QUESTION

You are required to write a 2,500 word individual report containing your costed plans for an event. You will initially be put into groups to conduct the research for the event. You will then be expected to write and submit an individual report for this assessment. The event type is to be decided upon by you and your group and it has to be hosted at the Metro Bar, Luton Campus, University of Bedfordshire. The Metro Bar has a capacity for a maximum of 200 people.

In the report, you are expected to include:

Your marketing strategy – this must include details of the Marketing Mix, as related to your chosen event
Your human resource requirements – this must include details of the various staff required for the event and their roles/responsibilities, including staff required for the pre-event activities (such as promotion) to post-event activities (such as cleaning)
Your financial details – this must include details of all the costs involved in the whole organisation and running of the event. You must also provide details of your break-even point

You will be expected to justify all the decisions that you make regarding the above criteria in your report.

ANSWER

EVENT PLANNING

Report on Event Planning

INTRODUCTION

The report below will take us through the amount of planning and work that went behind the management and execution of a Comedy Night Event in the Metro Bar in Luton. This was a one-night event that was to be planned from scratch taking into account the various perspectives and the necessities that go with organizing one such event. The venue was pre-booked, and the plan had to be developed around it. As is wont with any event report this report will take us through the planning to the marketing and the financial portions of the venture and try to create a model that can be followed for any similar events in the Future

PLANNING

The planning of the event consisted of three main parts that were to be critically assessed and discussed. The parts were

Marketing ii) Human Resources iii) Financials

The report in order to plan for the above scenarios takes into account the examples set by various other events and venues for similar scenarios both in the past as well as the present. Though the event was the first of its kind and had an entrance fee that was to be decided after thorough understanding the various cost break-even was something that was aspired to by the organizers. The costing though has been done taking the maximum capacity of the venue in mind might differ fully depending on the capacity of the venue. The main body of the report below will show the complete and detailed steps that went while executing the plans written in the above paras.

Venue: – This was already pre-decided to be the Metro Bar at Luton Campus, the University of Bedfordshire with a maximum capacity of 200 people and in all the future correspondence stating venue this is the place that will be referred to. Also though the prices and costings that will be referred will apply to the above-mentioned venue some of them were not available and hence would be given from the website of similar and neighbouring bars in order to keep a level ground of comparison.

Choice of Event – The event to be chosen had to take a few characteristics in mind.

It should not entail a cost that will be beyond the might of a common man staying at any place in Luton. In other words, it shouldn’t be restricted to a type of event that attracts only a certain group of people but should be able to attract even the regular drinkers of the pub to buy a ticket and spend two hours of their time
The cost that is to be incurred should not cross the limit that the price of the tickets needs to cope up for it. It should be an event that can be frugally arranged yet with no impression of being arranged in a substandard way.
The event should be of a type that is well known, open to any member of the family (based on age group) and with enough popularity and acceptance to be able to find an expert of the same beyond the entry of the normal applicants if it is possible in the budget

Taking all this into account there were only a few events that were shortlisted (Victory, Andrea (2018). ‘9-crowd-pleasing-events-that-will-pack-your-bar’)

Game night – A big viewing screen with ample areas to sit and complimentary drinks to showcase any important game or program

Cons – This gets attention from only a select group of members in the demographic scale specifically the males between 20 – 50 and thus inherently blocks the other members of the society and potential customers like the children and ladies

Also through some research, it was easily found out that a similar event occurs in a neighbouring bar already and in Metro itself

Karaoke Night – Though this was a good option, research brought up it to be a highly practised event in the neighbouring clubs and thus will lack the customers

Board Night – This newly started event though has recently reached much of interest in the public, but still it did not seem hopeful to bring in 200 people and also the inventory that would be of no use just after the event also seemed a huge waste

Comedy Night – This was the event that was thus taken out and on seeing this happening in bars in different towns with huge success and no such event happening in the recent times in the neighbouring bars. The low cost on inventory which can also be brought easily on hire was also another strong proponent for this event

Taking all this into account Comedy Night was selected as the event that will be hosted in the club

Event Timings: – The timings of the event were planned taking into account the cost that will be applicable for various pubs as well as staffs based on the demands across the week. After some careful research, we could find that the time that is off-week or off-time for all these activities is on Monday being the start of the week expecting a lower turnout

( TagVenue . ‘Basement Bars in Luton’.)

