How to organize a concert? Drawing up an event plan, determining the venue, calculating profits

Do you want to organize a concert? Then you need to know 3 things: Who will be performing at the concert? Who will come to listen to your artist? Where will all this take place?

Organizing concerts is a fairly profitable business. Concerts can be organized for both stage stars and novice performers. Everything will happen according to the same scheme, with the only difference being your expenses and income.

If you have never organized a concert, we recommend starting small, with young performers and aspiring rock bands.

Important qualities

Information on how to organize a concert alone is not enough to successfully organize such an event. It is necessary to have certain qualities in order to successfully complete all stages of preparation.

First you have to learn to negotiate. This skill is necessary because you will need to communicate with completely different people: musicians, their representatives, producers, people responsible for renting premises, etc.

Complexes, shyness and insecure behavior must be left aside. During negotiations, such qualities can greatly interfere and have a noticeable negative impact on the final result. It is also important to be stress-resistant because you will have to make a lot of decisions and do it quickly. In this case, force majeure circumstances are possible that can unsettle you. Therefore, when figuring out how to organize a concert, it is important to take into account the need to work on your personal qualities.

Where to advertise a concert

Every organizer wonders how to bring more people to the concert, where to advertise the event. Unfortunately, in the case of unknown groups, advertising does not work. Of course, you can try, for example, targeting on VKontakte, but the result will be minimal and may not justify your expenses at all. Since the essence of advertising an event is to convey information about the upcoming concert to fans of a given group. And since the budding group still has few fans, there will be no one to report it to. The idea of ​​distributing flyers is also no longer relevant. Therefore, rely only on your own strength and the integrity of the musicians.

Basic recommendations

A successful concert is the result of competent actions. And in such a case, ignoring seemingly minor things can significantly complicate the situation. To avoid a considerable share of difficulties, it is worth considering the advice of people who have experience in this industry. Here's what to do:

1. Search for viewers on social networks. This is where you can find most of the target audience and inform them about a new musical project. Proper use of social networks allows you to stir up the interest of potential viewers and significantly increase audience loyalty.
2. Register an individual entrepreneur. You need to understand that organizing a concert by an individual is illegal. You won’t be able to do business without registration for long, so you’ll have to pay a visit to the Federal Tax Service.
3. Understand your target audience. You can know how to organize a concert at the schematic level, but not understand the audience that will be invited to such an event. This means that when choosing a group or artist, you need to focus not on your own musical tastes, but, first of all, take into account what your target audience wants. Streaming services and social networks will help you find out the expectations of potential viewers. There you can conduct surveys and get feedback within a specific city.
4. Make a clear, extremely detailed spending plan. When creating an estimate for an event, it is necessary to include an amount intended to cover unforeseen costs. It is also important to understand the fact that organizing an event with the last remaining funds is a bad idea. There is always a possibility that the concert will not pay off.
5. Prepare for numerous tedious dialogues. Venue owners, maintenance people, musicians, media representatives, managers will all demand, question and ask for money. Setting yourself up for a protracted process of constant negotiations will help you avoid leaving the distance due to emotional overload.
6. Discuss key points and all details, without exception. It is important to agree on the place and date of the concert. And you also need to decide on the form of payment - a fixed fee or a percentage of ticket sales.
7. Obey the rider. To prevent relationships with artists from deteriorating at the very beginning, you need to take their requirements regarding the everyday and technical aspects of the visit responsibly. But it is advisable to familiarize yourself with the rider in advance, since there may be very unusual and difficult points.
8. Do everything for the comfort of the audience. Before organizing a concert, it is important to make sure that all the conditions necessary for a pleasant pastime for the people who bought the ticket will be provided. We are talking about a spacious room or area, good sound, a comfortable dance floor and a wardrobe. And it is also worth taking care of a high-quality warm-up of the audience before the main soloists appear.

Even a well-organized concert can be supplemented by force majeure circumstances. For this reason, you need to anticipate possible troubles: musicians being late, problems with electricity, equipment breakdowns, etc. You need to be prepared for such situations.

