Music & Live Events

"Music is life..Breed the lyrics..Live in the music"...

[musicandliveevents]

SubWoofers - Show Time!

Finally, Sunday 6th May had come upon us and the birth of the family friendly dog music festival, 'SubWoofers' , had arrived! The weather was incredible and we couldn't have asked for more! If anything it could have been a bit cooler, judging by how many of us were sun burnt come the end of the day ;)

As expected the last week running up to the event was the most hectic of the lot, with last minute jobs popping up as well as all the preparation needed to make sure the site was all set up and ready to go, come 1pm on Sunday!

We started to prepare the site on the Friday, using the uni van to help load and bring over all the decor and signage we had prepared back at the uni workshop for the event. As you can see in the extreme heat the ground wasn't the softest, so you will have to excuse my struggle putting the letters in the ground in the picture above ;)

Me being me and loving to do a bit of DIY, I was in charge of putting together and setting up the box office for the event. What's more, knowing my job on the day was box office based, I wanted to make sure I did a good job ;). Not before long I had the box office looking in good shape, and then decided to create and put together my own makeshift shelf, which proved to be very useful on the day when dealing with the tickets and cash flow.

On the day, I was in shock of how many people had attended! There was a queue full of people, before we even opened at 1pm. I was in charge at the front and at the beginning, with the rush of people, I was on my own which was a good challenging start to the day as I had to organise queuing lanes, wristbands, programmes as well as trying to keep count of numbers! It was all fun and games, especially when I took into consideration the amount of dogs I was also getting the chance to meet and greet! Not before long I had some of my colleagues offering assistance, as the numbers of people were increasing! Numbers became so much, with the queuing lanes becoming so congested, I took action into my own hands and opened up a piece of fencing to allow a more fluent flow of queuing lanes, separating the pre-paid ticket queue from the pay on the door queue in a much clearer way than it was originally set out. As a result, the public soon made their way into the site, with steward marshals in designated locations to ensure the system was managed and understandable to the public to follow. Alongside with the extreme hot weather it was important that we managed the public in a professional way to ensure people didn't become frustrated whilst in the queues.

One thing that was noticeable on the day was the majority of people had bought tickets in advance, rather than on the day. This did seem to anger some members of the public when stood in the pre-paid ticket queue on the right was longer than the pay on the door queue on the left, suggesting that there was no incentive to them paying for tickets in advance. As a result, one thing we could do better next time is to make pre-paid tickets cheaper than on the door tickets, to make the public receive an incentive if they pre-pay for their tickets.

Never the less, once we had got through the mad rush within the first 2 hours, 'SubWoofers' was running at full tempo with the public inside loving every minute of it! The blend of music, dogs, activities and families all in one space was something we imagined, but not to the scale that we were witnessing! There were times we stood back and just took in what we had created and just appreciated the satisfaction of the atmosphere on the site. What's more, I'm still pretty confident that is actually my dog confused by the mascot in the that fantastic picture above ;)

Hay bails and deck chairs placed in front of the stage, gave the public the perfect opportunity to sit back in the sun, relax and listen to the range of different musical talents we had on display!

Whilst walking around the site 'The Horn Division' and 'Ska Souls' really stood out to me, creating the perfect atmosphere with the audience present, playing a mix of music with songs people wanted to hear. But more importantly, going back to the purpose of the event and the appreciation of the charity 'The Hearing Dogs' both the main stage and second stage had a signer on stage so everyone could come together and appreciate the music and atmosphere as one, at 'SubWoofers'.

Above is probably my favorite image from the day, as I believe it best captures what we managed to create, in one image. An 8 month journey that started in September, all made worth it by an image that captures the goal we set out to achieve on this day May 6th 2018.

[musicandliveevents]

**CONTINUED** SubWoofers - Show Time!

At one stage we found the event was running so smoothly that we had a chance to make the most of it, so made our way over to the photo booth and dodgems! Here at 'Bucks Live' we work hard, but play harder...;)

Not before long it was 7pm and the time to begin closing down the site had come. As I was in charge of putting up the box office, I rightfully then had the responsibility of taking it back down. At that particular moment I then instantly regretted how tight I had put the screws in when putting it up, especially when by this stage the screw driver had seen better days ;). Never the less, i eventually managed to dismantle it piece by piece, while my colleagues had been working on taking down the fencing. After the box office, I then focused on taking down the box office marquee and packing it up. Leaving us all loading the deck chairs into the van as the last act of packing up for the evening, before we all headed to the SU to have a well deserved sesh! And we wasted no time on getting started! ;)

To put the cherry on the top of the cake, we made it in the paper with a title which best sums up what we managed to create as a team... "Music, sun and family fun at festival with a woof in its step"...Something to be proud of.

