Professional Statement
Over the years I have worked and attended many events in the Entertainment Industries. Volunteering at festivals, organising events for my Bachelor of Entertainment Industries at QUT ranging from small entertainment pieces at markets to a large team working for Woodfordia’s Artisan Camp, and my thorough understanding of the industry from a plethora of assessments in my degree have all led me to where I am today. Excelling in leadership roles, I use my creative solutions, people-management skills and approachability to the team’s advantage. I am impassioned and thrive on problems that require solutions, and love to push myself to achieve more. My experience in social media management assists me with the marketing aspects of project management, as do my time-management skills. Learning from the best in the business, I will continue to learn and push forward our industry into the next chapter.
Purpose and Objectives
Our project idea was to organise a market day that provides a platform and gathering point for Brisbane’s local makers, creators and entrepreneurs. We aimed to expose their art to the public, whilst simultaneously entertaining with live performances of acoustic musicians. Our objectives included hosting 15 to 20 local vendors, exceed more than 100 attendees and showcase two local musicians. We also wanted to engage in an active social media presence by gaining 200 followers on Instagram by May 10th, have 200 people clicking attending on the Facebook event page by the 18th of May and have 10 shares of the Facebook event page. We aimed for our vendors to earn at least the cost of hiring a space at the fair which was $20, and receive patron feedback from at least 80 attendees and achieve 70% satisfaction and enjoyment.
A Fine Art Centre in Dunedin USA has shown research that cities emphasising art have more civic and social engagement, better child welfare and even lower poverty rates. Moreover, arts organizations stimulate the economic market and growth in a community. (DFAC, 2016)
“The Brisbane City Council wants Brisbane to become a vibrant, prosperous, creative and liveable city where our cultural diversity is celebrated and Brisbane’s creative industries and economy thrive.” (Brisbane City Council, 2019)
To achieve the vibrant and creative Brisbane the council aims for, we must support our local artists. However, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the unemployment rate of Australians in the art sector along with their average earnings, “…are consistently less than other workers with similar educational backgrounds…” (Bridgstock, 2007). Therefore, our rationale was to give several artists an opportunity to expand their clientele and support the local arts community.
Project Impact and Results
In 2003, a few of Queensland’s creative industries weaknesses were identified as being the failure to network and collaborate, and limited access to capital (simply, the resources to open a business). However, one of the main supply chains for visual arts and crafts retailing are fairs and exhibitions (Cunningham, Hearn, Cox, Ninan, & Keane, 2003). With the right intervention and investment, Brisbane could develop true creative industries clusters like the hotspots of its counterparts (Cunningham, Hearn, Cox, Ninan, & Keane, 2003). Small street fairs similar to ours can breed positive socio-economic growth for entire cities and local urban areas (Grant-Smith & Matthews, 2017). Thus, this event had a positive impact on Brisbane artists and the city as a whole.
Specifically, nineteen vendors were planned to attend, but one cancelled the night before the event. With the contracts signed, no payments were returned to vendors. According to our post-event vendor survey [above], 17 of our 18 vendors at the event earned enough to at least earn back their payments (Hidden Gems Arts Fair 2019, 2019). Thus, we succeeded in providing an opportunity for local artists to profit from their art pieces. Our team is happy to report that we made a profit of $109, which will be divided evenly amongst the organising team. According to the post-event attendee survey [below], guests rated the venue 7 to 10 out of 10 and the vendors 8 to 10 out of 10 (Hidden Gems Arts Fair 2019, 2019). Therefore, we believe the guests were satisfied with the event and would most likely consider attending again. In my journey to developing a career in entertainment event management, this project was educational and perfect professional experience moving forward.
The results of this event were overall positive. However, a few alternations in the future would increase its success. Firstly, the venue would be more easily accessible as many customers and vendors
mentioned the difficulty of the four flights of stairs [see below]. Additionally, an easily accessible location that sees a lot of pedestrian traffic encourages new clientele to enter the fair (Morley, 2019). Secondly, the objective of entertaining guests with performers would benefit from having more musical performances throughout the day and having it at a higher volume. As one musician recommended, having several hour sets featuring mostly cover songs would be more appropriate for this atmosphere (Hidden Gems Arts Fair 2019, 2019). Thirdly, the team was worried that any followers gained on social media would turn off notifications if posts were too frequent. However, vendors had said in the post-event surveys that they were unsatisfied with the amount of promotion their businesses received. Social Media Expert, Neil Patel, explains that there is no decrease in engagement for posting more content, provided you consistently maintain that rate (Carbone, 2018). Thus, it would be advantageous to post more vendor content on Instagram leading up to the event.