Having said that ours being niche event not happening in any of the neighbouring clubs in Luton (mentioned above) and if organized in the evening will bring enough crowd to fulfil the 200 seats possible thus making that fear irrelevant. Taking this into account we decided to host the event on Monday from the timings of 8:00 p.m. – 10 p.m. thus keeping it open to all the interested public.

Special Attraction: – Having decided on the timing, venue and the nature of the event we planned to bring in an expert on the same to create a benchmark as well as a reason for non- participating candidates to come to the event. We decided to have this expert not only a well-known face in the field but also someone who invokes inspiration. The name that came into our mind taking both of this into account was Chris Mccausland. As a stand-up comedian having performed in a recent event in a neighbouring town we were the first-hand witness to the brilliance that he is and also the fact about his blindness and still not giving up and doing what he really loves was a true mark of inspiration. But this was dependent on the budget and its practicality.

Thus the following was decided as part of the planning procedure

Venue – Metro Bar, Luton

Date – 21^st January

Time – 8:00 p.m. – 10 p.m.

Special Guest – Chris Mccausland

In accordance with the above-decided points, we moved on to the marketing and other important parts of the event

MARKETING

Once the basic requirements of the event were decided and finalized the next part of a successful event planning was to create as well execute a perfect marketing plan so that the event does not fail just because of a lack of enough promotional event and thus recognition for the same.

The marketing for the same was mainly channelled through the 8P of the marketing mix with separate attention been given to each of the Ps to create an all-inclusive marketing model

Product

This depended on brainstorming the basic look and feel of the show and making it a complete package

Theme – Being an event of stand-up comedy the theme and decoration were decided to be funny with bright coloured posters. Poster and flyer of the event were also to be adorned in parts of the room in the laminated version as well as a few words and quotes from famous comedians. Though some of the basic posters were provided by the pub itself, the rest were to be hired by us. The costing for the same has been given in a later part.

Activities – The major activities that were planned for the day was Chris Mccausland and his comedy show of 30 minutes with a break of 5 minutes in between. Luton being a place quite recently steeping in the world of comedy we were also opening application for amateur comedians to have their time on the stage before their loved ones before foraying into the unknown world. Each of these was given a time of 10 minutes on the stage with a break of 2 minutes in between each. The timings in between the comedy shows were to be used by the MC to announce and give a brief introduction of the next person as well give a general positive comment on the recently concluded performer. MC will be done by one of us with pre-written lines as we plan to save our costs that way

( Art & Stage News , New Orleans (2018). ‘Have you ever tried to Stand Up Comedy’.)

Scale – As was already mentioned in the project document the Luton bar has a total sitting capacity of 200 people along with a margin of 50 people including the lights engineer, main attraction and his ensemble, rookie comedians. Thus the event had a scale of about 250 people
Participants – We expected around 10 rookie participants for this event above the main attraction of Chris Mccausland
Target Group – Though the target group of this event were the students of the University of Bedfordshire the reason for which keeping a low price of the tickets was of utmost importance to us we also were targeting family groups (discounted pricing), couples and regular bar customers. The main aim of keeping the event as a comedy show as we had discussed above was to make it independent of any focus group and keep an equal allure to all people of Luton irrespective of his/her age or background

People

This comprised of the people that were necessary to maintain and execute the event in its all grandeur. Though we will discuss this in more details in the HR portion, we will give a brief overview of the various sort of people that we plan to have during the event to make it a success (Grenadine (2018). ‘8 Ps of Event Planning’)

Front – End

Master of Ceremonies
Servers or Waiters
Ticket sellers
Ticket Checker
Volunteers

Back – End

Sounds Technician
Lighting Technician
Social Network Expert

Details on the number, requirement, Job roles and price of each has been discussed in the Human Resources portion

Price

The Price for each ticket of the event was decided to be 10.50 pound + tax. This price arrived after a thorough costing event that is described in the financial portion later in the report. Also, the pricing of a similar event in the neighbouring cities was taken into account for the same (Glee Club (2018). ‘Spontaneous Potter’). Also, there was a separate promotional offer for families of 4 that will be described in the promotion portion

Promotion

This was the major part of the event that would make our event either a huge success or a huge failure.

