Ticket Sales Rota (work experience)

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:

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.

A New Domain!

I have recently purchased a domain name for my artist website, the domain name is: www.projectdmusic.com - this will be the home of my artist website.

Bought for a very reasonable £10.50 from www.one.com

New Website design

After careful thought i have decided to completely change the architect and design of my website. 


My original design was good, but didn't co-ordinate with the design of my blog or my artwork. With this new design, and using the logo and theme in all my other online artist sites; such as Myspace, Youtube and Twitter i hope to subliminally embed the image of my logo/artwork in my audiences minds, so that they immediately associate it with my music. Similar to how the MacDonalds giant yellow 'M' is used, because we immediately associate the image with the product.

Myspace profile skinned and pimped!

The new myspace underwent cosmetic surgery earlier this morning, gladly the operations were a complete success and the new profile is looking smoooth!

Twitter

Project D, always being one to try and keep up with the times, has created his own twitter account.

This is a very easy and quick way to keep a live news feed of my activity being updated to my website, using twitters embeddable widget.

Project D's twitter account: www.twitter.com/ProjectDmusic

Soundcloud

Project D soundcloud account up and running.

Soundcloud is an invaluable resource to all modern musicians, professionals and amateurs, and allows easy, free distribution of their music, making it easy for others to constructively criticise and lend advice on tracks in progress.

Project D's soundcloud account: www.soundcloud.com/ProjectDmusic

New Flickr account

Project D now also has a Flickr account -

www.flickr.com/photos/projectdmusic  or  www.flickr.com/people/prjoectdmusic

New Track coming soon

About half way through producing my new track now, which i've called 'Son of a Beat'.

Its a low tempo, mellow track, which is a mix of hip hop, funk, and acid jazz. It has a heavy purposeful beat which incorporates a conga rhythm, with a jazz piano and guitar melody.

Its reminiscent of some of the later works of 'Aim' and even has a sort of motown 'Kool and the Gang' feel to it.

Still contemplating adding lyrics and vocals to the mix, not sure if it would sound better as an instrumental.

Hope to finish recording soon though, and then continue to mix and finalize the track. So it should be up on soundcloud shortly!

My musical practice - Drew Burman

At the moment my personal practice of music has been taken on several tangents, due to new found artists, life experience, and even new found methods of recording. My main passion in music is live performance, and always will be. However I understand that is not practical to base a financial living off this and I must have a substantial fall back plan. I would also like to maybe try being a session musician. I am primarily a Drummer, although recently I have started playing bass guitar and I have played trumpet for several years before either of the other instruments. Other aspects of the music industry that interest me are the technical and studio aspects, but I do have very limited skills in these areas, and require far more tutoring before I am as proficient in them as I am with playing instruments, but this is something I am willing to spend time doing. Recently, thanks to my first year final project, and my recent group project for CSM3 I have become very interested in the practice of making music videos, including shooting, editing, dubbing and production. But I would also defiantly be engrossed by making other video material, either for film, promotion, or advertising.

My main style at the moment is a huge fusion of different genres which interest me greatly, and I am interested in making very diverse and versatile music sometimes with no correlation between my tracks whatsoever. Funk, heavy rock, euphoric dance, electronica, house and acid jazz are my main genres which I like creating music in. Although my listening consists more of 80’s and 90’s metal, dance and electronica. I am also very interested with beat concrete.

If compared to other artists id say my main influences would be a combination of the best artists from different genres, mainly people like The Who, Aim, St. Germaine, Metallica, Buddy Rich, Jamiroquai, The Prodigy, Kool and the Gang and Rage against the machine..

After graduation my primary intention is to actually become a fireman. Although this sounds strange of a music student it’s something I have always intended trying for the physical and mental challenge. However if an opportunity in the music world is found, or presents itself to me after graduating I would definitely consider diving straight into the industry and abandoning my other career aspects. Whatever happens directly after university I would eventually like to build up enough capital (either through fire fighting or the music industry) and be able to open my own chain of recording studios, possibly even franchising them eventually. Failing that I would be interested in a career in film and television involving music. And all the time i would be open to any live performance or studio work that was available.