After having the bank holiday Monday off to recover, we continued to pack up the rest of the site for the next couple of days, and returned any rented items or equipment to the relevant suppliers. We then had our final class session where we sat down in our groups for the last time, analyzing and evaluating our event.

We concluded what was good from our event and what we could have been better. I think the "could be better" section being more populated than the "good" does not replicate the event, but speaks for itself in terms of the determination and professionalism of our team to always want do better and improve. Rather than just resting on our laurels, and just looking at the "good" bits.

Overall as a class we were all so proud of what we achieved, and 'The Hearing Dogs' even more so! I Personally never thought I would be apart of something on this magnitude, and relished every moment of being part of this journey and experience 'Bucks New Uni' has provided me.

To conclude, with the sad news of our course leader Alan leaving at the end of the semester, who had been a massive influence on us throughout the year and the heart beat of the whole process, there was one last thing left to do as a team...Go for a pint!

*The cast of 'Bucks Live' 2018*

[musicandliveevents]

SubWoofers - Productive Days Out :)

The pros of being in the marketing team, gives you the chance to get off campus and do what we do best...Market! Such opportunity arose with the ‘High Wycombe Fire Department’. Who invited us down to their station, after showing an interest in getting involved with ‘SubWoofers’, to take some photos with the team for promotional content. So we took them up on the offer and headed over to see the crew! They were all very welcoming and most of all gave us an amazing insight to the functioning of their day to day service. 

We were taken 40+ foot into the air giving us amazing view over High Wycombe, which definitely turned a few heads from the passing public! It was only when i asked why the fireman kept hesitating when asking if we wanted to go higher, that i realised why his colleagues were laughing from the ground as he was afraid of heights ;). Never the less, it gave us the chance to take some eye catching photos for the social media team to use for content. Altogether it was a productive day to combine a unique experience with a constructive marketing for the purpose of ‘SubWoofers’.

Living in the area for most of my life, going on ‘Marlow FM’ was something i was still yet to do! However, during the marketing of ‘SubWoofers’ such opportunity arose! As a marketing team we had put a lot of work into marketing via flyers and social media, so now it was time to take it to another level and try our luck with other e-media in the form of radio. We contacted a range of radio stations, within the surrounding areas, of all different levels and types of exposure, ‘Marlow FM’ and ‘Mix 96′ just to mention a few! I was held with the responsibility of going on ‘Marlow FM’ with my class mate Will. On the day, we spoke to a lovely lady called Carla Delaney for rougthly 45 minutes all about ‘SubWoofers’ from top to bottom. ‘Marlow FM’ breaches out to a fairly niche market of Buckinghmashire, however a vital market for the desired audience for ‘SubWoofers’. In the way that, the majority of the location attachment and audience listeners for ‘Marlow FM’ are families, due to the large amount of schools in the area and family orientated towns such as Marlow itslef.

Overall, both the experiences of receiving a tour and building a partnership with the ‘High Wycombe Fire Brigade’ and having the opportunity to go on the radio for the first time with ‘Marlow FM’ have been extremely beneficial not only to the event ‘SubWoofers’ but also to me as a person, as i try to build up a range of skills and experiences for myself along this journey with ‘Bucks New University’.

[musicandliveevents]

Just your normal Tuesday promoting ‘SubWoofers’ with the 'High Wycombe Fire Brigade’ in a dog onesie at the top of a fire engine looking over High Wycombe…

[musicandliveevents]

SubWoofers - Marketing Begins!

Finally! SubWoofers brought to life with its design work finished and ready for our disposal!

As part of the marketing team we took a huge step forward when we received the design work,  as we were finally able to efficiently market this event once and for all. Making us all feel very excited of the realization that this event was actually happening! For the first time both ‘Bucks Live’ and ‘The Hearing Dogs’ teaming up to create our first ever dog music festival, the anticipation was high! 

