Collaborative - technical roles

 See Tyler collaborative project here

See Madison collaborative project here

MCing for Unplugged - me and Toby introducing all of the different performances

- Toby is more confident than me and I think will be better at being entertaining in between performances 

- I know Toby relatively well but I've never worked with him so I don't know how reliable he is

- I much prefer doing this with Toby as I think I wouldn't be good under the pressure of being by myself

- However, it's good I'm doing this as it'll make me more confident and adaptable in the future 

/12/03/2025/

We discussed the script and Toby asked if I could do the MCing by myself with him writing the script and I said that this was fine but, not wanting to do it by myself, I asked Tyler to do it with me and he agreed. The plan is for Toby to write the script and then I'll go over it with him next Wednesday and Tyler will look over it once it's been finished. 

/19/03/2025/

Toby showed me how far he's got with the script so far and we discussed a few changes and how we could do it and have now finished the script for the first half. After talking it through, he decided he would like to also talk with me as a lot of the things he was writing would only make sense if he said them (e.g., the drums on this are hard). It seems to be going well and he's going to work on the the half and we'll sort it next week in time for the concert.  

Another thing I discussed with Toby was that I am likely to slightly improvise with some things to help the flow of the speech and maybe fill out time if we don't have enough to say. I'm not particularly good at improvising but, as long as I know the basic idea of what I'm saying, I should be ok.

/31/03/2025/

Unplugged was last week and we mainly went off of ad-lib whilst also using some of the pre-planned jokes. I was insanely nervous and very shaky but I also noticed how it was much harder starting than it was doing the rest of the show. After we said the first couple of things, it made it much easier to go up there and say things and make stuff up although I think I need to improve my vocabulary with describing the acts and the performances as I said the same thing over and over which must've been rather boring for the audience and like I wasn't listening. 

Doing the MCing did mean I wasn't really nervous when I was playing any music and just got to enjoy performing which was fun. I wouldn't have been able to do it without Toby I don't think as we very much bounced off each other and based what we said off what the other one said. It became more natural and had a better flow as we went on and got used to the crowd and everything. I think I just need to do it more and get used to talking to a lot of people and coming up with things on the spot and being comfortable with that which is something I need to improve anyway because I am generally awkward to talk to as I'm not sure what to say and get worried about saying the wrong thing. 

Marketing for Unplugged - helping Alfie edit and make the tiny desk and interviews

- Led by Alfie and so need to get him to let me know what to do

- He wants me to record some interviews but I know I'm going to be interviewed, so I can't do that one

- He also mentioned about editing maybe and so I am happy to do that 

Alfie has asked me to help with checking the videos that he makes. He made a one minute, portrait video from Tyler's tiny desk and I had very little feedback to give him as it was really well done. The only thing I did say was about one part where the music drops out for comedic effect and then comes back in and I said it felt too sudden and so he made it slightly more of a fade which I think works much better. I also gave him advice about the length of the video as, on Instagram, 30 seconds tends to fit the current algorithm the best. 

He has now put all of the footage to do with Tyler's tiny desk onto my hard drive so that I can also make some promotional material for Unplugged. 

/05/03/2025/

Today, I had a meeting with Alfie to clarify what I need to do in terms of editing and to also figure out what the uploading schedule is (video is above). We worked out what days we're going to upload each week in the lead up to Unplugged which is shown below and also decided on a moody vibe on the videos (with colour). Where I've written "Mould", I mean the week of Mould's longer tiny desk video.  

/17/03/2025/

I've been consistently making and sending Ellen the videos and it's been working well (here's a link to the Instagram: First video I made (I made the videos without the interviews and Alfie made the ones with the interviews)). 

We haven't sold many tickets and so I've decided to go more full on with the promotion. I grabbed some posters for my friend to put up in her village and I have an open mic in Glastonbury on Thursday and so I'll ask them if I can put a poster up. I'm actually going to a pub tonight so I'll ask them if I can put it up in there as well. 

Another thing I've done is I contacted Ross from Radio NineSprings and Jem from GWS Radio about whether they could help us promote the gig. Ross said he and another presenter would talk about it on Radio NineSprings which is awesome and I'm just waiting on Jem to get back to me.

/19/03/2025/

We haven't got a fourth tiny desk to help promote the gig and so we're having to improvise a bit. After some discussion, Ellen suggested that we use footage from the Christmas Concert as the first half is finished now. I will need to contact her later to get that footage as I don't have it but that will probably work. 

Also, Jem has invited us to go to the radio station and do a short interview. Dan, Tyler and I are all going to go there next Tuesday afternoon and so it'll be a couple days before the gig.

