Tea Rex Events Inspiration - MD5212
The idea behind our Tea Rex all-day event originally involved a large empty space, possibly a warehouse, in which we would create a central stage. This idea was largely inspired by this video of one of our favourite bands, Slowdive - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tWhPv2U6aQ&feature=youtu.be.
The artists being in the centre of the room and being able to be seen from all angles appealed to me personally as it blurs the lines between audience and performer. While it is not a new concept, it is a little unusual as most established venues are not able to accommodate a central stage set up. After doing some research into what availability of warehouses around Cheltenham, we found that pricing and audience accessibility would make a warehouse a little difficult to pull off, so we went in search of a more feasible location.
Moving our event concept from an industrial estate and into to a more residential setting gave us more hope of attracting locals and families and this is when we found the inspiration for a more family friendly, living room style event. Videos from NPR Music were a great inspiration as, using the link here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eB4oFu4BtQ8) you can see how our final setup, with plants, games, tea etc, was shaped by our research. While showcasing very different music than our wholesome and family friendly event, the vibe of this video was very influential when planning the living room style set up -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3MBv5-H9oE&feature=youtu.be. Holding an event in an unusual way was a running theme through our planning stages. As our goal with the event was legacy, we knew that a location and set up that would be stand out and be easily remembered would is what we wanted.
For our broadcast event we wanted to continue the homely vibe that had been so integral to our all-day event. Going further into that concept, we spent some time looking at venues and locations and researching what other events have done. Finding videos such as these, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zl8WHk1JkHo, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPgGhPelBG4, we decided to go with an even more relaxing setting than the main event by holding it in a bed room. The videos above, while very in keeping with our relaxing theme, don’t have any dialogue, something that we wanted from our broadcast event. This was to make the stream more entertaining but also gave us the opportunity to hear about the artists, their music, their pasts and future plans. While this was to make the artists feel like we wanted more from them than to just turn up and play music, it also helped to make the stream have a more friendly feel, more like some nice people having a sing and a chat than a standard gig. To that end we had the artists play a couple of songs and punctuated each change over with a short talk show style question prompted convocation. The inspiration for this came from the thousands of talk shows we are all so familiar with although here is a link to one an an example - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvPdhbA_-1c As I said in event report #22 (found here - http://christopherhuntwatts.tumblr.com/post/173682494885/event-report-22-md5212-the-broadcast-event-is), the only issues we faced in the live stream was in the artists transition which felt a little clunky. That is something that is however, largely unavoidable when doing a live stream in such a small location.
Looking back on both of our events, although they differ slightly from our inspirational material, I am very pleased with how they turned out and am very much looking forward to making events happen in the future.
Link to the corresponding post - http://christopherhuntwatts.tumblr.com/post/173888124595/event-report-22-md5212