Allow me to set the scene. Spring 2015. I am a junior attending Ithaca College, studying Integrated Marketing with minors in Theatre and also Communication Management & Design. This semester I am studying abroad in London via the Ithaca College London Center until May.
During the semester, I have had the wonderful opportunity of interning with two different companies. The first, with Cre8 Events Team Ltd., an event management company in London, where I focus on marketing, advertising, social media, and branding to re-vamp the company. Secondly, I am doing an Artistic Management internship for Tallulah Rendall, a singer-songwriter here in London, planning her Banshee And The Moon Tour for 2015.
Each week I will be reporting on my experience and what I have learned.
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27 April 2015
Thirteenth week of my internship: check! The final week has come. After a very eventful semester, this upcoming week is the last of my remaining days here in London. This week wasn’t that productive as my internship winds down. Carl and I spoke about the Art Exhibition project that will be showcased on crowd funding websites and one of the websites, called “Born”, reached out to him asking if he needed help with the initial process. Of all the different sites, Born has been most attentive in helping Carl achieve his vision for Cre8 Events, so we shall see where this goes.
Carl and I spoke about another event he has started planning to be taking place in May. It will be a monthly jazz event that will be promoted on Facebook. Carl reached out to me asking if I knew much about Event pages on Facebook. Thanks to my many events thrown for Ithaca College, I know quite a bit.
This week, the final thing that’s left to do is to solidify the name for the exhibition project. Carl wants it to focus on the concept of “removing” obstacles for artists to focus on their work, and not the art exhibition planning process. I’m still thinking and don’t want to rush the name. I hope by Wednesday this week I come up with a solid “Project —” name proposal.
Last week in London: let’s do this!
18 April 2015
Twelth week of my internship: check! Wow. Only one week left for my internship, how time flies! This week was a good week for enthusiasm. Carl has decided on a new project to start working on and is hopeful for the future. Since starting the company in March of 2013, Carl has wanted to help artists showcase their pieces at exhibitions. The biggest problem, however, has been financially artists can’t support themselves enough to have their own exhibition. As a result, Carl has decided to hold an exhibition that would feature multiple artists at once who aren’t necessarily as well known, and profits that come from pieces selling would be directly given back to the community in the form of charitable donations.
This week, I have completed a draft to send out for the project to send to funding companies online. Once enough people believe this is a strong idea and donate to the cause, Carl can begin renting a space and working on planning the logistics of the event.
Next week, I will add graphics and a slide show of previous art exhibitions Carl hals hosted to boost credibility and come up with a snazzy title for the project. Carl wants the theme to be about how we will plan the entire thing for artists, removing the managerial process from the event, so that artists can concentrate on their work and not administrative tasks. I suggested something such as “Project: Easy Easel” to play off of both the tools used for artists and the hands-free convenience of having Cre8 Events plan it all… It’s a work in progress. Stay tuned!
12 April 2015
Eleventh week of my internship: check! This week was so great in terms of productivity! On Wednesday, I continued helping Tallulah plan her tour and researched potential partnerships with Sync Companies located throughout Europe. I found some unique opportunities and events that were good for networking, however, one of the best ones was actually located in Los Angeles.
On Wednesday, Carl reached out to me about another potential project for Cre8 Events. Recently, he has wanted to go back to his company’s roots in showcasing client’s artwork in galleries. He saw online that it is very popular in the United States for online funding companies such as Kickstarter to create a buzz for a company with a vision. He has been inspired and would like to use companies similar to those to throw an event for upcoming artists. Carl would like to use the funding raised on the websites to open an art exhibition where students and artists could showcase their work for a small fee and then, in return, Carl would obtain a small percentage of the commission made off of each painting. This week, I have worked on a proposal and draft to submit to a few different websites in order to begin fundraising.
This type of fundraising event is unlike anything I have ever done before, so I am very excited to continue working on this and to gain additional experience for my resume!
2 April 2015
Tenth week of my internship: check! This has been my most productive week thus far here in London. On Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday I researched potential venues for Tallulah to perform at for her newest tour. The tour will be a series of spiritual musical festivals and yoga retreats in which Tallulah’s newest album, The Banshee And The Moon, will be showcased.