Where to look for rock bands for a concert

The next question facing the organizer is “Where to find artists willing to perform at your concert and how to negotiate with them?” Over time, when you have experience in organizing concerts, you will have your own base of artists and if you prove yourself well, other musicians will approach you with a request to organize a concert for them. But in the beginning you will have to work hard.

A good place to search for rock bands is the social network VKontakte. Search for “concert organizers” and you will see a list of current organizers. On their pages you will see information about the events held, as well as posters of past concerts. The names of the groups are on the posters. You enter the names of the groups in the search, you get to the page of the musical group, look at the list of contacts, choose a manager or frontman, usually they are first on the list, as a last resort, write to the vocalist and write an offer to perform at your festival. You can also look for groups on club posters.

Event format

Before organizing a concert in your city, you need to decide on the key accents. Depending on the format, the characteristics of the organization also change. We are talking about the following events:

• Solo concert. One star - all attention to her.
• Session. In this case, many groups perform, but there is no competitive element.
• Group concert. Here the structure of the session is preserved, but there is a key star or group, the so-called highlight of the program.
• Festival. In this format, various groups compete with prizes and titles.

If you have no experience, then it is better to choose the most modest option. Because when you take on a large-scale event, you may simply not be able to cope with the abundance of organizational issues.

With each subsequent project, experience will be formed that will ultimately allow us to successfully conduct large-scale events.

Also, within the framework of a modest event, it is easier to create a high-quality program, on which the success of the concert largely depends. This principle is important to understand for people thinking about becoming a concert organizer.

Each successful project leads to an increase in rating and level of recognition in professional circles. Failures have the opposite effect - it will be extremely difficult to organize something together with serious people. For this reason, it is better to start by inviting one star and preparing the show well.

Under what conditions should musicians be invited to perform at a concert?

Famous musical groups perform for a fee. No one pays a fee to beginning musicians. Since the organizer pays the fee hoping that a lot of people will come to the group. As a rule, only friends, acquaintances and a small number of fans go to see young “no-name” rock bands. Therefore, your cooperation should be mutually beneficial. For your part, you guarantee the group a place on stage; usually it is proposed to play a set of 6-10 songs: the performance of one artist is designed for 40-50 minutes, including setup and connection. The musicians guarantee for their part that people will come to see them.

In Moscow, this scheme was called “ticket redemption.” The standard conditions that the organizers offer musicians is to bring at least 10 people with paid tickets. The cost of tickets for such concerts varies from 200 to 400 rubles. If more people come to the group, then the organizer can pay a reward to the group; usually they offer 50% of tickets sold, starting from 11 people.

Musicians don’t really like this scheme, but it won’t work any other way. If you do not set conditions for the group, then there is a possibility that very few people will come to this team and all the others, or even no one will come at all. The musicians will play in an empty hall, and you will leave at a big disadvantage.

Group “Bloody Reef”

How to choose a group

When planning to invite one or more groups, you need to understand that you will have to deal with two important elements of the contract:

• Fee. How much money do you need to pay for a performance?
• Rider. Special requirements regarding everyday life and technology.

When thinking about how to organize a concert in your city, you need to pay attention to these two points first. This approach will allow us to weed out at the very beginning those groups that are not suitable or are inaccessible due to too high a fee. This principle should also be applied in the process of selecting an artist.

It is also much easier to select groups for performances, understanding how their price tag is formed. We are talking about the influence of the level of popularity on the fee:

1. Very famous in wide circles. For such teams it is normal to pack a stadium. For this reason, their arrival will be very expensive, and the rider will complicate life even for experienced organizers. But such inconveniences are more than compensated by the huge number of fans who will come to listen to their favorite performers.
2. Widely popular, but in narrow circles. In most cases, these are groups working outside the boundaries of POP music. They are well-known within their field and constantly gather halls of various levels. Such groups are more accessible than top performers and do not fill the rider with exotic items.
3. Little known in wide circles. They will cost less than the first category, but more than the second. Riders in this case are saturated with a variety of requirements.
4. Little known in narrow circles. Almost no one knows such groups; they have 1-2 released albums and, perhaps, have filmed one video. They are the most accessible, but the return is minimal.

