This week I began drafting my first assignment and used the lesson's word-mapping and creative activities to formulate an idea which I hope to further plan and develop. I also hope to start consolidating in the coming week with other members of my group as to how we can best prepare for our second assignment and begin to strategically plan our input. When producing my first assignment I have tried to think creatively and of a business idea which has yet to be introduced in the music scene in Birmingham. The difficulties faced is that due to such a popular uprising of music and venues over the past few years, many problems have current solutions in place and my aim will be to find a 'loophole' or new idea that complements existing industrial practices.

After the processes of thought from last week, it has lead me down the path of thinking about the fashion/culture element that is associated with the regular attendees of FACE.  After coming to the conclusion that there is a huge female stance within the population of this sort of crowd it lead me into thinking of what women love and straight away I think fashion.

Picture a stall that sells t-shirts, as you would see at any regular big music event – marketers see middle class people attending such events, who will be willing to purchase something that makes them feel part of what was happening around them and, most importantly, something of memorabilia. Although we are not talking big concerts here, we do have that middle class audience who are willing to buy crap if it has some sort of meaning to it!

As we have gathered from audience research, vests are a well worn item within this scene, on both the guys and the girls, that’s right, vests.  I think it could potentially work to sell vests, with the night’s logo on it so in this case, FACE, at cheap-ish prices. If the vests were made from cheap material (the kind H&M use and pull it off with this type of crowd) and there was a range of different styles, sizes and colours with a selection of logos, these would sell enough to make a profit.

There could be a raffle where you buy a raffle ticket for £1 and if you win you get a free vest, this could bring a lot of income from an event that holds roughly 1000 people.

After a fun-filled lecture that took me back to my childhood (& also reminded me of how satisfying it is to knock over someone else’s tower), our group all managed to bring a few ideas to the table after an intense few rounds of word association. We then discussed and interrogated these ideas during a meeting with our mentor, Jez. This turned out to be very beneficial for us as we all came out of the meeting with a solid idea of where we can individually take this project.

After researching the subculture of dubstep and surrounding genres it came to my attention the people involved within the scene like to get reasonably creative, whether it be with music, fashion, dance or artistically. This led to my initial idea being a service that provides underground dance events with a creative corner.   

This corner would contain a blank graffiti wall which we would supply with materials (fabrics as well as paints/ pens) a hoola hooping area, imaginative lighting that will mess with your head and perhaps one of these.

These are all things that can be done whilst enjoying the music being played at the event. There would obviously be risks, such as people misusing the materials, however they would be provided as cheaply as possible and would be covered in the costs of hiring our service. This would only be able to be provided to events held in big- open spaces, which luckily is where most of the underground dance events take place, e.g. Rainbow wareh ouse, Air, Custard Factory and other places we never knew existed in Digbeth.

Giving people the chance to be creative in an atmosphere that they love to be in would hopefully result in some very happy ravers.

 My second idea, the one I think I will be taking forward as my final idea, is to provide events with water dispensers. As simple as it sounds I think that this idea may perhaps have been overlooked as it is so obvious. Raving is a serious form of exercise which leads to dehydration, therefore providing quick and easy access to unlimited water throughout the night, as well as lowering the amount of people at the bar could be very beneficial to all forms of events including festivals and raves.

If a big water company such as Evian was to get behind this, this service could perhaps be provided for free to gain them promotion. The dispensers themselves could be customised for specific events, including inside lighting, a bubble feature, advertisements or artwork on the frame and best of all a sound system fitted within.

To prevent the event loosing money on selling bottled water, water bottles would be sold giving the customer unlimited supply, the dispenser would then have to be fitted with some sort of feature (still unclear about this) that only allows people who have bought a bottle to use it.

There is still a lot of thought and research that needs to be put into this idea.

 

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The one main problem area that could be looked at is the experience of a Dubstep club night in Digbeth, Birmingham. Hype I know tries to bring people together as a community to experience music they all love. What I want to do is bring that experience even closer through the body’s sense of touch and feel. Music can obviously be experienced through sense of hearing but what if we took it a step further and offered the Dubstep community the chance to feel the music that is being played in the nightclub. As I know from research Dubstep uses heavy, hard-core sub bass lines with reverberating drum patterns, music samples and vocals that enables us to feel sound waves from bass speakers. My innovative and creative solution is to create a business that offers club nights such as Hype to hire or buy a dance floor that pulses to the music that is being performed or played in a nightclub. The music will be able to travel through the whole of your body so you can feel every beat, rhythm and pulse of the music. 

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From this week's session the group came up with a few ideas although they are expected to be changed, replaced in certain ways or rethought for our project. The first idea was a subscription service to use studio space when not in use, in order to generate money for the SME as well as provide a sustainable platform for artists. They would pay a monthly or annual fee to use the studio space and recording facilities, with the option of 'extras' for things such as CD production and coaching/mentoring from professionals. This means that rather than aspiring artists having to re-book, keep on track of which dates they are available, or seek alternate venues to record music and then produce it, this would offer an all in one experience package to suit different needs, whilst guaranteeing the SME finances in advance each month. This would benefit the venue in economic uncertainty and would be an effective way of using up studio space when not in use by other bands or artists, where Birmingham is a central hub for creative talent.

After discussing ways to improve our team’s organisation, research skills, publication/ presentation and ways of utilizing available resources, together we devised a group mission. By setting ourselves targets with deadlines and stating our desired expectations of what we would like to achieve, allowed us this week to move even further forward in preparation for assignment one.

 

By brainstorming all of the problems that we could potentially face, led us to develop strategies to either prevent or overcome these possible disasters. We decided as a group to use our time efficiently and meet up at least twice a week, as well as keep our Facebook group updated with information and findings. As a group, our communication has been very active and we intend to keep this up.