/31/03/2025/

Unplugged was last week and there were loads of people there. I think that the marketing worked really well and got a lot more people there. Obviously, the most effective form of marketing is word of mouth but I think the amount of work we were doing on getting people there helped with getting people to tell other people about the gig and therefore getting more people there. I think, in future, we should be more organised in terms of making sure we have all the resources that we plan to have (e.g., we planned four tiny desks but only ever got three) but also having the improvisation skills to fill in for those times (e.g., the Mould video I made day of posting (watch here)). 

The Loft - organising something (marketing?) 

- Group of us organising gig at The Loft (Madison, Emily, Tyler and me)

- I will be there for the meeting and, if nothing else, I'll take charge on making marketing content and such the like

- Tyler will most likely be the main lead on this gig and so we can work together to figure out the marketing plan 

Our notes during our meeting:

Running order: 

Freddie, Annie and Phoebe

Emily

Emily and Tyler

Tyler

Freya and Tyler

Freya 

Madison and Freya

Equipment list and marketing - Emily 

Running order and marketing - Freya 

Stage management and day plan - Tyler

New running order:

19:30

Freya and Madison

Emily 

Emily and Tyler

Someone else

20:15 - INTERVAL 

20:30

Freya 

Someone else

Tyler and Freya 

Tyler 

21:15

/29/03/2025/:

I discussed with Emily today about the marketing that we're going to do and we decided the colour palette and "vibe". I wrote out a plan for the videos we're going to upload over the next few weeks in the lead up to The Loft gig and who I need videos from when - I thought it would be best if I edited all the videos because then I could give them all the same feel and they'd feel more connected and together. 

Here are screenshots of the marketing plan I've made so far:

/31/03/2025/:

We made a group chat on Instagram so that we can keep communication clear and I've sent this marketing plan on the group chat so everyone is aware of the plan and when I need their videos by. 

I have made the first two videos to upload this week of me and Emily. Emily sent me a video of her singing in her bedroom into a microphone and also sent me the audio files for the vocal and the music and I did a quick mix in Bandlab where I just added compression and reverb to her voice to make it fit more with the track (I also added EQ but decided it was better without so removed it). I then put the video into CapCut and cut it down to around 30 seconds and added the video effects to make it look more purple/orange (warm tones) and added a vignette. Here's the before and after:

It also helps that Emily has a very nice, aesthetic room which really suits the look that we're trying to give off for the marketing of The Loft and it suits the vibe of the music. I also made a video and I edited it to have the same-ish look and I added some reverb using CapCut's features.

Also, I've been talking to Ellen about the poster and I'm confident she'll have a good version of it to send to me today which I can add to the ends of the videos so that we can start uploading them. We also need to sort out a TicketSource so we can start to sell tickets to people.

/05/04/2025/

The TicketSource has now been sorted and added to the bio in the StrodeLive Student Instagram page. Ellen finished the poster and it's been sent to Mark at The Loft and I've been working on the other videos for the marketing. I was stupid and forgot to send Ellen the second video on Friday which meant it wasn't able to be uploaded until today (Saturday) and so I will remember that for future times and either set an alarm on my phone or send myself a reminder. I only like to send them to her on the days that they're meant to be uploaded as to avoid confusion and so she doesn't accidentally upload on the wrong day. I am considering uploading on Wednesdays and Saturdays though because of that ending up where the videos this week were uploaded (consistency is good for the algorithm). 

I have contacted Emily and Tyler about the videos for this week (they're doing a video together, I'm doing one with Tyler) and Tyler did not have anything as he said he's been busy with work but it worked out alright because we spoke about it and he'll be able to get me the two videos I need by tomorrow plus he'll record his solo one on Monday and send that to me then so I have it ready for week three which is super helpful. Emily had her video ready which is great and I can use that when I have Tyler's video tomorrow. 

Due to the amount of acts, I'm thinking that maybe, instead of uploading four times for the next two weeks, either we upload twice next week and then four times the week before the gig OR we upload three times both weeks. Maybe three times both weeks and then it'll be able to fit all the acts as well as not having too many videos for acts. I just worked it out, having two weeks of two and then two weeks of three makes ten which is the amount of acts which is great. 

/21/04/2025/

The uploads have been going well and have been consistent and I'm hoping that it's doing more for the gig and reminding people and convincing people to come. I've kept it consistent with the warm-purple feel and I've tried not to make the videos too long whilst also not cutting people off. I also mentioned The Loft gig as well as The Redbrick gig on GWS Radio on Saturday (19th) as I was on there anyway as I got invited back by the host of that show (Stephen Coram) and so I used it as an opportunity to tell more people about the gigs and how you can get tickets. 