Immediately we re-skinned all our social media platforms to give SubWoofers an identity, with Hudson the dog becoming the USP! We also wanted to establish the unique partnership with essentially our client for the event, ‘The Hearing Dogs’, to get the ball rolling to what ‘SubWoofers’ is all about and what we are intending to achieve. As a result, we made a trip  to ‘The Grange’ in ‘Saunderton’, where the event would be taking place, to create some marketing material to form the relationship, as can be seen below.

Moving on, not long after seeing the picture of Hudson the dog on the flyer, we were meeting the real thing! As you can seen in the picture above, a very well behaved, photogenic dog, who overall i was just relived when he decided not to chase me around the 30 archer site dressed as Rusty Buck! ;) Which on that particular topic, me dressed up as a mascot seems to be a regular theme throughout promoting this event as you may begin to notice ;) 

Within the Marketing Team we knew the expectations of us where high, especially from ‘The Hearing Dogs’, to ensure we can attract as many people as possible to the event. As a result, during one of our Tuesday planning sessions at ‘Bucks New Uni’ we all come together to put a plan together of what our best marketing opportunities are and what are we gonna do to make stuff happen. ‘The Henley Dog Walk’ was the perfect opportunity, not only to market our event, but market it to the target audience we want to attract! it was the perfect opportunity to gather potential numbers for ‘SubWoofers’. On the day we had a stool set up with flyers to hand out, with once again me in a mascot costume (pretending i can play the guitar). Altogether, it gave us a chance to feed into the target market, and begin word of mouth marketing within our desired audience going forward. 

As an attempt to get me out of a dog onesie, i took matters into my own hands and decided to order ‘SubWoofer’ t-shirts ;) In all seriousness, we began to have plenty of material at our disposal in the forms of both digital and traditional physical marketing media teckniques, to help provide ourselves with a presence to the public. As weeks went on the colour green began to have a big presence in the majority of the surrounding areas, whether it be via flyers, mascots, t-shirts or large banners, like in the picture below.

Due to the scale of the event we wanted to achieve, unlike ‘Winterland’ the year before we wanted to venture out our marketing further. For example, the banner below i drove and took to ‘Pebblebrook School’ on ‘Churchill Avenue’ in ‘Aylesbury’,  where the particular location receives a lot of stationary traffic, especially during school times. This, alongside with other pieces of traditional marketing, was seen as our most productive and efficient form of marketing, when referencing back to the market research carried out earlier in the year. Therefore, we wanted to take advantage of it and try to increase our image within the surrounding areas. Things all weren't plain sailing though, as when i went to put the banner up it turned out that i had the wrong size cable ties and had to make a quick diversion to the nearest DIY store to put it right, baring in mind a bad worksman blames his tools ;).

During another Tuesday planning session at ‘Bucks New Uni’, i was over the moon when our course leader Alan had booked us a rehearsal studio for us to create some marketing material for the event. It was a win,win, as i love playing the drums and i was doing something constructive for the event at the same time... However, i wasn't so over the moon when we realized there was no drum sticks...Never the less i managed to improvise ;). Overall, it was a very productive day as we manged to blend what ‘SubWoofers’ is about in a single piece of marketing material, with the use of dogs, music and fun to portray the associations of the event we wish to stage. 

To conclude, ideas for marketing where coming thick and fast from all the sub groups within the team, and with the event just around the corner we have had to make the most of every moment and marketing incentive we could get to help reach the goal we set out to achieve. Never the less, despite the pressures of delivering an event for a client, i more importantly than anything else was just enjoying being part of the creative environment and overall process of making ‘SubWoofers’ happen, picking up and acquiring new skills along the way. Overall, having the opportunity to be apart of an event on this scale was something that i wanted to thrive upon, not something i wanted to shy away from!

[musicandliveevents]

Kicking off second year with Bucks Live & The Hearing Dogs

After our first year success of planning and carrying out our event "WinterLand" I was excited to say the least when we were informed that throughout our second year we will be carrying out our live music event off-campus in partnership with the Hearing Dogs Trust on their 30+ Acre site. Once we were informed we were going to be in complete control in the planning process of the event all of us in the class had a lot of enthusiasm considering the higher responsibility and opportunities that we have been granted with this year in comparison to last year in order to carry out this event in May 2018. 

