The Beatles Show - End of College Gig 2013

On Wednesday 5th June, James Watt College staged "The Beatles Story"  for the end of school show which involved a large number of staff and students from various departments of the college. This was held at the Greenock Town Hall and was open to members of the public and family and friends of students and staff.

 

My Music Business class was first told about this end of school show when we started Block Two at the beginning of the year. We were told that the show was going to be all about The Beatles because 2013 is the 50th anniversary of the release of the very first Beatles album "Please Please Me" and that we would be involved in organizing it.

All the performers were either a student on the NC, HNC or HND Music course and the students who organized the event were members of HNC or HND Music Business. HNC and HND Sound Production students were helping out with the sound system on the night. Also, people from James Watt College TV courses were filming the show for Inverclyde TV. The Art Department were involved in creating all the artwork and Hair and Make-Up departments had a huge role to play on the night when they worked their magic for our students to look like popstars on stage!

Everyone in my class were assigned a couple of Music Performance students to "manage" at the start of the year, who we would talk to on a regular basis to see how rehearsals were going for the show and to basically be there for them leading upto their performances on stage on the night. This was a great way of mixing with students that we never had the opportunity to work with before. 

While everyone was doing that job, a few of my classmates were assigned other jobs too. I was in charge of the table plans on the night, which wasn't an easy task! I worked alongside my lecturer on this because it dealt with alot of the friends and families of the Music Performance students who I didn't know. We had to make sure that all the performance students had sold their bundle of tickets for the night or at least given back the tickets they couldn't sell. Once we had their ticket money and/or leftover tickets, my lecturer David and I began to get the names of all the people who were coming to see a particular musician so that we could make a table up for them on the Town Hall floor. Staff and special guests of James Watt College were invited to sit downstairs on the floor at tables too. It was arranged that there would be 30 tables of 10 people (or 11-12 people at a push). However, nearer the day of the concert we had to arrange for some of the musician's families to sit up in the balcony instead. 

Once all the Floor Ticket Holder names were recorded, then it was time to start putting the table plans together using a spreadsheet. David and I tried our best to keep families and friends together, and if there was a big table, we just put some of those people to another table with at least one person they knew on it.

Instead of numbering the tables 1-30, David had the great idea of giving each table a name which was related to The Beatles eg. Please Please Me or The Cavern. So once those 30 tables were named, a 7-inch vinyl record with the name labelled on it and was placed on a stand on each table. Once that was done, a team of my classmates helped me to do the next task which was to label individual vinyl records.

The day before the show, we all went into the Town Hall to start making up these individual records (this will all make sense later, I promise!) David had a bundle of 300 old 7-inch vinyl records, and our job was to stick labels on them relating to the table names and then make up record sleeves which would then have a space for a guest's name who was to sit downstairs.

The plan on the night was for all the balcony guests to head straight upstairs to their seat, while the 300 floor guests were to look through an old record box in the foyer, find their name on a record which then told them which table they were to sit at. 

This job could only be started and completed once we had the final names of the floor guests, so the majority of this task was done on the day of the show. I've got to admit that I was stressed out by the time the doors opened for guests to arrive! I had been there since lunchtime of that day to get everything completed which was probably the best thing to do in the end because I would have had to rush it later on, which could have resulted in me making mistakes. 

Once that job was done and dusted (finally!), it was 6pm and doors opened for special guests at 6.30pm. By that point, a few of my classmates came back to the Town Hall after going home for dinner and to get changed, so then it was time to get a wee pep talk from David and be assigned more tasks for the evening. 

My classmate Luke and I were on the Box Office in the Foyer which was busy! Whilst my other classmates were either in charge of the Record Box, Ticket Collecting, Stewards and even being Bouncers! Emma, Scott and Victoria who were managing the night were going around checking everyone was okay and doing last minute jobs.

By the time the show started at 7.30, things began to calm down for us and it was our time to chill out and enjoy the show by 8pm. 

The show was a great success and I'm so chuffed that I was part of it, even though I wasn't necessarily involved with being on stage! Even though it was pretty stressful at times, it was well worth it in the end. I had a great night and I'm sure all my classmates, lecturers and the public would agree!

Ps. Thank you to all the lecturers who organised our after-show party at our local club! :)

Finishing my Creative Project

Just a wee update to let you know what has been going on since the competition happened...

After speaking to my lecturer and the Head of Music at Clydeview Academy, it was agreed that the winner Eve Bonnar will record her single in the school's own recording studio before the Summer holidays commenced. 