Here's a link to the show: Link to the show

/23/04/2025/

Everybody involved in The Loft has been assigned an administrative role other than a few first years as they're just performing. Here's the list of what everyone is doing: 

Tyler - Main communication with venue, stage plan, day plan

Emily - Making poster and flyer 

Freya - Marketing (making videos and promotion)

Madison - Risk assessment

Annie - Running order 

Corra - on the door 

Ellen - poster 

We made an Instagram group chat on the 26th of March to making communication much easier and added everyone. Some people were added a bit later on but that's because they weren't confirmed performers until then. 

We wanted a programme for The Loft but, due to the lack of time and people to make one, I thought it'd be easier to have just a flyer with everyone's information on. There wouldn't be enough space for everyone to have a QR code and so I thought about making a Linktree which had links to everyone's Instagram and released music. It was simple and straightforward and the audience only had to scan one thing and them could access anything from any of the performers. I spent a while with Emily yesterday making this Linktree and we designed it to fit in the colour themes of The Loft gig and the colour palette we'd already been pushing forward with the videos on Instagram. You can see the Linktree here.

Due to having only sold 7 tickets so far, I emailed Ross from RadioNineSprings who I've been meaning to email for ages now and keep forgetting. He said he'd be happy to help and even sent me the calendar for the radio and told me to add it so that other presenters would also mention it which is so incredibly helpful. I've also been sending the poster and links to tickets to people that I think could come. 

So far, I've been able to get four people to come (my parents and siblings) and probably two more (aunt and cousin) and then maybe my piano teacher (I've sent her the poster and a link to the tickets and she said she'll do her best to come). 

Here's the original, very rough plan for the flyers :

P = performer(s) 

Here's the slightly more refined design:

Here's a rough draft I made using Adobe Express (Ellen showed me the website as she made the programme for the Christmas Concert and Artbank - it was incredibly helpful as I can access it from home and from college and it's free!):

I got Emily to send me the background of the poster so that the flyer could stay within the theme. I decided to just have the loft logo and the strode live logo on either side as it looked more even and less awkward. I messaged on the groupchat to ask people to respond with their genre and what they wanted to have promoted. I also made the other side for the running order (I messaged people to make sure I got their names and their songs correct):

I was relatively happy with what I'd made but I wanted to get an opinion from someone who I know has experience so I asked my brother for anything he thinks I should change as he did a course in graphic design and whenever I've worked with him in the past, it's turned out very well. These are the things he suggested: Have the text more centered, Strode Live circle should be bigger as it makes the text below seem off centre, bottom of the information page doesn't look right, running order text needs to be moved up as there's space at the top.

I will change those things now. 

Ok, I've edited them; here's the new versions:

/24/04/2025/

I went to an open mic today at The Crown in Pilton and I spoke about The Loft and brought two A5 posters with me which I gave to a group of people and they seemed interested. I spoke about it twice as the first time I was mentioning it and gave a brief description and the second time I gave more detail about the students and the album release and what type of thing to expect and things. I left the second A5 poster on one of the tables. 

/25/04/2025/

Today I considered about what I need for The Loft. The equipment I need is to make sure that we bring the programmes so that we can easily promote everyone's music and social medias. I also need to make sure I bring my guitar and also a guitar stand (I forgot one at Unplugged and it made it significantly harder to switch between MCing and performing). I also volunteered to help out at the door - whether or not I'll be needed will probably be more decided closer to the time but I'm there if they need me. 

/01/05/2025/

For the last few videos, I had to ask a lot on the Instagram group chat for anyone to send me any videos and I got only just enough to post on Instagram. Luckily, Zack sent me a video that he'd already posted somewhere else so all I needed to do was add a bit of colour editing and add the poster for The Loft at the end and then I managed to get another video from Tyler where he just played guitar for a bit and then I edited the video down and added text about The Loft and added the poster at the end. Every time I send a video to be uploaded, I make sure to then put the reel on my story with a link to the tickets to make it as easy as possible for people to buy tickets. I also added text such as "get now before they run out" to encourage people to buy tickets as soon as possible and give the illusion of a limited number left (despite the difficulty we had selling them; especially in the beginning). 

With the programmes, Emily and I put one programme on each table to make sure everybody would have at least one and then we gave the rest of them to the people on the door so they could also give them out as people come in. I did help set up a bit where I just moved some things around according to the stage plan and set up a couple of microphone stands. I realised after a while that it would be much easier if we had another guitar stand and so I messaged my Dad to bring one as Tyler used the guitar stand I brought for his electric guitar and there was another guitar stand that had three spaces for guitars on it that I believe Dan brought but I thought it'd be easier for my guitar to be on an easily accessible stand on stage as many people had asked to borrow my guitar for The Loft and so I want it to be as easy access as possible. I also made sure to tune my guitar right before the gig. Also, Emily and I put a poster outside the venue and used tape to stick it to part of the wall. 

