it when messaging them.
When setting up it was important that each performer had enough space and also that any loose cables were taped down and completely out of the way. Having the snake was great because it meant there were no cables running through where the audience would be. When it came to health and saftey me and Alfie made sure there were no drinks near any of the equipment, espeicially the mixing desk as that was not our property and breaking it would cause a lot of problems. We also made sure cables ran behind the performers and were taped to the stage or taped under the carpet which the drums were placed on.
The desk was really old and the headphone out put was not working correctly meaning i had difficulty mixing as i wasn't able to use my headphones which is what i usually use to mix. Although it was harder than usual i still got a really nice sound for the gig and got compliments of a few audience members. Sound check took longer than usual only giving us 5 minuets spare before the band was scheduled top play. This is why we planned to sound check earlier than usual and the band were still able to start on time.
The night was really good with about 60 people showing up. Daves use of his wireless system meant he was able to leave the stage and perform closer to the audience which was a real big hit with the crowd. We managed to get three people up on stage to take part in the jam session. Adam Pearsall played guitar and sung on stage, Alfies dad sung and played harmonica and my Uncle got on stage and played drums for a few songs. Overall i had lots of positive feedback from audience members and the staff at the venue said it was one of the best performances they've had for a while.
One of the problems we encountered was the camera didn't accept the SD card we had or the backup SD card. We took many photos on our phones and managed to get some photos of audience members but video would of been great and unfortunately we were unable to capture any. This is something i would like to solve if i ever hosted another event like this. Video is something which could of been great for promotion of the gig and also for my personal portfolio.
Overall I'm very happy with how the night went and how it sounded. I feel like as a person i have become more confident in my abilities to handle a stressful live sound situation. Learning a desk and being able to put a gig on with use of auxiliary monitors and a decent mix using 8 microphones was a big achievement for me, having feedback on the night saying it was a good sound was a huge confidence booster and I'm proud of my work.
I think I did a good job on promotion as it was a really good turnout and everyone was enjoying themselves. If it wasn't for people sharing the posts on facebook there wouldn't of nearly been as many views on the poster but this was also one of the first times the band has had a poster created for their event. Next time the band are playing i'm going to make sure there is a poster as it seems to be the best way to promote on facebook. Putting posters around the college was a good way to spread the word around the college but didn't spread much outside of the college. One thing i would definitely do next time is create a facebook event so i can invite people and get a general idea of how many people are going to show before the night.
There are a few things i would like to improve on, one would be the sound of the band while performing. Although I received good feedback i do still feel like there could of been more of an improvement in how long it it took to sound check and i know i could of made it sound better. This is something i will develop with time and this gig definitely gave me a huge push in the right direction.
One of the main things that would improve the quality of the audio would be using a compressor unit for the vocals and i could also use this to parallel compress all the microphones together to give the mix a more level sound. I think with the amount of unexpected difficulties with the desk and not being able to use the microphones which we expected to use it was still a successful event. However, there could be many improvements made regarding booking out equipment and overall audio quality. If we had booked out the equipment earlier we would of been able to use the desired set up we wanted and would of been more confident in that equipment as it is all industry standard.
The week commencing May 9th we decided to book all the equipment. Unfortunately the equipment was not available to book. We had left it far to late to book the equipment and we had to think of a plan so the gig could still continue. Luckily, between all of the band and myself we had enough equipment to be able to use the same amount of microphones and still get a good sound.
Instead of using Shure Sm57's for the guitar amplifiers and snare we used my Ashton DMP100 drum mic set, we also used the kick drum mic that came with this set instead of the AKG D112. We asked members of the band if they could bring additional cables and microphones. Luckily we had enough equipment to cover the microphones we needed. We used two Daves Shure Sm58's as vocal microphones. Dave also informed me that he was going wireless with his guitar which meant we had to make sure we had plenty of batteries spare and also brought a spare jack cable encase the wireless system failed.
On the night of the gig we double checked with the venue that the gig was still happening and met up with the band at 6. Using the equipment list we double checked that everything had been placed inside the van to transport it to the venue. Once we got the venue I asked about then PA system and mixing desk, after a bit of confusion we were able to get the PA working. Unfortunately there was a misunderstanding about using their PA as they thought we were using ours but i reassured them i could use their PA with confidence and reminded them that they agreed to let me use it when messaging them.
When setting up it was important that each performer had enough space and also that any loose cables were taped down and completely out of the way. Having the snake was great because it meant there were no cables running through where the audience would be. When it came to health and saftey me and Alfie made sure there were no drinks near any of the equipment, espeicially the mixing desk as that was not our property and breaking it would cause a lot of problems. We also made sure cables ran behind the performers and were taped to the stage or taped under the carpet which the drums were placed on.
The desk was really old and the headphone out put was not working correctly meaning i had difficulty mixing as i wasn't able to use my headphones which is what i usually use to mix. Although it was harder than usual i still got a really nice sound for the gig and got compliments of a few audience members. Sound check took longer than usual only giving us 5 minuets spare before the band was scheduled top play. This is why we planned to sound check earlier than usual and the band were still able to start on time.
The night was really good with about 60 people showing up. Daves use of his wireless system meant he was able to leave the stage and perform closer to the audience which was a real big hit with the crowd. We managed to get three people up on stage to take part in the jam session. Adam Pearsall played guitar and sung on stage, Alfies dad sung and played harmonica and my Uncle got on stage and played drums for a few songs. Overall i had lots of positive feedback from audience members and the staff at the venue said it was one of the best performances they've had for a while.
One of the problems we encountered was the camera didn't accept the SD card we had or the backup SD card. We took many photos on our phones and managed to get some photos of audience members but video would of been great and unfortunately we were unable to capture any. This is something i would like to solve if i ever hosted another event like this. Video is something which could of been great for promotion of the gig and also for my personal portfolio.
Overall I'm very happy with how the night went and how it sounded. I feel like as a person i have become more confident in my abilities to handle a stressful live sound situation. Learning a desk and being able to put a gig on with use of auxiliary monitors and a decent mix using 8 microphones was a big achievement for me, having feedback on the night saying it was a good sound was a huge confidence booster and I'm proud of my work.
I think I did a good job on promotion as it was a really good turnout and everyone was enjoying themselves. If it wasn't for people sharing the posts on facebook there wouldn't of nearly been as many views on the poster but this was also one of the first times the band has had a poster created for their event. Next time the band are playing i'm going to make sure there is a poster as it seems to be the best way to promote on facebook. Putting posters around the college was a good way to spread the word around the college but didn't spread much outside of the college. One thing i would definitely do next time is create a facebook event so i can invite people and get a general idea of how many people are going to show before the night.
There are a few things i would like to improve on, one would be the sound of the band while performing. Although I received good feedback i do still feel like there could of been more of an improvement in how long it it took to sound check and i know i could of made it sound better. This is something i will develop with time and this gig definitely gave me a huge push in the right direction.
One of the main things that would improve the quality of the audio would be using a compressor unit for the vocals and i could also use this to parallel compress all the microphones together to give the mix a more level sound. I think with the amount of unexpected difficulties with the desk and not being able to use the microphones which we expected to use it was still a successful event. However, there could be many improvements made regarding booking out equipment and overall audio quality. If we had booked out the equipment earlier we would of been able to use the desired set up we wanted and would of been more confident in that equipment as it is all industry standard.
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