We'll BTECing Away Some Great Memories
Ramsgate gig 09/06/15
the Major Music Project was given to us just before spring break. Our entire class got divided up into two groups; one was to put on a gig at the college and one to collaborate with East Kent College to put on a gig in Margate. I was put into the group of Margate together with: Melissa, Alijah, Donte, Cody, Shaquille, Maria K, Junior, Erika, Deonne, Shaniece and Mykaela.
During our first meeting, we came up with all the roles and divided them between everyone. Olly did point out that, just because you got assigned a role, didn't mean that you had to do it completely on your own. People still had to help one another but it meant that you had to keep all the information together
ROLES AND ASSIGNED PEOPLE:
- Make an Equipment list for on the day of departure to make sure that all the equipment we needed was taken to Ramsgate and, more importantly, back to the college. This was done after confirming the tech spec with Alijah. - Erika
- Writing down the tech spec for each song, confirming it with Grant and sending it over to East Kent College. This was an important role as it effected the set list because we had to know what instruments they had and what instruments we were able to bring to find out what songs we were able to play - Elijah
- Creating the set list. After confirming what we could bring to Ramsgate, a set list had to be made so that everyone knew what to rehearse and when to be on stage - Deonne
- Liaison With Ivan, asking questions about the matters below, finding out as much information as possible - Fleur
- Advertising
- Price
- Back line
- Sound Engineer
- Size Venue
- Parking
- Lighting
- Storage
- Set Up Line
- Run Through
- Sound Check
- Advertising. As East Kent College had already made a Facebook page, the only thing we had to do was share the word as much as we could to relevant people. there was no point in telling people from London as they would never come to Ramsgate, but we thought about posting the event on pages related to Ramsgate nightlife/music/activities - Donté
- Make schedules. We knew we were going to be on a tight schedule on the day of the gig, so we needed someone to make a schedule so that everyone knew exactly where to be at what time. In order to make this schedule we had to confirm information about sound check times, set times, duration of transportation, check in times accommodation etc. - Melissa
- Find transport & accommodation as we had a small budget we had to try and find transport and accommodation as cheaply as possible. We were only staying one night and wanted to get a coach down, big enough to transport aprox. 30 people and all the equipment - Shaquille & Codey
- Budget - Maria K
- Find out who is going. this was important in the process of finding transport and accommodation as we had to know how big the coach had to be and how many rooms we had to book. - Junior
My role was to be in contact with Ivan prior to the event to retrieve all the information we needed to make it successful from our side. I composed an email for Ivan containing questions, which I sent to Melissa to proof read:
Hi Ivan,
Hope this finds you well.
I am contacting you regarding the end of year Summer gig on the (?) of June, where we (Westking) will be supporting your students.
First of all, we all wanted to say a massive thank you for having us, we are very excited!
Secondly, as we are planning our trip, it would be great if you could shine some light on the following matters we have come across:
-Advertising. Will you be advertising the gig? If so, could you send me all the links/files connected to the event? If not, could you send me all the information regarding the gig ie. name of venue, price, door times, line up, set times, age limit etc?
-Tech Spec. If you could let me know ASAP so we know exactly what to bring down to make sure we can play our set.
-Back Line
-Sound Engineer. Who will be the sound engineer on the night? Is it possible for you to send his details?
-Size Venue. What is the capacity of the venue and how big is the stage ie. how many instruments/people fit on it?
-Parking. Will there be parking spaces available? We are coming down in (?) splitter vans(?) and would there be any costs attached to parking our vans overnight?
-Lighting. Who will be doing our lighting?
-Storage. Is there any safe place we could store our equipment during our stay?
-Set Up Line
-Run Through and Sound Check. Will we be doing a final run through or sound check on the day and if so, what time would we be expected to be there? If not, could you let me know what time we are expected to be there anyway so we can include this into our schedule of that day.
If you've got any questions, please don't hesitate to send me an email.
Looking forward to hearing from you,
Fleur de Boer
In the end, it turned out that Olly had already been in contact with Ivan and that we were given contact details of some of the students from East Kent College and by the time I got to the meeting, other people in my group had already contacted the students, so my email became unnecessary.
