Week 1 – Enter The Duncan
The first session of Cross Media was taken by Duncan Sedgwick, events management extraordinaire. Like the first session of cross media 1, this was more of a ‘get to know you’ and the ‘get to know the module’ sort of day. First of all, like all tutors and teachers globally, we did a meet and greet, he told us about his background and what he’s done, and then we told a little about ourselves and what we are primarily interested in doing with media. I told him that I had signed on to do film studies and that the foundation course wasn’t exactly what I thought it was, but that it was a good thing because I might find something much more ‘me’ then film studies.
We looking briefly into events management and what it’s all about, which is the audience. Without the audience, you don’t have an event, but identifying that audience and targeting them is half the battle. It’s the absolute most important thing to keep in mind when organizing an event and managing one, because if you don’t tailor an event to your audience, you aren’t going to have one.
Talking about what was in store for us on this module helped me a lot as I was nervous about this year because I haven’t done anything like this before. Duncan also reassured me that if I felt like I had to change course from film studies to something else if I felt so inclined, then that was doable and would obviously be better for me.
Week 2 – Basic Events
Today was all about Event Management and its basic principles. The session was essentially one big group discussion about Events Management and what it is at a very simple and basic level. The primary thing we talked about was how to communicate with audiences and how to understand them.
What is an event? Well apparently according to Buchanan & Boddy, “An event is a unique venture with a beginning and an end, conducted by people to meet established goals within parameters of cost, schedule and quality.” Which sounds like a super boring way to describe things like a gig or a tour but hey, they’re the experts apparently. The basic principles of events are as follows; complex, limited, goal orientated, customer focused but most importantly, they are purpose led. You cannot have an event without having first found a purpose for it, even if it’s as simple as making money.
This session on events management while interesting and will definitely have transferable skills and information, made up my mind on whether it’s something I choose to focus on in future, which I don’t think it will be. The extensive audience targeting learning we did will definitely cross over to other focus’ and topics on this module however it seems events management isn’t something that I will be solely interested in compared to other studies we are going to be doing.
Week 3 – Advanced Events
This week’s session was all about building on our knowledge from last week’s class about events management and audience, this week was about marketing, legal and terms and conditions. All of which sound like the most boring part of events management but I was surprised by how interesting I actually found it.
The main marketing mix are the 4 P’s (or C’s depending on which you choose),
· Product (Consumer wants/needs) what it actually is that you are marketing?
· Price (Cost) how much it will cost, food, venue, staff, security.
· Promotion (Communication) how you will get the word out about your event using different streams and avenues.
· Place (Convenience) the when and where, is it going to be big enough? Are you going to hold it at the right time for your audience?
Duncan set us a task after everything we’ve learnt so far, we were given a choice of event, I chose a folk festival, and we were research it and how its marketed to its audience. So my group and I looked at magazines, online presence, word of mouth and anything that the event could do better to get a bigger audience. Researching a real festival and looking into how a real event is actually marketed to its audience was interesting to look at as real life examples give us the best models to look at and study.
The Law. Legal issues surrounding events differ from place to place and event to event however the one thing linking them, is that there is a lot of legal to go through to even get the idea of an event off the ground. We learnt the very basics of a contract, and that’s that it defines ownership, and it defines liability which as we learnt, aren’t usually one and the same. Legal permissions also are a huge part of events due to licensing laws, if you want to sell alcohol at your event, you needs a alcohol license, if you want fireworks, you need permission from the local council and from the fire brigade, if you want music, you need copyright permissions and MCPS. To hold any event, there is always red tape to jump through.
Week 4 – The Wonderful World of PR
This week Kelly O’Hanlon came in to talk to us about production techniques in PR. We covered what Kelly said was 20 odd years of PR into one 3 hour session, which as a surprise to no one, was a lot.
Firstly and most crucially we learnt what PR actually is, what it entails and some basic facts about PR in this country. It’s got a very high employability rate, employing some 83,000 professionals earning around an average 50k a year which is obviously a very tempting field to explore with numbers like that. One of the recognised views on what PR actually is a model from Grunig and Hunt, stating that “The public relations person functions essentially as a journalist in residence, whose job it is to report objectively information about the organisation to the public”. However this is just one of a varied definitions about PR and what it can mean, the UK industry view is basically the same if not worded a little more pretentiously.
PR, as we found out, is all about the target audience. Identify who they are first, what their needs and wants are, and from that you can build you ground for a positive and successful PR/marketing campaign. To look into this further we had several case studies to look through, the first being a rave hosted at a Greggs store that was due to open. Greggs saw an opportunity, not to just open a new store, but to make a bit of a song and dance about the whole thing. Why just open a store when you can make an advert? The other two case studies we looked at followed a trend, and that it seems the best PR stunts take place in public, involve a lot of people, and with the aim to go viral online, thus getting as much exposure for your client/product as possible.
The goal for any PR is to get your client talked about, get the name out there for all to see but to also control how said client is perceived. Marketing is a huge part of PR without being directly the same thing. We found this out in a task later on in the day when we had to create a marketing campaign for Dominoes, Ali and I coming up with a great idea for hangover deals.
Learning about PR from someone who has been in the industry for well over a decade was incredibly helpful as Kelly was able to give us clear advice about key topics/concerns within PR and overall was a great introduction to a topic I knew very little about.