We began the lectures with briefings of what the Event Management course had lined up for us this year, before paying the Hearing Dogs Trust site a numerous amount of site visits to help begin to fuel our creative minds of what we are working with and what we wish to conduct during the lead up to the event and on the day itself. During the first year, with the Winterland event, I was placed in the Production Team and very much enjoyed the responsibilities and tasks that came with it, however also showed an interest in the Marketing Team hence the participation in some of last years marketing events, including dressing up as Rusty Buck and walking around the town of High Wycombe, not being the fondest memory ;). As a result of this I decided to give the marketing team a go for this years event. However, marketing this years event is proving to be very different to marketing previous bucks live events, which we had predicted due to us working for a client as opposed for ourselves. This has so far proven to have both positives and negatives to it in the way that the negatives are we don't originally know the hearing dogs audience and social media presence, along side with how they decided to conduct and promote themselves through marketing due to being a charity of course. Never the less, we are beginning to get to know our client and their intentions which is a huge positive due to the much higher social media following they have than our bucks live social media presence. 

Furthermore, our preparation to marketing the event has been strengthened even further in the last few weeks after our team, alongside with the music business team attended the Christmas market event at the hearing dogs trust to get an idea of the social fabric of an Hearing Dogs Trust event. We were able to conduct this not just be showing our faces at the event, but also due to the help of the music business students who designed a public questionnaire to gain market research to build hub of information for us marketers in particular to base our marketing focuses off. The information gained has since been converted into clear easy to understand graphs and figures by the music business students for us to use as a bases to focus our marketing in-depth. 

To sum up the start of this years planning of our event I would say in particular within marketing it has been very much a preparation semester where we have done more research than marketing so far due to the circumstances and importance of understanding our client before we jump in. Kicking off semester 2 we are equipped and ready to market this live music event as we will have all the bucks live accounts handed over to us to re-skin, after being used for the 2017 winterland event with the first year. Additionally, we will have all the information we need to take advantage of our clients social status alongside with all the traditional type of media opportunities we have in and around the local area and surrounding towns. I'm looking forward to the next step in this creative journey all the way up to the day of the event!

[musicandliveevents]

My Summer

 The longest summer of my life so far, being 4 months long, gave me the perfect opportunity to take advantage of my free time by keeping myself busy. I managed to get up to lots of different things, but more importantly in particular a considerable amount of music related experiences!

 To kick off my music related summer i went to go and see the Rock ‘N’ Roll legend Shakin’ Stevens on 3 separate occasions over the course of the summer (Reading, London and Hastings). Growing up being influenced by my Dad I am very much into the Rock ‘N’ Roll scene and often go to gigs of Rock ‘N’ Roll bands that still play today such as The Jets, who i also saw during the summer! Shaky’s tour was to promote the realise of his latest album “Echoes Of Our Times” which i find very interesting as the album is all about his family history and his lost ancestors within his family tree, once again portraying their is more to music than just the sound you hear! Altogether i really enjoyed going to 3 out of the 33 shows on the tour, especially going to the final tour date in Hastings! Shaky may be 69 years of age but he definitely still knows how to put on a show!

 Furthermore, during my summer of 2017 i had been looking forward for a very long time to see Blink 182 when i had booked the tickets for the O2 back in December 2016! Finally the date came around and i went to the O2 to see them live! The anger of paying £33 to park was soon forgotten when Mark Hoppus from Blink said “ We’ve just heard how much you guys have to pay for parking...So don't worry we are going to make sure you get your moneys worth”! From then on it was easily one of the best concerts i have ever been to, even without Tom Delong in the band! The stage presents they put on as well as on top of the music was phenomenal! What’s more, Frank Turner was supporting Blink on the tour and he gave us the a unique experience when he decided to get a member of the crowd up on stage to help him play a song whilst making the crowd in the standing area form a swirling circle mosh pit which was both something I've never seen before!