Further I attended the meetings where we discussed everyone's progress in the preparation and talked about what still needed to be done, which we documented:
The college gave the music department a subsidy so we made a budget so that we knew whether we would be losing or making money:
I contributed to the order of the set list together with Melissa and performed in several songs on the gig, which we rehearsed for. On the actual day I was in charge of the GAIA and it's power cable.
Overall, I felt that the communication between our group could have been a bit better. We only had a few meetings and I generally felt like no one really knew what was going on. I think that the main reason was because everyone was very busy with the rehearsals and trying to finish all the course work. We were also with a very large group which I think makes it more difficult. When working with a small group it is much easier to track everyones progress and to keep the communication flowing, but it's hard to ask everyone individually how they are getting on.
The rehearsals could have been a lot better organised as well. Very often people came late and unprepared and with so many songs on the Ramsgate and College setlist it would have been a lot less stressful if everyone had made a bit more effort. This resulted into cutting Q.U.E.E.N. out of the Ramsgate setlist, as we were too insecure about the song. I definitely think this could have been prevented if everyone had prepared more and had showed up for rehearsal.
As for me, I think I could have tried to help other people a bit more as my role turned out to be unnecessary. I ended up losing track of what we were actually doing and decided to just roll with it and trust everyone else with their roles. Whenever someone asked me to help with something (for example the setlist), I was more than happy to help but I could have been a bit more involved. I did always try to be there for the rehearsals and I don't recall missing one.
Overall, regardless of the things we could have done differently, this was a great experience and I think we did it as best as we could have done it. If we had to do it again, I would definitely try to be more involved and as a group we communicate and promote the event more, but I think we did a great job. I would also try and work with a smaller group of people.
We managed to not forget any of the equipment and we made it to Margate on time. The sound check on the night was a bit of a disaster but we all managed to stay calm and we worked with what we had and pulled it off quite well.
Working with other people (East Kent College) makes you realise how much you have to rely on people you don't even know sometimes. In the end, we had no idea what kind of venue they chose and how well they had promoted it. They had picked the sound engineer as well, which caused problems that we could have not been able to prevent.
Nevertheless, I think I speak for everyone when I say that I had a great time and I would definitely do it again.
the Major Music Project was given to us just before spring break. Our entire class got divided up into two groups; one was to put on a gig at the college and one to collaborate with East Kent College to put on a gig in Margate. I was put into the group of Margate together with: Melissa, Alijah, Donte, Cody, Shaquille, Maria K, Junior, Erika, Deonne, Shaniece and Mykaela.
During our first meeting, we came up with all the roles and divided them between everyone. Olly did point out that, just because you got assigned a role, didn't mean that you had to do it completely on your own. People still had to help one another but it meant that you had to keep all the information together
ROLES AND ASSIGNED PEOPLE:
- Make an Equipment list for on the day of departure to make sure that all the equipment we needed was taken to Ramsgate and, more importantly, back to the college. This was done after confirming the tech spec with Alijah. - Erika
- Writing down the tech spec for each song, confirming it with Grant and sending it over to East Kent College. This was an important role as it effected the set list because we had to know what instruments they had and what instruments we were able to bring to find out what songs we were able to play - Elijah
- Creating the set list. After confirming what we could bring to Ramsgate, a set list had to be made so that everyone knew what to rehearse and when to be on stage - Deonne
- Liaison With Ivan, asking questions about the matters below, finding out as much information as possible - Fleur
- Advertising
- Price
- Back line
- Sound Engineer
- Size Venue
- Parking
- Lighting
- Storage
- Set Up Line
- Run Through
- Sound Check
- Advertising. As East Kent College had already made a Facebook page, the only thing we had to do was share the word as much as we could to relevant people. there was no point in telling people from London as they would never come to Ramsgate, but we thought about posting the event on pages related to Ramsgate nightlife/music/activities - Donté
- Make schedules. We knew we were going to be on a tight schedule on the day of the gig, so we needed someone to make a schedule so that everyone knew exactly where to be at what time. In order to make this schedule we had to confirm information about sound check times, set times, duration of transportation, check in times accommodation etc. - Melissa
- Find transport & accommodation as we had a small budget we had to try and find transport and accommodation as cheaply as possible. We were only staying one night and wanted to get a coach down, big enough to transport aprox. 30 people and all the equipment - Shaquille & Codey
- Budget - Maria K
- Find out who is going. this was important in the process of finding transport and accommodation as we had to know how big the coach had to be and how many rooms we had to book. - Junior
My role was to be in contact with Ivan prior to the event to retrieve all the information we needed to make it successful from our side. I composed an email for Ivan containing questions, which I sent to Melissa to proof read:
Hi Ivan,
Hope this finds you well.