( Billetto (2018). ‘How to Promote an Event’.)

We used both the online medium as well as the offline in order to make sure that the information of our event reaches to all part of the town

Posters & Flyers

The main way that we tackled the problem of offline marketing was through posters and flyers. We had around 10 volunteers from the college who were ready to help in putting and distributing the posters and flyers at a nominal price. We made sure that the posters were posted on the areas of high visibility which ranged from the railway station to the gates of the universities and busy cafes. This gave us enough leverage to make sure that even if uninterested people were aware of the event that is to take place

( Higgins, Ronnie (2018). ‘8 Tips to Promote your event offline’.)

( Michael (2013). ‘Top Places to put up posters’.)

Online Promotion

This needed a far more intricate approach as well a dedicated resource for the same. We created a Facebook page (/BFLUTON) an Instagram page (Luton_Insta) as well as a twitter handle (@BFLTWEET) and integrated it solely with our offline media and posters. A dedicated person from amongst us was put to continuously reply to the various questions that might be coming as on our events. Our website that could also be used to buy a ticket was SEO optimized so that on a single mention of a comedy show in Luton it will come up as the first option. All this helped us to reach the tech-savvy audience with a very little or no cost at all

Promotional Offers

This was an offer inspired by a nearby comedy show. In order to make sure that this event does not remain confined to individuals and even families take part in it we create an offer of the reduction of the ticket price in case, you can bring in the whole family (4 members) . The pricing was arrived into after taking an average number of people that might avail this offer and how it affects our profit line.

Promotional Items

Poster

Online Site and ticket overview

positioning

Positioning the event as something that is on a completely different plane was the first priority for us. The reason being we did not want any unwanted competition from any already established bar and their events. As was already discussed in the planning portion of this report we went through the types of event that were being played or hosted in the neighbourhood in the near future and in combining the result with our research result of which type of event does best in such pub setting we came up with the Comedy night. Not only does our Comedy night position itself as the niche level of where the people would love have a good time as well as tickle their funny bone but also by bringing a legend not only in the field but also in the life and giving chance to any youngster to take the stage and fire away it also positioned itself as an arena where it is portrayed through real-life example that anything is possible if you set your heart for it and thus an arena for motivation.

(https://www.bedssu.co.uk/main-nav/shops-venues/the-metro-bar-kitchen)

Place

As is already given by the requirement of the project the place was already decided to be the function hall of Metro Bar in Luton. Thus there was not much research needed to be done in this process

Venue – Metro Bar, Luton

Date – 21^st January

Time – 8:00 p.m. – 10 p.m.

Special Guest – Chris Mccausland

HUMAN RESOURCES

This required us to go deep into the requirement of the Event. How many types of staff were required and what was the cost for each of them. This was critical as a shortage, or the surplus of the same could lead to a devastating result.

We took reference from various neighbouring pubs and online sources to get a grasp of the types of workers required (Grenadine (2018). ‘8 Ps of Event Planning’.)

Recruitment

Besides updating the requirement in our online pages as well a small number of the offline poster with the requirement, we will primarily set up the job request in the Job page of Luton

(https://www.indeed.co.uk/jobs?q=Hire+Staff&l=Luton+LU1&start=20)

We divided the staff into two portions.

Front – End

MC (1) – Master of Ceremonies will take care of starting the event as well as summarizing and introducing the performers. This would be the main host of the event but does not require much knowledge in such small scale event and thus will be performed by one of our group Members

Servers (8) – This will be the lifeline of the event and will be serving people with their choice of drinks as well as the complimentary drink at the beginning of the event. They will also make sure that the requirement and any basic queries of the guests are accounted for and will also update the chef of the requirement of the table and the cleaner to clean the table Taking the below reference of 1 server for 32 people. We would require 8 for a full capacity house.