Session 5 – Punk Enthusiast Matt Grimes
After getting lost and running around the campus for a bit, I finally found the room in which Matt would be giving us our introduction to the music industry.
The session covered Matts extensive history in the music industry and what led him to be a lecturer here at BCU, the basic concepts of the industry, case studies and press. Before we started, he set us a task to do which was to find a piece of music that means something to you and think about how you first accessed it and who their audience is. Being an indie rock fan, I picked the first gig I ever went to, Kaiser Chiefs ‘I predict a riot’. The album its taken from ‘Employment’ was my first glimpse into the world of music and helped shape who I am today as I’m massively influenced by the music I listen to; Foo Fighters, The Killers, Kasabian, Blossoms, My Chemical Romance and bands like this.
Something we focused on was Press Release’s and how bands market themselves and how music industries can connect to other areas of this module like PR and Events being the main ones. My example press release I have featured below and its based off a couple of case studies Matt gave us.
The intro into the music industry was always something that I wasn’t going to be massively interested in as I’m more of a TV/Film/Radio person but it was still helpful because of the transferable skills that it has similar with everything else that we have covered. For example, something I now know that I had underappreciated, EVERYTHING is about targeting your audience and establishing what their needs and wants are. Without that you have don’t really have anything.
CM2 – Week 5 – Press Release Task
KAISER CHIEFS
Kaiser chiefs Employment Summer Tour
UK indie rock band Kaiser Chiefs announce huge UK tour following the success of their new album Employment. The album charted at number 3 and was hugely popular, garnering an average 4/5 stars by major magazines like Rolling Stone, Spin and Entertainment Weekly. The tour is set to kick off April 28th in London’s O2 Arena and ending in their hometown of Leeds on July 28th. Tickets to go on sale April 1st and available from their website and usual ticket retailers.
Employment, released by B-Unique records and produced by Stephen Street, It was released March 7th to a very warm reception by critics and the public alike. Featuring hit singles like “I Predict a Riot”, “Everyday I Love You Less and Less” and “Oh My God” the album promises sing-a-long tracks to shout along to in your room, at a party, or in a club. The album and its singles are available to buy now from all good retailers and digital download.
For Further Information Please Contact;
Email: Sean.Fossey@InfinityPR.co.uk
Phone Sean Fossey at: 07305309072
Session 6 – The Most Cynical and Nosey Industry of Them all
Today we had Ross Hawkes in to give us our first of 3 lectures (classes?) all focused around journalism. As I mentioned in my ‘About Me’ post on the home page, a huge inspiration for me is Jack Howard and another being Mark Kermode, both being journalists in their own right. They are film journalists and having followed them for a few years now I have had an appreciation and a want to learn journalism, its was actually my first choice uni course to study for a while. Ross’ session was focused more on ‘real’ journalism, meaning the news rather then the type of journalism that I was specifically interested in, but it was still a very very enjoyable class.
It was an odd start to say the least, as the first half hour was dedicated to how journalism is mainly viewed as negative, untrustworthy and how traditional journalism is a dying breed. However, we then went into detail about what journalism is today, why its arguably so much more important now then it ever has been. With the ‘Fake News’ storm erupting in the states, reporting the truth is vital.
Ross then talked about how some of the most effective journalism he ever put into practise was all about giving a voice to the voiceless, representing those who cant represent themselves. A great example of this is the picture of the Syrian boy covered in ash and dirt from bombings going viral, it gave voice to the little people being so horribly affected by the war.
Structuring an article online has a lot more unspoken rules then I originally realised, id never noticed before that most online articles are written in one sentence paragraphs never more then about 25 words long, but after looking online for only 5 minutes proved this to be true. However the main focus of the second half of the session was build around the order of information that is featured in an article. What order you put the information in an article can make or break it. The typical rule is following the ‘Inverted Pyramid of Journalism’
I had a lot of fun with this session, learning about the structure of journalism and how it is still so relevant in todays ‘red button’ society I think will be so vital going forward. I’m very much interested to see where the rest of the journalism classes will take us.
Session 8 – The Interview and Getting Answers
- Why we interview?
- How we interview?
- How we prepare to interview
These were the key points of todays session and Ross would indeed deliver by the end. The start of lesson was an example of one of the worst interviews ever conducted. It featured no one interesting, and even included a complete lack of entertainment or expression. In short, it was just shit.
The first thing that I learnt and that actually surprised me (although looking back it really shouldn’t have) is that there are different types of interviews,
- Interview feature: lead on the interview’s most notable experience.
- First person experience feature: Writing as if it is them, not you.
- A how-to or tips feature: e.g. ‘how to get a bargain’; ‘how to make the perfect coffee’.
- A news report: They raise concerns or highlight problems or ‘accuse’.
- A Follow-up news report: responding to criticism, defending themselves, blaming someone else, etc.
All of this was fascinating to me because I hadn’t put much thought into interviews before, they just kind of existed. But looking at the principles of interviewing, learning what they are all about and how much thought and planning can go into one really set me back to square one about how I looked at interviews. Research, Rapport and Relevance being said key principles.
Something else that blew my mind a little bit was how easily an interview can derail and turn into something else entirely. Ross showed us Jeremy Paxton interviewing Michael Howard.