Achieving Key Objectives
The Hidden Gems Arts Fair was a collaborative project aiming to provide an event in which local businesses and art-enthusiasts could sell their works. Attendees were to pay a $2 entry fee, vendors paid $20 for a table and two acoustic musicians performed a 30-minute session each. At the end of the day, approximately 120 people attended the event as guests. These payments covered the $210 for the hiring fee of the venue and $217 for venue insurance. Another objective was for the vendors to earn back their hiring fees. This was mostly achieved, with 17 of our 18 vendors at the event breaking even (Hidden Gems Arts Fair 2019, 2019).
Gantt Chart
I created a colour coded Gantt chart of the overall project to ensure our event ran smoothly (Taylor, 2013).
Floor Plan
Floor plans are the “core piece of an event” according to CEO and founder of Social Tables, Dan Berger (Nenn, 2015). It assists with communication, corroboration, accuracy and safety preparation (Nenn, 2015). By creating an accurate floor plan, I could estimate how many tables could fit comfortably in the space, and thus, how many vendors we could host. This ensured an efficient bump-in time on the day.
Floor Plan Draft
Upon arrival, one vendor withdrew. Hence, I altered the layout from this original plan which had the door in the incorrect position and the performer positioned in a hidden corner. The musician setup was relocated to a more central position.
Social Media Launch
I created the Instagram and Facebook accounts and designed the first content on Canva to correspond with the event’s brand. We used paid promotions on both Facebook and Instagram to reach a larger audience.
These images are just a few of my designs.
Our Instagram promotional posts were set to reach our target market. The post seen below was shared a week before the event and ended up reaching 4684 Instagram accounts according to the insights page.
All Instagram posts were shared on Facebook. Facebook’s insights page for paid promotions shows that it reached 3000 Facebook users, with 494 responses overall.
Budget
Our team’s original budget was simple. The venue hire cost and venue insurance cost. I reconciled the budget with an extensive list of expenses [below]. The team discussed and agreed that any extra expenses would be at the cost of those who purchased said items.
Budget Pie Chart
As part of Step 6 of Powell’s How-To guide, he advises that the promotional portion of the budget should stand at 15-20% (Powell, 2016). Thus, our promotional budget sitting at 12% almost reached Powell’s suggested financial aim. Our main worry was breaking even financially, hence, the team decided to be as frugal as possible. Next time, I would strongly consider raising this budget with the knowledge that we would reach our targets.
Initial Branding
I created this colour palette for our promotional content to fit in the initial branding stage.
Original 2000’s colour palette from: https://juiceboxinteractive.com/blog/color/
Our Event
*All images of patrons on-site were pre-warned with our sign at the entrance.
References
Bridgstock, R. S. (2007). Success in the protean career : a predictive study of professional artists and tertiary arts graduates. Retrieved from https://eprints.qut.edu.au/16575/
Brisbane City Council. (2019). Creative Brisbane. Retrieved from Brisbane City Council: https://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/community-and-safety/community-support/creative-brisbane
Carbone, L. (2018, April 1). How Often Should You Post to Instagram? Retrieved from Later: https://later.com/blog/how-often-post-to-instagram/
Cunningham, S. D., Hearn, G. N., Cox, S. D., Ninan, A., & Keane, M. A. (2003). Brisbane’s Creative Industries 2003. Brisbane: Queensland University of Technology. Retrieved from https://eprints.qut.edu.au/2409/
DFAC. (2016, March 15). The Importance of Supporting Art in Your Community. Retrieved from DFAC: https://www.dfac.org/the-importance-of-supporting-art-in-your-community/
Grant-Smith, D., & Matthews, T. (2017). A dragon-led recovery: How a community is reaping the benefits of a spooky Halloween festival. The Conversation. Retrieved from https://eprints.qut.edu.au/115229/
Hidden Gems Arts Fair 2019. (2019, May). Post Event Vendor Results. Retrieved from Google Forms: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/12CrPfcTti8jWbgoR1N4xz_v6O7Ieo0CPl6IhAUVfYzg/edit#responses
Morley, M. (2019). How to Build Foot Traffic in Antique and Flea Markets. Retrieved from The Houston Chronicle: https://smallbusiness.chron.com/build-foot-traffic-antique-flea-markets-26264.html
Nenn, K. (2015, March). Think Through Your Event’s Floor Plan. Special Events Galore, 15(3), p. 6. doi:10.1002/speg.30055
Powell, C. (2016, November 3). How to Organise the Perfect Event – The Event Expert . Retrieved from YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kCziFDK3Yk
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