 

We have approached Jezz to be our mentor and will be meeting with him in the near future for guidance and advice on this project. This will be very beneficial, as an outsiders view with as much knowledge and experience as Jezz will hopefully keep us moving in the right direction.

 

Last Friday I attended the event Hype, featuring the Foreign Beggars, Cookie Monsta and The Others to experience the night for myself and get a better idea of the audience. On Wednesday afternoon (19/10/11) we met with our SME, Jake Crow, in the Custard Factory and spent a couple of hours discussing the BDC, Hype and the DMA’s. Our next step will be to meet up and analyse the SME even further with the information that we withdrew from this meeting and the research that we have found ourselves.

Over the past week we have agreed on setting targets to achieve each week; being organised and keeping in regular contact as the first steps to these being achievable. We decided that for this week we should establish the in’s and out’s of how our chosen SME is run and what kind of tasks they perform - to do so we needed to carry out research and arrange a meeting with the SME leaders. Richard has taken on the task of sorting the meeting and it has been arranged for this weekend, 21^st October. In knowing that we won’t have inside information until then, we decided we should further research into the business’s online and offline presence. As a group we have devised a number of questions for the interview in order to find out exactly how they run their business.

Phoenix Solutions, Birmingham City University

 

INDIVIDUALCONTRIBUTION AND WEEK 4 UPDATE

 

Dean Hill | Written Director | 20 October 2011

 

Individual Contribution

 

·         Made contact with individual from our chosen SME and group should arrange interview this week to answer any questions specific to the project – I would appreciate the team coming up with a list of questions that can help us specifically identify issues within the SME – and have started discussions that will place Jo in charge of contacting Lewis to avoid confusion

 

·         Raw research material collated and posted – a new post will be submitted to our private group blog containing new, original documentation based on analysis of the SME (therefore, this post is not simply copy and paste, and has been collated to inform about the venue)

 

·         Continued research and analysis into the SME venue, and with the assistance of Joanne’s input I have researched other aspects of the SME that are available on our group blog

 

·         Started background research into SMEs, issues management – to be presented at meeting

 

·         Began work on producing and formulating a contingency plan, action plan with deadlines and important dates, distribution of helpful contacts etc. – to be discussed at meeting

 

·         Considered producing a situational analysis of SME – to be finalised with group members

 

Group Feedback

 

·         Identification of problems for SME: From the analysis of a range of sources, two possible conclusions have been formulated which should be addressed further, which could be opportunities in an individual and contemporary context – 1) assistance with social media as analysis of their accounts shows an infrequent occurrence of posting which could also be improved by more engagement with fans through enhanced interaction; and 2) a time management system based on the SME admitting this is an issue on their website

 

·         Other solution possibility: The SME relies on advanced technology – group to discuss further

 

·         Action plan: This will be completed as soon as possible, but at this stage we are currently analysing the SME and making contact with relevant individuals. Next week the group shall have all communication channels established as well as research, an action plan, contingency plan etc. Next week the group shall start pinpointing two or three possible areas of development/issues and a plan designed to meet a need based on research, analysis and discussion. Therefore, written documents to support our assignment will be produced to keep track of the project over the coming two weeks. The aim is for significant progress to be made over the next two weeks, with deadline for a final idea imminent. All supporting documentation to be shown on blog and to A. Dubber and professionalism explored with regards to branding the group, identity and next steps for our assignments.

 

·         Goals and targets: The group will try to achieve an improvement in communication and team-working skills as well as an understanding of SMEs and the local music industry. We will produce a professional, realistic, informed project that shows strategic understanding and supporting material provided. Throughout, we hope to achieve a high mark by performing background research, utilising contacts in the industry, utilising the knowledge of our SMEs as well as the skills of the team and thinking professionally. We will hand in a project which is professional and shows evidence of analysing a problem based on extensive research and approaching its resolution in a methodological, strategic way. In other words, thinking through the process as thoroughly as possible, not cutting corners, utilising our contacts and maximising contacts, ensuring contingency plans and action plans are fully operational, learning about the regional music industry and acting both creative and original

 

·         Social media: Accounts are up and running and members have been added

 

·         Personal mentor: Have made contact with two potential personal mentors – Brett Maverick from Sony Music Entertainment UK and Stephen Naude, a music business entrepreneur who now works for IBM in human resources. Could Lewis Felstead be considered for the role?

 

FOR GROUP ATTENTION: CHECKLIST OF ACTIVITIES

 

Here is a list of some things needing our attention. Over next two weeks documentation will be distributed among groups to ensure all aspects of the project are dealt with.

 

1.       Arrange a meeting with peers and confirm our group mentor

 

2.       Each decide on our personal mentor, as requested last week

 

3.       Consider a skills audit of each member ahead of assignment

 

4.       Confirm you have been added to the Facebook group

 

5.       Receive copy of minutes of meeting with Lewis

 

6.       Discuss creative solutions of identified problems stated above – week 5/6 deadline?

 

7.       Start to contemplate solution, action plan, goals and target assessment grades

 

8.       D Hill to compile situation analysis and feedback to group by end of week 5

 

IMPORTANT: GROUP TO LOOK AT ACTION PLAN OUTLINE ON MOODLE – WE NEED TO COME UP WITH AN ISSUE, SOLUTION, ACTION PLAN INC. DEADLINES – D. HILL SHALL FEEDBACK TO THE GROUP BY END OF WEEK 5 – BUT NEED INPUT OF EACH GROUP MEMBER WITH REGARDS TO STRATEGICALLY APPROACHING THE TASK. OTHER GROUP MEMBERS TO CONTINUE WITH ANALYSIS – THE BLOG IS LOOKING GOOD AND SHARED INPUT IS BENEFICIAL TO THE GROUP.