( Breenen Bowman (2015) ‘Ideal Waiter to Customer Ratio’)

The wage to each waiter will be fixed at 12 Pounds for the 2 hours (https://www.payscale.com/research/UK/Job=Waiter%2FWaitress/Hourly_Rate)

The number 8 has been arrived by taking the average ratio of 1 waiter serving 8 tables or 32 people

( Breenen Bowman (2015) ‘Ideal Waiter to Customer Ratio’)

Ticket sellers (2) – Two ticket sellers will be required in the booth to distribute the ticket as well as direct the comedy applicants to the back door. This job will be the front facing job and the one that the customer will experience in the first view thus they need to be smart and swift. This job will only require to be paid for an hour (start of the show) and is primarily an admin type role will be priced at 7 Pounds

(CAVS (2015) ‘Economic Value of Volunteers’)

Ticket Checker (1) – One Ticket checker to be appointed to check the tickets as and when people enter. This person needs to be present at all times in the first 30 minutes from 7:30 to 8:00 p.m. and needs to be swift in checking the tickets and advancing the people. As this is an unskilled role and will be needed only in the first 1 hour, it will be priced at 7 Pounds.

(CAVS (2015) ‘Economic Value of Volunteers’)

Volunteers (5) – This volunteer will be our main promoting force who will distribute the flyers in various parts of the city as well as inform and clarify any doubts or query that the interested audience might have. They need to be swift to cover multiple portions of the city in one day. Strong capability of managing the inventory and good knowledge of the areas of the city. This will be a physically intensive work and will need to be paid on the day. They will be priced at 50 Pounds for the day

(CAVS (2015) ‘Economic Value of Volunteers’)

Bartender (1) – This will be the person that will take care of creating the drinks and taking the customized orders of the customers. They need to be swift and flashy with a good sense of liquor. As per the data from many neighbouring pubs and their function hall bookings this will be provided as part of the package itself. (https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5c35c0a1f93fd4618cab112b/t/5c365c75562fa7eeb94b5528/1547066549346/Wedding+2019+Bar+Hire+-+Yorkshire+Bartender+-+Leaflet+-+Low+Res+-+New.pdf)

Back – End

Sounds (1) – The sound system will require 2 sound boxes complimented by 2 mics (1 primary and 1 for emergency). One technician will also be required for the 2 hours to take care of any sort of issues. He needs to have sound knowledge of the sound system and its workings. This being a technical expert will be 38 Pounds

(https://www.google.com/search?ei=cIg7XICvN8ShyAPRs5uIDg&q=average+rate+of+volunteer+in+UK+per+hour&oq=average+rate+of+volunteer+in+UK+per+hour&gs_l=psy-ab.3…3163.6801..7571…0.0..0.262.3068.0j6j9……0….1..gws-wiz…….0i71.frakz1qmAkg)

Lighting (1) – The lights will require two spotlights in the stage that will be dimmed and brightened as per the need of the moment. Other lightings will be the same as that provided in the bar. The person should have good knowledge of the lighting system with good sense on the changes of light required based on the mood. This being a technical expert will be priced at 38 pounds (CAVS (2015) ‘Economic Value of Volunteers’)

Cleaners – They will be in charge of cleaning the tables both during and after the event. These people need to be always in the lookout for tables that need to be cleaned. They also need to update the waiters about the tables that are cleaned and ready. Efficiency and thoroughness are needed here. As per the practice of the neighbouring bars. These people come packaged with function hall bookings

(https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5c35c0a1f93fd4618cab112b/t/5c365c75562fa7eeb94b5528/1547066549346/Wedding+2019+Bar+Hire+-+Yorkshire+Bartender+-+Leaflet+-+Low+Res+-+New.pdf)

Social Network (1) – This person will be in charge of maintaining our Facebook as well as the Instagram and Twitter handles and reply the various doubts that might be poster therein. This person technologically expert and updated with the various ways and techniques of social media. As this job will not be required during the event timings and only be used before or after that one of our core group member will take up this responsibility

This team will be used to complete the event successfully

FINANCE

Taking into account all the above-mentioned requirement and their costing from multiple sites and practical scenarios we created the following cost structure

Costing Model

Revenue Model

Please find the whole attached Document below

Thus taking all the above calculation into consideration, we decided to make the price of the ticket as 10.50 Pounds. This would give us a break even at 181 tickets and in the best case scenario would also leave us with some profit. This ticket price was also supported by multiple events happening of the same genre in the neighbouring towns

CONCLUSION

The event that is to be held in January will now depend completely on the execution of the plans mentioned above. We are confident by the amount of research that we have done on this we will be able to make it into a successful one