Knowing that this was the plan, I asked for a bit of help from my lecturer to see how Colette and I would do this. We all thought that it would be a great idea if a James Watt College student from a Sound Production class could help us out and go upto Clydeview Academy to help record the single.

However, due to it coming to the end of term and the need for students finishing Graded Unit; Creative Projects; outcome assignments etc, it was difficult to try and get a student who was available to do this before college ends on Friday 14th June 2013. So at the moment we still have not actually recorded the single, however if there is time nearer the end of the month and a student who is available, we may get the chance to record the single after all.

If it is not possible, I will be coming back to this project after the Summer holidays when I start my second year at James Watt College. It will be easier for me to get the single recorded and released on iTunes because there will definitely be students available to help out and this experience will actually tie in quite nicely with my "Running a Record Company" class.

T-Break Selection Stage for TITP 2013

Hello hello! Sorry for the delay of blog posts on here - I have been very busy with various tasks to do for college, one of them being my Graded Unit and the other was helping organize our end of college show!

Recently I have been listening to literally hundreds of bands as part of the "T-Break" selection stage for T in the Park 2013.

T in the Park has a "T-Break" tent at the music festival each year which is set up for a group 16 unsigned music acts to come and play.

My lecturer David O'Hagan sent my class a spreadsheet containing over 1000 bands that we were to listen to and to choose our favourites from.

Even though it took me a good number of hours to listen to all the bands I was given and choose my final 5 to give to my lecturer, I really enjoyed the experience. It was a great way of discovering bands that I had never heard of before and since then I have been able to see a couple of the bands live! 

After being a part of the "T-Break" Selection Stage, it made me realize that I would really enjoy doing something like this again, and has made me interested to go into the A&R scene once college/university is over.

Article in the Greenock Telegraph!

On Monday 22nd April, an article about our Creative Project was published in our local newspaper the Greenock Telegraph!

If you missed seeing the article, here is the link to it on the Greenock Telegraph's website!

http://www.greenocktelegraph.co.uk/news/greenock/articles/2013/04/22/454425-teen-wins-chance-to-record-song-/

Photos from our "Final Showcase!"

Here is a few photos from our Final Showcase at Clydeview Academy on Friday 19th April - apologies for the poor quality!

What we have been upto over the past few weeks...

Here is some information listing all the things we had to think about before the day of our "Final Showcase" on Friday 19th April 2013.

Judging Panel: Over the Easter Break, our job was to make sure everything was being prepared for the final showcase and that we hadn’t forgotten anything. Our main priority was to organise a judging panel for the competition – luckily Miss Forsyth had a number of contacts that we could get in touch with to see if they would be interested in helping us out.  Miss Forsyth helped us get Garry John Kane (Bass player from The Proclaimers), Lesley McLaren (local drummer) and Sara Kerr (singer) who are all in a band together called “Button Up” to be on our  judging panel. And the fourth judge would be Mr Conley (a maths teacher from Clydeview Academy who also plays guitar.)

  

Sound and Light Teams: I contacted two HNC Sound Production students who I know from college Jordan and Jamie to see if they would be interested in helping us out for our Final Showcase and want to be involved with taking charge of the sound equipment on the day. Sadly they both had other commitments and couldn’t help us out, so we just got the Clydeview Academy guys to take control of the sound equipment instead. Regarding a “lights team”, another few guys from the school helped us out on the day by controlling the light equipment which was great… the whole staging looked really professional and we couldn’t have been more pleased with the light and sound teams!

Photo Permission: Due to our Creative Project being held in a school, Colette and I were wondering if we would have needed permission to take photographs during the day, however when I asked Miss Forsyth about it she said that there was no need for us to worry as she had this sorted.

Press: Colette contacted the Greenock Telegraph during the week of our “Final Showcase” and it was confirmed that a photographer would be coming along to take photos on the day for the telegraph. The journalist couldn’t make it on that date, however a few phone calls were exchanged before and after the event to find out about our Creative Project and to get all the information needed that would be put in the article.

Note: There were no costings and/or legal constraints involved in our Creative Project.

Overall Event: Our “Final Showcase” went really well! All the students who performed were fantastic and the judges were blown away by the level of musicianship these children have. Colette and I compared on the day which was a bit daunting because we had nearly 100 pupils staring back at us who came to sit in the audience!! The whole day went really well and all the staff, pupils and judges seemed to really enjoy themselves.

Organizing an event like this made us both realise how difficult and time consuming it is! However I’m sure that will not put us off doing it again in the future!  

My GANTT Chart

Here is a GANTT Chart I made up to give you an idea of the things that have had to be done for our Creative Project and the timescale each activity has taken/will take to complete.