There was a good amount of people that came to the gig. We sold 45 tickets and there were around 55 people there. We managed to make a profit from this gig but only just and if we had hired the venue, we would not have made a profit. Luckily, the venue let us use it for free with them getting money from the drinks bought. We didn't have much of a frontline for the gig but that was mainly because we didn't need one for most of it as we weren't having big bands; the most people on stage at once was three for Philophobia who needed three microphones and then one DI box for an electro-acoustic guitar. I helped out on part of the frontline for Sophie with Freddie as she played the Nord keyboard while singing but we didn't need the keyboard for the rest of the gig and so we moved it back out of the way. I think we should've gone over the frontline a bit more as it was slightly awkward in between acts as people often had to unplug and plug in their guitars themselves. Also, I think I could have done more with marketing and getting people there as, although I sent the poster and ticket link around, I didn't push it much more than that but if I had, I think more people would've come. I also think I could have put the posters up in more places. 

Emily has the stats on whether or not people scanned our QR code and whether or not people clicked on any of the links and some people did, here's the graph:

Just before the gig, Emily asked me to take some photos of her performing and said she'd take some of me. While taking photos, I realised that if you click the screen and turn the brightness all the way down then the photo improves massively. You can see the difference here:

Emily used my phone to take photos of me as her phone was low on charge and I was glad of this as it meant that I had all the photos already on my phone. Also, after taking some of Emily, I took a few of Tyler to show Emily how I'd taken the photos of her and how I turned down the brightness and stuff. After the gig, I went through all the photos and hearted the best ones and then I went through my favourite photos on my phone (which is where they had been saved) and edited them all to look better. I wanted to make them look a bit darker as I thought it suited the look more having it seem like it was more night time for the venue despite it having been lighter due to the time of year. If the gig was in winter, it would've been much darker by seven. Here is a photo before and after editing:

Here are some of the better photos that I took:

The last picture is my absolute favourite one that I took as I think it came out amazingly well. When taking photos from behind, I quickly realised how I can use the lights to my advantage as they created a cool glare on the photos which gave it much more atmosphere. Making them darker also helped with this and I think it made it have a much nicer and warmer feel overall. I also added a vignette to probably every single photo. I made sure to have a mix of vertical and horizontal photos in order for them to have variety in how they are used. 

Evaluation:

Overall, I think that I did well with planning, editing and releasing content in order to promote The Loft. I had a regular uploading schedule that I mostly stuck to and I managed to edit the videos and they received decent number of views and likes on Instagram. I also managed to contact Ross at Radio NineSprings and organised for the gig to be mentioned a lot on there as well as mentioning it a couple times on the GWS radio. Despite this, I'm not sure how much what I did impacted the amount of people that came as people aren't very likely to go to much live music anymore unless they already know and like the artist(s) involved. I think people have gone more towards a culture of not going out as much and this is probably due to the convenience of the internet and things. This means that the live music industry is suffering because it's very difficult to get people involved in a gig when it simply doesn't appeal to them because they don't know if they'll like it. The most reliable way to get people to come to a gig is by word of mouth and so sending it on a lot of group chats as well as directly to people. Although I did this, I think I could've pushed it more and made it much more appealing to people by saying about the types of things that would be performed there and how amazing it'll be. I think people forget how awesome it is to go out and see live music that they've never heard before. 

I wish that I did more promotion and sent it to more people because the worst they can say is no. I also wish I put more posters up around the local area. On the bright side, I think a decent amount of people still came and, although not as packed as we would've liked, they managed to fill the space and we had a decent audience to perform to. 

I think the QR linktree idea worked out well as it gives many people easy access to all of the musicians who performed and, although it didn't get a huge amount of clicks, it got more than it would've had we not done it. 

In summary, I think that the word of mouth promotion worked very well and I think that I did well to edit the videos and send them to Ellen to post on time on a regular schedule although it was a bit difficult to get people to send me videos as people didn't respond much to my messages on the group chat about it. I think that the programme turned out well and had easy access and information about everyone and served as a nice little memento of the night. Despite this, not as many people came as we would have liked and so I'd probably improve the social media presence of it on Instagram on my own Instagram as well as the college's and I'd also send it to absolutely everyone I could and tell them all the many reasons why they should come. I'd also make sure other people sent it to people to spread it as much as possible to try and get people to come. I'm also happy with how the photos came out although I'd have preferred to use a camera as they would've come out much better and my sister has a camera so I could have used that. I'm going to take some photos at Redbrick so I can try it out then.