 Moving on, as a result of working at Oakley Court Hotel in Windsor for the last 2 years it has enabled me to get involved with helping put on the annual summer festival “Live and Unwind” for the second year in a row. It was a weekend event aimed at families. On the first night we had an open-air cinema on the lawns of the hotel screening “Mamma Mia”. Annoyingly it decided to rain that evening so we had to arrange all the seating to have black bin bags on so we could drain off the rain and provide the guests with umbrellas where need. Luckily enough it still managed to go ahead and those who braved it through the rain enjoyed the experience of a retro open-air cinema. The next day on the Sunday was a free entry day where over 1000 people decided to attend! Throughout most of the day i was in charge of operating the main hotel car park with walkie-talkies with my other colleagues in charge of the additional car parks. However, due to it being a free entry event we didn't know the amount of people who would turn up, which ended up being more than we originally predicted. As a result the car parks quickly filled up of which i then decided to close the 9th hole on the gold course so we could begin to park the remaining cars on there so we could remove the congestion off the road and onto our hotel grounds for the safety of our vehicle users. Overall working the weekend on the event was a great experience for me to get involved with dealing with people in un-predicted pressured situations as well as getting a feel for the event environment.

 Lastly, it wouldn't be summer for me unless I attended the annual “Retro Festival” in Newbury show ground. 50′s and 60′s themed weekend event, the festival has 3 separate stage hangers for Rock ‘N’ Roll, The Mods and then finally the Dance stage. I stuck around the Rock ‘N’ Roll stage for most of the day and enjoyed taking in the different bands music as well as all the classic cars that drove by during the course of the day!!

 In conclusion, i had a fantastic summer, which I very much enjoyed! The best part was managing to keep myself busy throughout it whether it be socially, work related or most importantly music related! :)

[musicandliveevents]

Media Training Scenarios Interview

Preparation/Research Process

From originally reading the brief of this particular examination it was evident that preparation to acquire myself material was going to be key in order to perform to my personal best during the interview process. As a result, I began to break down each of the four questions and analyse what I had to research into. I found it easiest to write my research out in bullet points under each question header, compared to writing it out in paragraphs, as it helped me to understand and take it in much easier. Moving on, using the Internet as my research tool I found it fairly straight-forward to gain information and material to help aid my performance in the interview on the day. However, I found it more of a challenge to gain the right type of information when researching into the drug topic question, as many articles and web pages focused much more on the side of enabling drugs to be taken in and used at a venue from the perspective of someone who looks to gain access to drugs during a music festival, rather than find web pages that talk about the prevention of the substances into festival grounds. Never the less, overall I felt confident with the research I had carried out, whilst also created a revision sheet which I could read and reference to up until the day.

My Performance

On the day of the interview I had a few nerves during the build up to the process, as I’m sure many of the rest of the class did to. However, I was excited and determined to get in and amongst it in attempt to show off my knowledge. I arrived on time and dressed smart to portray my intent of approaching the interview as if it was an actual real life job interview. During the interview itself I was asked about sponsorships and overall l was very pleased with how I had done. In the way that I felt as if I had communicated my points and knowledge across very well and most of all in a convincing manor. Furthermore, I brought my pre-prepared notes into the interview process, however I decided against referring to them during the process to challenge myself and make the overall interview process feel that little bit more significant. Additionally, this helped me to engage more eye contact with my interviewer and promote my social skills across to him. Despite, my satisfaction of my performance during the interview, there is always room for improvement. As a result, elements of which I was not so pleased about, were I got into the habit of playing with my fingers and thumbs during some points of the interview, which I can only assume is something I naturally do as a result of having a few nerves during the interview. Additionally, as much as I was confident with my research on the four core headers for the interview, I felt less confident when asked the extra surprise questions, due to my research not being as wide as it could have been. For example, this became evident during the interview when I had to accept and apologise for not knowing the answer to one of the questions I was asked, potentially as a result of not widening my research as I much as I could have done. Never the less, overall I was very pleased with myself for my performance during the interview. I believe my people skills shone through, and in the future with a bit more in-depth research I believe I can begin to show of my contextual knowledge and understanding of what I am discussing also.

 Preparation & Performance Improvements

As with anything in life you often feel like you could do more or spent longer doing something, and so as to is relevant to this in the way that to improve my preparation and performance I could have managed my work load better, enabling me to allocate more time towards achieve that wider research knowledge which would have strengthened my performance during the interview. Furthermore, on heinsite I could have looked into other research methods other than just the Internet to aid my pitch during the interview. Therefore, it would have given my preparation and performance better overall strength and structure to it and put me more in more control of the process. Additionally, to increase the detail and validity of my responses during the interview process I could have possibly made more use of my pre prepared notes, however remembering to still get the balance between making eye contact and also promoting my knowledge through my research. Overall, looking back on the process I am very happy with the approach and performance I managed to achieve from start to finish, whilst also taking into consideration the adjustments and improvements I can make for the future. But more importantly I enjoyed the process and relished the opportunity to challenge myself in an interview atmosphere, which I believe can only benefit me for the future.