I was was surprised to see the amount of yoga festivals that were taking place here in the UK. I don’t think they have much of those back in the states, however, definitely something to look into. In addition to researching festivals, I created a press release to send out for her tour. It showcases the alternative tour in which Tallulah will be workin on, with relevant links to her social media and respective contact information for potential gig bookings. This week on the Google doc, I saw Tallulah’s booking agent Rich was looking at the document and highlighted some of the festivals. I am curious to hear his feedback regarding the various festivals that I have researched thus far. I am also waiting to hear more feedback on the press release and also the sync document that I worked on last week to send to publishers.
We shall see what next week brings!
29 March 2015
Ninth week of my internship: check! This week was a very productive week for Tallulah and I. On Monday and Tuesday night, I worked on creating a draft to send out to the Sync Companies for Tallulah’s music to be used in advertisements, commercials, short films, etc. Tallulah got back to me and asked me to reformat it, so I created a newsletter which features a biography of her along with pictures from her albums and website. I wanted to make it tell the story of Tallulah and the vibe of her music and brand. I am still waiting on feedback and this week, hope to polish it up to send it to potential partners.
On Wednesday, I also worked on researching potential gigs and venues for Tallulah. She is looking into planning a tour beginning in July and will go until the end of the year. She has said that she would like to perform both in Germany and the UK. Tricia is working on potential gigs in Germany, while I work on planning for the UK. I have researched some music festivals that are happening in various parks all over the UK and have found some really good ones that will showcase her work well. A handful of them feature stages exclusively for upcoming artists and others seem like her work would mirror the festival well. I think the biggest challenge will be reaching out to festivals that aren’t necessarily seeking additional entertainment to try and get them to want Tallulah as an add-on. Hopefully, we can use the same newsletter I am working on to get people booking the festivals to want her music to be showcased.
Right now, I am currently working on a master spreadsheet on Excel which has all of the potential festivals as well as the websites and contact information for band submissions. I am looking forward to another productive week and to get some feedback on my current projects.
22 March 2015
Eighth week of my internship: check? Yet another strange week. During my “holiday,” I had received an email from Carl about how many of our projects were falling through the cracks via other people not getting back to us in a timely manner, or at all. He had explained that if our final project, the boat party, also fell through that he wanted to take a break from the company. We had received various emails from the boat company and when it came down to it to pay the deposit and secure the date, Carl put the breaks on the project. Due to some unforeseen circumstances, Carl vocalized that the timing right now is very bad for him to continue with Cre8 Events. Unfortunately, I sent Carl a resignation letter explaining that I would be happy to work with him on future projects remotely when he wants to continue Cre8 Events later down the line.
On to the next endeavor! Monday was an incredibly monumental day in that within about an hour, I went from having an internship with Cre8 Events to having a new internship with Tallulah Rendall. No interview required, I was instantly connected with the singer-songwriter and will now be taking on the role as her Artistic Management intern, assisting with her booking, publicity, marketing and advertising. I am working alongside Tricia Edwards, another junior here at ICLC, who was a fellow Theatre Arts Management major with me my freshman year. Small world!
This week was quite eventful. I was very excited to jump on board after looking at Tallulah’s website and seeing the work that she has done. It was very inspiring and interesting to see her musical journey. Tricia, Tallulah and I Skyped this week to have our first meeting, since we all will be working remotely. We established that my first set of projects will be researching prospective music festivals that Tallulah can perform at both in Germany and the UK. More importantly, Tallulah asked me to work on finding ‘sync companies’ and ‘publishers’ for her music to be featured throughout various media. With sync companies, I will be sending a letter explaining who Tallulah is and the vibe of her music for publishers to determine what projects will be a good match for her and her brand.
I also organized different spreadsheets this week for her and compiled them into one so that all of her advert resources are in one place with contact information. This upcoming week, I will continue working on the draft of the email while searching for additional sync companies to reach out to. I anticipate working more on the UK Tour research beginning late this week, or early next week, as my parents are visiting and I have a class trip to Oxford on Tuesday.
Looking forward to continuing this roller coaster of a journey! Stay tuned.
14 March 2015
Seventh week of my internship: check! Well, what can I say? All good things must come to an end. Spring break ended last week and it was a blast. Berlin, Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris and Barcelona. Need I say more? Time to get back to work.