I am contacting you regarding the end of year Summer gig on the (?) of June, where we (Westking) will be supporting your students.
First of all, we all wanted to say a massive thank you for having us, we are very excited!
Secondly, as we are planning our trip, it would be great if you could shine some light on the following matters we have come across:
-Advertising. Will you be advertising the gig? If so, could you send me all the links/files connected to the event? If not, could you send me all the information regarding the gig ie. name of venue, price, door times, line up, set times, age limit etc?
-Tech Spec. If you could let me know ASAP so we know exactly what to bring down to make sure we can play our set.
-Back Line
-Sound Engineer. Who will be the sound engineer on the night? Is it possible for you to send his details?
-Size Venue. What is the capacity of the venue and how big is the stage ie. how many instruments/people fit on it?
-Parking. Will there be parking spaces available? We are coming down in (?) splitter vans(?) and would there be any costs attached to parking our vans overnight?
-Lighting. Who will be doing our lighting?
-Storage. Is there any safe place we could store our equipment during our stay?
-Set Up Line
-Run Through and Sound Check. Will we be doing a final run through or sound check on the day and if so, what time would we be expected to be there? If not, could you let me know what time we are expected to be there anyway so we can include this into our schedule of that day.
If you've got any questions, please don't hesitate to send me an email.
Looking forward to hearing from you,
Fleur de Boer
In the end, it turned out that Olly had already been in contact with Ivan and that we were given contact details of some of the students from East Kent College and by the time I got to the meeting, other people in my group had already contacted the students, so my email became unnecessary.
Further I attended the meetings where we discussed everyone's progress in the preparation and talked about what still needed to be done, which we documented:
The college gave the music department a subsidy so we made a budget so that we knew whether we would be losing or making money:
I contributed to the order of the set list together with Melissa and performed in several songs on the gig, which we rehearsed for. On the actual day I was in charge of the GAIA and it's power cable.
Overall, I felt that the communication between our group could have been a bit better. We only had a few meetings and I generally felt like no one really knew what was going on. I think that the main reason was because everyone was very busy with the rehearsals and trying to finish all the course work. We were also with a very large group which I think makes it more difficult. When working with a small group it is much easier to track everyones progress and to keep the communication flowing, but it's hard to ask everyone individually how they are getting on.
The rehearsals could have been a lot better organised as well. Very often people came late and unprepared and with so many songs on the Ramsgate and College setlist it would have been a lot less stressful if everyone had made a bit more effort. This resulted into cutting Q.U.E.E.N. out of the Ramsgate setlist, as we were too insecure about the song. I definitely think this could have been prevented if everyone had prepared more and had showed up for rehearsal.
As for me, I think I could have tried to help other people a bit more as my role turned out to be unnecessary. I ended up losing track of what we were actually doing and decided to just roll with it and trust everyone else with their roles. Whenever someone asked me to help with something (for example the setlist), I was more than happy to help but I could have been a bit more involved. I did always try to be there for the rehearsals and I don't recall missing one.
Overall, regardless of the things we could have done differently, this was a great experience and I think we did it as best as we could have done it. If we had to do it again, I would definitely try to be more involved and as a group we communicate and promote the event more, but I think we did a great job. I would also try and work with a smaller group of people.
We managed to not forget any of the equipment and we made it to Margate on time. The sound check on the night was a bit of a disaster but we all managed to stay calm and we worked with what we had and pulled it off quite well.
Working with other people (East Kent College) makes you realise how much you have to rely on people you don't even know sometimes. In the end, we had no idea what kind of venue they chose and how well they had promoted it. They had picked the sound engineer as well, which caused problems that we could have not been able to prevent.
Nevertheless, I think I speak for everyone when I say that I had a great time and I would definitely do it again.
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