[musicandliveevents]

Winter Land

A Bucks Live Production...

Winter Land - Saturday 3rd December 2016

After a long drawn out process, our event Winter Land has finally been and gone giving me the chance to reflect back on the process. 

Starting at the uni back in September, the months leading up to event required us to be thrown straight into the deep end and begin helping to construct the planning of the event and setting out goals we wanted the event to reach after it’s climax. Once we had envisioned what we wished our event to come together like we began the process of making it all becoming a reality. To begin with, as a class we were all put into 1 of 4 teams:

Talent

Production

Site Logistics

Marketing

I was place into the production team, never the less during seminars all teams would come together to report back and discuss how things were getting on within their groups and what their plan of action was for the up coming wee. This gave us all a chance to update each other on where each team were and offer assistance to teams or individuals who thought they were possibly falling behind. The main responsibility of our group was planning and preparing how the event is going to look on the day and how it is all going to be made up. As a result one of my particular responsibilities with some of my other colleagues was to measure up the site the event was taking place on to help produce floor plans and a visual map for our whole team to gain an understanding of how the event is going to plan out and look once everything had been set up. Furthermore, i also spent a lot of time working with the marketing team to help promote Winter Land out into the public. For example, i visited my previous school Great Marlow and placed flyers into the form boxes of the year groups to help tap into the family audience. Furthermore, i drove myself and a few others to the Marlow Christmas light with on, as well as the Marlow late night shopping event where me and others from the team went up and down the high street handing out flyers. Additionally, back at High Wycombe i landed the short straw of having to put on the Rusty Buck mascot costume and help promote Winter Land to the town with my colleagues offering free hot chocolate to try an gain peoples attention, as if the Rusty Buck costume wasn't enough!

Moving on, as the event date edged closer i found that each and every team began to interlink and help one another, which as a result created one big overall team. This shone through during time spent in the workshop, where we all come together to help re-decorate old props from previous Bucks Live events such as signs to suit our up coming event , as well as create new props such as the photo-booth bench which was suited perfectly for family photos on the day.

Day Of The Event!

All the hard work put into preparing the event had finally reached its climax! As a class we all prepared ourselves for a long day and thats what we got when it was decided that we were required to be on site for 5am, not knowing at the time that we wouldn't be finishing until 8pm later that day. Never the less, within this time period revealed our event, Winter Land. When we were first on site we had to help prepare the site ready for an 11am opening time to the public. However, we had to start even earlier than expected due to our event being hosted the same day as an applicant visitor day beginning at 10am, and therefore meant that everything had to be set up by then! Once we had the ferris wheel, fencing, box office, stalls, inflatables, snow machines, stages and of course the ice ring all set up, with once last check we were ready to open our event to the public. On the day i was given the role of being one of the 4 site managers with the responsibility of monitoring the event, solving problems that could arise and filling in various job roles where needed to cover for stewards on the day. Furthermore, i also went out again into the town markets while the end was happening to do some final flying to get even more people through the gate.

My favourite part of the day was without a doubt being in charge of the snow machine!!!!

Overall, in my opinion i believe Winter Land was a successful event. We received a lot of positive feed back from the public on the day and members of staff within the uni after the end had taken place. However, there is always room for improvement and in the future when we host future events i believe we should possible look to promote the event more and next time more in advance as well to ensure that the news about our event reaches out to as many people as possible and as quickly as possible so if is something that people can put in the calendar. Additionally, on the day we also had a small problem with the box office not having a cashier, which made it hard for them to keep on top of the money control. Despite that, overall i thoroughly enjoyed being part of hosting the event and everything else that went behind putting Winter Land on to the public.What’s more, Winter Land taking place on the same day as the applicant visitor day did the course a world of good as the visitors fantasised over the event we were given the opportunity to be apart of and promoted not only our event, but also the uni to potential public interest. To conclude,the overall experience of hosting Winter Land is something i will never forget, and something i will take forward with me in my life to future prospects. Furthermore, i am very much looking forward to my second year where we will once again host a Buck Live event, where this time we will have even greater responsibility and the freedom to design our own event how we wish. 

[musicandliveevents]

An amazing performance, from an amazing talent...