This week was an odd week. Throughout my spring break, I stayed in contact with Carl about renting a boat for a private party in the coming weeks. I received some quotes from different companies and was forwarding them to Carl so that he could decide the best option suited for Cre8 Events’ needs.
Upon my arrival back, I received a very weird email from Carl saying that he is planning on taking a break from the company. I was very surprised and called him and he said that right now the event planning industry is very slow moving. He has described that Cre8 Events is his side business and that during the week he works other people’s events. Carl says that even in his other job, he is not busy at all. This was very disappointing to me because I committed to this internship thinking that I would get a lot of hands on experience and right now it seems that Cre8 Events is all over the place and that things keep falling through the cracks.
After talking with Carl, he also mentioned that the two other interns have quit because they are not getting paid and would like to dedicate their time elsewhere. I reassured Carl of my dedication to my internship and he mentioned that there is nothing I can do and that the lack of enthusiasm and input from the other interns was the main problem in addition to the slow productivity from outside partners.
To make this week even weirder, he followed up that conversation telling me about how this “boat party” that we were planning would be a 21st Birthday party for me that would be a sort of last harrah before leaving London. Of course, Carl would be hiring a promoter to bring other people in to make money off of the event as well. I do hope that my internship picks up the pace a little as I am trying my best to stay involved but I can only do so much with work given to me. I hope that this week we can lock down the boating rental company and secure a date, ensuring a definite event to occur, and therefore, something to look forward to. Fingers crossed for this upcoming week!
25 February 2015
Sixth week of my internship: check! This week was more productive than last. Carl is in the process of talking with Alyssa about planning a cocktail masterclass in April. He is also interested in planning a boat party for potential clients, that would be open to the public. Sean has not responded back to Carl’s emails, following up about our potential Jazz night. I think it is safe to say that his venue is a lost cause. No matter, on to the next endeavor!
Today I contacted numerous local boat rentals in London and inquired about different packages they offer. One of the companies has already gotten back to me with a quote. To compare the different prices, I have created an ideal scenario for our event; private party with security, food, drinks, decorations and an indoor heater in case it is cold or raining on the river. We can provide a DJ as Carl has a couple of contacts from past events. Only one of the seven companies has gotten back to me thus far, however, I anticipate a response within the next couple of days.
Tomorrow I leave for my Spring Break and will be out of touch mostly until Sunday, March 8th. I will have limited access to wifi while away and my phone carrier will not work. Therefore, Carl and I will mostly be out of touch with the occasional access to email. Hopefully, I can respond to the boat rental companies in a timely manner and still manage remotely while traveling. Looking forward to coming back strong and ready to work!
22 February 2015
Fifth week of my internship: check! Once again, this week we play the waiting game. We still haven’t heard back from Sean about renting his space for a live music event. He had told Carl and I that he was going to be very busy and to keep emailing him if he doesn’t respond, but I think while we wait we are going to focus on something else more tangible.
Rather than trying to do multiple things at once, Carl has decided that he would rather focus on planning a cocktail masterclass event. He says that he has a friend who teaches these classes and if we generate enough hype and get enough reservations then he will do it. I am excited to see what these cocktail masterclasses entail. I have seen them advertised here quite frequently and am interested in learning more. It is very weird coming from America as a 20 year old who is still technically not legal to drink. Coming to another country where I am legal for alcohol consumption and hosting these cocktail masterclasses is so peculiar. I look forward to finally planning an event and jumping into something, which I believe, is much more tangible for us to complete in a reasonable amount of time. Because Carl has the contacts to execute the masterclass already, it will be much easier to get the ball rolling.
I am going on Spring Break, or “holiday” rather, on Thursday but will still be working Tuesday and Wednesday. Tomorrow I have to submit my graphic novel journal for my internship. I have sent it to Carl and wonder if he will ask me to make a mock up brochure for the website based on my work. Bring on week number six! Let’s end this first half of the semester strong!