It is possible to get a well-organized concert of artists in the city with a small budget and modest experience. To do this, you need to choose musicians from the second or fourth category. It all depends on how limited the funds are.

In the case when a session or some kind of festival is planned, it makes sense to negotiate with the most accessible artists and groups.

Negotiation process

When a group or artist is selected, you need to start communicating with their management. These are the people who negotiate.

Even if you managed to communicate personally with the musician, and he made some promises regarding the performance, you still need to get in touch with the manager or director. Without their participation, decisions regarding concerts are not made. To contact the management, you need to go to the group’s website or study the artist’s CD - it should contain all the necessary data.

In a conversation or correspondence with a representative of the group, you need to introduce yourself, indicate the city in which the event is planned, and explain what format of the concert was chosen.

List of Moscow clubs with a capacity of up to 200 people.

Check out the list of the most famous and popular clubs in Moscow with a capacity of 100-150 people. All of these clubs are concert venues with good technical riders; they also have dressing rooms for musicians and a stage.

1. Club “Muse” on Taganka.
2. Club “Alibi” on Clean Ponds.
3. Club “Zdes” on Taganka.
4. Bar “Jack & Jane” on Turgenevskaya.
5. Club “Lions Head” on Turgenevskaya
6. Club “Down House” on Sretensky Boulevard

Once you have chosen a club, be sure to visit it in person, see how well it matches the description and check that all the stated equipment is available. Start searching for groups.

Fee and date

The first thing you need to find out is the cost of the performance. If possible, it is advisable to reduce it a little. To do this, it is worth offering to hold several concerts with the participation of the group. Then their performances can be resold to organizers from neighboring settlements.

But it is better to use such a scheme when you have at least basic experience. If information on how to organize an artist’s concert in your city is being used for the first time, then it is better to act without organizing additional events.

When the fee issue is resolved, you need to choose a date. And here it is important to make sure that the group is free on the required dates. The rider is discussed next. At this stage, it is important to ask any questions related to the artists' requirements.

Payment

Conditions may vary; there are groups that will not travel without round-trip tickets and full prepayment. Some groups are ready to travel if they have 50% of the fee paid. And you also need to be prepared for different forms of payment: cash or transfer of funds.

There is no need to delay payment, as some artists do not consider the date set until they receive payment. This means that if they delay, they can choose another, more active organizer. It is also important to understand that it is not worth starting an advertising campaign until the group receives money, since the date may change.

Promotion

Any successfully organized concert is the result of not only competent negotiations, but also a well-executed advertising campaign. People in the city need to be prepared for the fact that the stars will come to them. This task can be accomplished using:

• Promotional videos and photo sessions. These materials will be needed for advertising in local media and social networks.
• Press releases from the performer and event organizers.
• Advertising banners.
• Concert landing page. When thinking about how to organize an artist’s concert, you need to pay enough attention to this point. A stylish, clear landing page can attract a considerable part of the target audience.
• Contextual advertising. Using Yandex Direct and Google AdWords with proper settings gives good results.

How to organize a charity concert

The purpose of such an event is to raise funds for a specific group of people. These could be sick children, veterans, disabled people, etc. Therefore, it is initially important to understand who exactly the help will be sent to.

There is no need to act on your own. There are charitable organizations in every city. You should definitely contact them for help in holding a concert. They will advise you on how best to present the theme of the event and will take part in drawing up the program.

And it is also worth spending time searching for sponsors - such people and organizations will definitely be found if the theme of the concert is relevant and the level of organization is high. As for artists and groups, you need to choose them depending on the scale of the event.

