Work Experience

Slow start........ 

As yet I don't have a solid work experience placement sadly. But i have applied to several well established businesses, including:

Danny Chang music (professional music and video production studio suites) - Penarth, Cardiff

Peavy UK (leading UK dealer of amplification systems, PA's and instruments) - Swansea

S4C - Television centre, Cardiff


Acid Jazz Records - Genre specific record label, East London


The Wave - Radio Station based in Swansea


Scarlet FM - Radio Station based in Llanelli


Street Level Studios - Versatile recording studio, Cardiff centre


Alesis UK - Manufacturer of professional studio equipment

Ive received hopeful news from Peavey about a placement there, and also an unconfirmed place at The Wave in Swansea, but so far no news form the other companies, i plan to keep expanding my search and pushing myself on employers in the coming weeks as much as i can.

More possibilities.....

Over the last week i have applied to several more companies for work experience, these include:



The Wave (Swansea based radio station) - http://www.thewave.co.uk/


TRL Music (Multi functional music company and record label) - www.trlmusic.com/workexp/

Scarlet FM (Llanelli based radio station) - www.scarletfm.com/


The Music Shed (Derby based studio and music renal service) -www.musicshed.co.uk/workexperience.html


Ninja Tune (London based record label) - http://www.ninjatune.net/


Roundhouse (Creative venue, studio and services for aspiring creators) - http://www.roundhouse.org.uk/


The Crash Factory (Nottingham based recording studio) - www.thecrashfactory.com/


Tom Dick and Debbie (Vocal focus recording studio) - www.tomdickanddebbie-audio.co.uk/

Sony Muisc UK - http://www.sonymusic.co.uk/texts/jobs/


Wrexham Music (Music and artist collaboration project) - www.wrexhammusic.co.uk/

Change of Plans.

I recently have luckily been given the opportunity of working for with the 3rd year CSM students as ticket coordinator, i have chosen to accept this offer and take it on as my work experience.

And the work begins.....

As my work experience this year i was lucky enough to get the role of being the ticket sales co-coordinator for 2nd year CSM, working closely with Ben Fitzharris of the 3rd year of the course.

Despite not being able to confirm work experience elsewhere at my other choices this option actually suited the situation very well, because it gave me several advantages:

• Almost Zero transport costs and inconvenience, because 95% of the work was done on the uni campus, with a little coordination needed with the Riverfront theatre in Newport's city centre, easily accessible by the university's free bus service.
• A good chance to make new contacts and befriend other musicians in the 3rd year.
• Get a taste in advance for the amount, and pace of work for my own 3rd year show next year, and the style and method of the running of the show.
• A chance to evaluate this years ticket sales, and sales methods and improve on them for next year.
• A chance to combine my work experience and my CSM6 contribution into one.

As ticket sales coordinator my main roles are:

• To organise a rota for ticket sales desk duty in collaboration with the 3rd year, and to organise and recruit assisting ticket representatives from my year group.
• To take part in manning the ticket sales desk myself.
• Maintaining contact with the 3rd year students regarding personal tickets for friends and families, and account for these with the general public ticket sales.
• To think of sales methods and promotion ideas for ticket sales within the uni.
• To implement these ideas and collect any necessary equipment for them, e.g. PA systems and microphones, and to make sure that this equipment was used properly and returned on time.

Ticket Sales Rota

Here is the completed rota for the ticket desk sales team, although last minute help was sometimes recieved and sometimes there were dropouts/no shows, but this give the general overview of the two week timetable:

Week 1:

Week 2:

Week 1 a success!

After finishing my first weeks work experience as ticket sales coordinator i think it has been a good success and i think word about the csm6 show is spreading fast.

Overall ticket sales numbers were not amazingly high, only selling about 25 tickets, but i think that could be due to several reasons, mainly that the uni cashpoints were not operating for almost the entire week during our ticket sales and nobody had any money! This was an unfortunate and unforeseen occurrence which couldn't be helped. However we still struggled on and persevered and sold a decent number, and had several promises, enquiry's and verbal reservations about tickets being sold in the second week of sales. Also i personally managed to sell tickets to Tom Bond (Student president) and the students union team, raising the overall profile of the show.


I optimistically hope that ticket sales will improve this week, as it is that much closer to the date of the show and hopefully the uni cashpoints will be operational and stocked with cash.


Here are a few photos of the first week of ticket sales, showing some of the live music we had, our setup and the promotional poster:

Week 2

After nearly completing my second, and final week of selling tickets and work experience as ticket sales coordinator i am pleased to report that the overall sales numbers are good and in general i think the show was promoted quite well.

We managed to sell 60 tickets so far for the both nights, mostly concessions and student tickets, but tickets are still being sold even as i write this.


We also found there to be a strong preference for people wanting to buy tickets on the door. Also, students not living on campus generally told us that they would prefer to buy tickets from the riverfront directly, purely for ease of access, and after speaking to the box office at the riverfront today this proved to be true, as they also report good sales.

Evaluation

Now looking back at my last 2 weeks as ticket sales coordinator i think a respectable amount of tickets were sold. However i think these figures could have been greatly improved upon, and i intend to make sure they are when selling tickets next year.



Here is a list of improvements that i think that if put into place could possibly boost future ticket sales:

• More varied live sets to try and meet more potential customers tastes
• Try using different locations around the uni to sell, rather than just the one spot.
• Try flyering more intensely as this proved to be very successful in promoting word of the show.
• More door to door ticket sales
• Greater online presence, and bigger group messages on online social networks.
• Try organising a few free gigs in the university to raise awerness about the show and make tickets available for purchase at these gigs
• Printed tshirts for sales reps to wear, giving them a more professional edge
• Organised trip to Opal 1 accomadation and Alt yr Yn campus to sell tickets, giving students more convinience.

More information and evaluation to come after ticket sales have finished and final ticket numbers are collected.