16 February 2015
Fourth week of my internship: check! This week we played the waiting game. On Tuesday, Carl and I went to East London in Shoreditch for a meeting with the owner of 93 East. It was a very nice venue – intimate but had the potential to get rowdy. The venue was much more suited for a DJ and Carl would rather have a band play for a Jazz night. Sean, the owner, also had a property across the street above a cafe next to the Brick Lane market. This was also a nice venue, however, this one was bigger and had a stage better suited for live music. This space had much more of a warehouse feel. Carl thinks he could utilize it for a Jazz or “Northern Jazz” event with a live band that he knows very well. Sean is looking to sell the space soon, so we should be able to book the space on a relatively busy night for a cheaper price than usual. Carl has sent Sean some details so we are waiting for facts and figures to determine our next move.
I am also in the process of researching how Cre8 Events compares in terms of quotes for events throughout London. I am currently using website to get quotes for events in London with different companies to see where we lie in terms of our competitors.
I am looking forward to potentially planning an event at one of Sean’s venues in the near future!
8 February 2015
Third week of my internship: check! This week was very productive in that we worked smarter rather than longer as a team. We spent more time strategizing as a team about our ad placements on social media. Carl had spoke with me about continuing to use the “Like4Like” site to gain a larger audience in certain countries throughout the world that he believed would engage. I suggested to Carl that rather than spending time and money on audiences worldwide, to focus on an audience within the United Kingdom. I thought that this would be more beneficial to him so that his money is spent gaining potential clients for events rather than just more likes on Facebook. If he is just buying “Likes” to build credibility, it is a waste of time because he is not making any money. It does not matter who “likes” his posts, if they are not within the UK or more importantly London, we aren’t building a clientbase for events, just increasing a number on social media.
This week we talked more in depth about the desired Facebook audience. When looking at the Cre8 Events page insights and site traffic, more than half of our following that engage by sharing posts and commenting are people between the ages of 18 to 35. Because of this insight, we have decided to make this our key demographic. Therefore, we will spend more money promoting Cre8 Events’ page toward that demographic to people that have “liked” clubbing, music and partying pages once before. We are also in the process of planning some events at local venues in Soho and East London, so we will also target our audience to those who are frequent attendees at those particular clubs that also engage on their Facebook pages each week. Most clubs take pictures on the weekends and post the photos on Facebook, increasing web traffic to their Facebook pages. We are going to take advantage of that opportunity and use other people’s Facebook pages to promote our pages with paid and sponsored Facebook ads. In addition to Facebook, we are going to advertise on Yell.com.
In pursuit of a potential partnership, I created a proposal this week to send out to O’Neills, a popular bar located in Soho. We would like to use their venue on a weekend once a month when they are not as crowded and bring in our own DJ. We are hoping we can work out a partnership with O’Neills for a minimum spend at the bar. We would then get a cut of the cover charge at the door. I have not heard back yet from O’Neills but hope to hear back soon. Now that I have drafted a proposal, I can send it out to other venues in addition to O’Neills.
Carl emailed me today and is meeting with the manager of 93 Feet East tomorrow about the potential of hosting an event at his venue. I am waiting to hear back about a potential summer internship interview tomorrow which will determine if I join Carl. Hopefully I can attend the meeting with Carl as I feel it will be very beneficial.
1 February 2015
Second week of my internship: check! This week wasn’t as eventful as last. This week we worked on gaining a new audience throughout our social media community. In the past, Carl had “bought” followers, something I didn’t realize you could do on Facebook. He paid an outside company to advertise and get people to follow him in order to build credibility using the number of “Likes”, however, most of the people that ended up following Cre8 Events were from Turkey.
Since Turkey is by no means our target demographic, this week we started eliminating followers and revamping the Facebook page. By deleting our old Facebook page, we are starting fresh; we already have 473 Likes from this past weekend alone. Carl has reached out to other third party companies to buy more followers appropriate to our region and demographic. These personas include people from the United Kingdom, America, Canada, France, Spain and Germany, between the ages of 21 to 65. We thought that this would be an appropriate age range because people turning 21 want to celebrate their birthdays, however, the age of 18 is too young to host an event because they are too much of a liability. We chose the age of 65 as the highest and oldest of the demographic because we would like to add retirement parties to our repertoire.