“Behind the Stage”: What lies behind the magic of the concert

When your favorite musical group, classical orchestra or fashionable DJ is on stage, it is always an incredible emotion and impression. Powerful three-hour sets or a selection of favorite tracks from an artist live sound much more interesting than any audio recording. However, behind a performance that lasts several hours, there is always a colossal amount of work behind it. Therefore, today we would like to lift the veil of secrecy and see what is happening “behind the scenes”. Read our article about how rock concerts are prepared.

Photo: Gregory Coyes/

A rock concert is not only about a band performing and a crowd of fans dancing. This is a properly tuned sound, light show and other design elements that depend on the imagination of the organizers (holograms, lasers, smoke machine, etc.). Beyond this, there are many other smaller details and elements at a rock concert that add up to a powerful show.

Sound and sound engineer

This man is the real star of any rock concert.
People in this profession make good money, have connections with celebrities, and, according to former sound engineer Jon Graves, have inflated egos and often yell at technicians and engineers on site. Graves himself worked as a sound engineer for a very long time: he toured with the bands Metallica, Guns T' Roses, and monitored the sound at the US Festival in the eighties. He says that if the sound engineer doesn't have a good night, no one has a good night. The sound engineer is a person who sits in a small booth opposite the stage in the center of the hall behind a large mixing console. It controls all the sounds that come from the equipment on stage, bringing them together and processing more than a hundred tracks. On the mixing desk, the sound engineer has separate tracks for each instrument and microphone. For example, if there are 12 microphones near the drum kit, then from his remote control the “sound engineer” can control 12 tracks, which he mixes, adjusting them to a specific room or venue.

Bands usually also have studio recordings that the sound engineer can plug into the live performance at any time (for example, if the vocalist has had a rough night and is left without a voice). But what the concert audience hears is one side of the coin. What the musicians hear is another story. For the latter, monitors are installed on the stage. This kind of mixing is quite a large job, so a separate engineer, who is responsible for the monitors, is always located to the side of the stage.

Usually speakers are used as monitors, which are aimed at the musicians, but now at large concerts each of them has an earphone. Some people like to use speakers, some people like to use headphones. Sometimes groups are asked to use both. An engineer will often have to create up to 15 different mixes per gig, depending on the musicians' tastes and how they prefer to hear themselves.

Video support

Video accompaniment has become an integral part of the concert show.
Often, background video inserts are “woven” into the concert so organically that they seem “alive.” At the same time, video support consumes much more electricity than, for example, a light show or sound systems. Editors assemble a wide variety of video effects and materials to match a specific song, mood, or moment of a band's performance. Background video can be synchronized with music and lighting using MIDI or SMPTE. U2 completely changed the idea of ​​video accompaniment of concerts. Instead of preparing footage in advance, during their 360 show in 2009 they used a feed from 15 cameras installed around the stadium. In addition, the group had 120 gigabytes of videos from past concerts, which were also inserted into the video broadcast. All of these videos were related to either current events or local news in the city U2 were visiting.

U2 marketing director Chris Ratcliffe said that he worked very closely with a man known as Smasher, who created the coolest videos over a cup of coffee and could present them on the big screen on the same day.

During the 360 ​​tour, U2 performed under a huge curved screen from the British company Buro Happold. The screen itself weighed 54 tons, and its area was 400 square meters. meters. When deployed, it occupied an area of ​​1300 square meters. meters and was the height of a seven-story building.

Modern concerts are not complete without a light show. Stage lighting is located at different points in the hall - the lighting engineer is responsible for it. He controls the color of the spotlight, the level of light and its movement from the remote control, which is located next to the sound engineer - opposite the stage.

Old light control panels were just a box with a bunch of controls. Such remote controls can control the projection of images, stage lighting, video and even a pyrotechnic show. Control occurs using faders, so the engineer works with the light in real time.

Modern equipment (for example Jands Vista) allows you to fully program and automate the work. Programming takes place on a timeline, which is displayed on the control panel or on the engineer’s monitor.

This timeline adheres to the same standards—MIDI Show Control or SMPTE timecodes—that audio engineers use. Therefore, synchronizing them is not difficult. Typically this is done using a digital workstation (such as Pro Tools). This way, you can have a sudden bright flash of light coincide with a sudden guitar riff or climax in a song.