[musicandliveevents]

An amazing experience seeing “The Philharmonic Orchestra” perform to the chosen remastered songs of “Elvis Presley” on both recently released albums “If I Can Dream” and “The Wonder Of You” at “The O2 Arena”.

http://www.theo2.co.uk/events/detail/elvis-in-concert

“It is announced today that the world exclusive live concert experience featuring the most recognisable voice of all time, Elvis Presley, backed by the legendary Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra, is coming to The O2 on 23 November”.

“The critically acclaimed album, If I Can Dream, uses archive recordings of “The King’s” voice featuring new orchestral arrangements of some of his biggest hits, to create an overwhelmingly encapsulating and enthralling album.  The album is Elvis’ twelfth UK number one album and his fiftieth to hit the UK top-ten”.

“Now fans will have a chance that many have never had before – to experience the man who changed the course of popular music – the biggest selling solo artist in history (having sold an astonishing one billion records worldwide), live on screen, with the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra live on stage performing the King of Rock and Roll’s most well-known rocking songs and his tender, heart-wrenching ballads”.

“If I Can Dream was produced by Executive Producer, Don Reedman, Priscilla Presley and Elvis Presley Enterprises. Priscilla Presley will be also be making a very special appearance at the concert”.

[musicandliveevents]

Enjoyed going to see “The Kingcats” for the 6th time the other night at my local club, known as “Hedsor Social Club”. 

[musicandliveevents]

Enjoyed a fantastic tour around the Aylesbury Waterside Theatre the other day! An amazing multi-purpose modern day theatre, built in 2010🎭

[musicandliveevents]

Problems Facing The Music Industry-Record Stores

The once go to places to receive music content, known as the “Record Store”, have become increasingly under threat for the last decade, especially since the birth of ‘ITunes’ in 2004 alongside with the introduction of many other streaming services such as “Spotify”. Due to such services allowing people to now shift from buying music to now technically renting music by paying monthly through services such as ‘Spotify”, now means that there is no need to go into a “Record Store” and purchase music due to the huge access and practicality of music we now have in the 21st century. Furthermore, “ITunes” is just as much to blame for the issue, in the way that the introduction of buying single songs from an album for 99p opened the flood gates for people to pick and choose their music, instead of going into a “Record Store” and having to purchase a whole album even if they didn’t necessary like everything that was on it. Overall, the process of streaming has enhanced the issue on “Record Stores”.

 However, streaming services are not the only issue threatening “Record Stores”. As a matter of fact the biggest threat to the survival of record stores are actually places most of us find ourselves in most weeks, what we know as being called “Supermarkets”. Since “Supermarkets” decided to begin to supply recorded music it has had a huge knock-on effect to the “Record Stores”. “Supermarkets” are able to undercut the prices of “Record Stores” such as “HMV” and win the price war, due to the retail price of other “Supermarket” products, which they can make their money back on. Furthermore, “Supermarkets” avoid the publish price and often receive 25% “Bulk Discount” when purchasing their recorded music due to the high amounts they order with each purchasing. Whereas, “Record Stores” were unable to receive this incentive, illustrating how “Supermarkets” could continue to under cut the prices of “Record Stores” who couldn’t receive bulk discount due to not ordering in the same high quantities. As a result of this shift in retail, it’s not a surprise to hear that “Tesco’ is the biggest chart selling store in the U.K, alongside with every £1 in every £8 in the U.K is spent at “Tesco”. Altogether, this means that independent “Record Stores” and smaller companies are either bust or no longer stock music, due to not receive “Bulk Discount”. Additionally, music companies are reluctant not to sell to “Tesco” and others, as otherwise the Artist will potentially miss out on a number.1 and a guaranteed sale. Highlighting, how the future doesn’t look bright for the “Record Stores”, especially when you consider the convenience of the “Supermarkets” meaning that people no longer have to go to “Record Stores” just to get hold of music, they can just browse the music chart section when they are doing their weekly shop.

To conclude, “Record Stores”, which were the birth of our access to music at the beginning of the industry, are beginning to look increasingly under threat as mentioned. Never the less, “Record Stores” such as “HMV” are looking to fight back by recently introducing their very own loyalty card allowing customers to build up points and receive rewards as an attempt to keep hold of their cliental. However, unfortunately this may not be enough to keep them afloat, especially in the case of independent companies, but only time will tell.