This past week, I looked into promoting pages on Facebook in order to promote Cre8 Events outside of the team’s immediate friend group. You can pay Facebook to promote your page and select which demographic you would like and link it to people’s interests. By selecting the appropriate age range and region we desire, and putting key words such as “partying”, or “events” under their interest category, we can pay to reach people who have liked “partying” and “events” on Facebook. We are looking into advertising on other websites such as Google+, Gumtree and Fiverr. I shared with Carl a photo on my twitter which shows the best time of the day to post on each social network, so hopefully we can utilize that as a tool and come up with some sort of schedule among the interns for each week. We are also in the process of rebranding, so it is very important that we model every action we make while posting after the new image we want Cre8 Events to represent.
Last week, I worked on a proposal to send out to potential partners to utilize their business when we produce and plan an event. This week, Carl informed me that we will be changing the terminology to “preferred supplier” so that other companies will not be deterred from using their company.
I hope that we will be planning an event soon. Right now it seems to be all about rebranding and marketing. I had spoken to Carl about the potential of planning a music event soon that will be open to the public in order to build a larger audience base here in London. I will be emailing O’Neills and other small local bars in hopes of planning an event soon. I am currently looking into Design My Night, a website which shows the latest happenings in London that we can take advantage of to find potential clients. I told Carl we should make business cards with the new phone number and Facebook page information to hand out to the public if and when we have our next event.
We also found a resource we can use to find more followers online based on their interests called LeadGrabber Pro. This tool allows you to insert a website that you would like to use and then by putting in certain tags or key words, it will export email addresses from the site that have searched those same tags once before. By utilizing this website, we are able to reach out to more followers in order to build a stronger audience, and to also reach people that we originally couldn’t have, possibly people who do not have a social media account.
Carl is going to call and update me later today on what he has been working on this past weekend and what to expect from our meeting Tuesday. I am looking forward to seeing what this week brings!
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25 January 2015
First weekend of my internship: check! Wow. What a week! I began on Tuesday, a much anticipated day. I received my internship in November and had been in touch with Carl Simpson, my internship manager and founder of Cre8 Events.
Prior to starting my internship, I had been in touch with Carl and he had asked me for feedback on his website and logo during my Skype interview. After giving feedback that his website should have been more elegant and professional, Carl edited it and changed the color scheme, font and layout while also adding some pictures. Based on my suggestions, he adjusted it accordingly and now there are only minor edits left until completion.
This week when I started my first day, I met the two other interns and website design associate. Our team, including Carl, sat down and discussed the website and what needed to be added or fixed in order to make it look more visually appealing and descriptive. Because Cre8 Events is such a new company, founded in late 2013, we are currently working on rebranding to expand Cre8 Events and its following.
Because it was our first day, we also talked about our goals and different priorities from now until May, mainly building a stronger client-base and rebranding via social media. In addition to the administrative tasks that usually take place on the first day, Carl and I spoke about my schedule and work frequency. Because most of my work can be done at home remotely online or using my computer’s software, Carl will assign me tasks daily or on a need-basis. We email daily about what needs to get done and he also shows me things that other people have been working on and requests for my feedback.
While editing the website, we incorporated photos onto the site that would best represent the different types of events and large variety that Cre8 Events has to offer. We came up with descriptions for each category, along with different headers for each. We also added an Instagram icon to the website to increase reach via Social Media in addition to Facebook and Twitter. We were also each given the login info and talked about how to use Hoot Suite, a program used for organizations to manage their social media all in one place. I had heard of Hoot Suite before, but had never used it. I look forward to utilizing that tool during my time with Cre8 Events.
Following my first meeting on Tuesday, Carl had assigned me many tasks and had requested my feedback on different things. He had asked me about designing an Advertisement that would be featured on different advertising websites such as Gumtree. Carl sent me an animated video advertising for Cre8 Events and had asked for my feedback. I told him to add pictures and to change the duration for the logo and text.
Today I was looking online at some different events around my flat’s area and found that there are three different Marketing and Advertising exhibition events that we could go to for free and thought it would be a great and informative learning experience for the Cre8 Events Team to do together.
Next week, we will be working on a Marketing and Advertising Plan as well as updating each other on any projects each of us have been working on this past week. I look forward to designing more Ads in the future for Cre8 Events and what this next week will bring!
Jillian Koehnken 