Despite the automation of the process of synchronizing light and sound, as well as the programming of all elements of the show, the sound engineer cannot just get up and leave from behind the console (so that, for example, a scandal does not happen, as with the Milli Vanilli group in the nineties, when, due to equipment failure, it turned out that the guys were singing to a soundtrack).

Equipment for the concert

To have an idea of ​​how much equipment is used [by the way, in addition to home audio, we started working with musical instruments and equipment] during one concert, let's take a look at an example of such a list:
Lights:

a pair of MA2 Lite and NPU consoles for lighting control (primary and backup) with a server that controls six columns of LC panels and an LED wall. Tour lighting consists of 15 Martin Vipers, 30 Mac Aura XBs and 15 Clay Paky Sharp fixtures.

Sound:

the sound engineer sits at a Digico SD10, the sound of the monitors is mixed on a Digico SD5. There is also a wired PSM600 monitor for drums and bass, and a wireless PSM 1000 for everything else. Radio microphones with a Y-connector are also used, driven by two preamplifiers: Shure UHFR-B58s are used for vocals, and KSM9s are used for recitative.

And also an additional set of microphones for kicks, guitars and tom-toms. Radial J48 for bass, plus a pair of ATBP4073s and a pair of KSM32s.

Timecodes

Time codes are often used during rock concerts.
For example, in order to launch a certain effect for a guitar at the right moment, set the level of lighting and sound, or play a video. There are two types of formats that are commonly used during shows: SMPTE and MIDI. At the user level there is not much difference between the two; essentially, it is a unique time stamp that moves with the audio track and allows you to start any other action in complete sync with the music. Chris Everett says timecodes synchronize all elements of the show with millisecond precision.

However, it is worth remembering that timecode may not always work correctly, and the person who is responsible for it must be able to quickly fix the problem - make sure that the show goes on. Time coding is interesting, but it should be remembered that it cannot be completely controlled, since it depends not only on the engineer at the controls, but also on the band on stage.

However, it is additionally worth noting that you can also synchronize light, video and music manually: for example, the light designer knows the structure of the melody well and can guess at what moment to press the right button.

Job

Planning usually begins about a month before the show.
The production manager contacts the managers of all bands participating in the concert to ensure that they will have everything they need. Managers send their riders and receive proposals in return. Then all this is approved by the stage engineer and goes to work. Installation begins early in the morning. Teams of workers, drawn primarily from local contractors, are responsible for installing the lights, stage, drives and other equipment, then climb into the rafters and work on the roof.

After the installation work is completed, the teams come in and start checking the lights and sound. When the lights are hung, the equipment is set up, the sound check begins. Once it passes, the groups have some free time.

The box office opens, visitors begin to arrive at the site, and after the show, workers immediately begin dismantling, which goes much faster than installing the stage. Depending on the size, analysis takes three to four hours.

One can only imagine the level of complexity of the preparatory work for classical concerts. Installing a site can take a whole week, and during installation employees will walk tens of thousands of steps.

The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra consists of 81 instruments, a lighting console, a microphone stand and a conductor's podium.
Two huge screens are placed behind the orchestra. This year, more than 10 thousand people attended the concert, and about a thousand more sat in VIP seats. VIP guests, by the way, consume more than a hundred bottles of champagne per concert. Before the performance, guests are shown an eight-minute airshow featuring a 1940 Spitfire. And the concert ends with a grandiose fireworks display to Tchaikovsky’s “1812” overture, accompanied by cannon salvoes and more than a thousand fireworks shots. Two kilometers of cable are used to color the sky with the colors of the rainbow.

Organizing a grand concert is hard work, in which a huge number of people take part: from the sound engineer to the handyman.
Each of them puts a piece of themselves into the group’s upcoming performance so that the viewer can fully enjoy the show. Additional reading:

• Audio Digest 10: Interviews, Vinyl and Topic Guides
• Audio digest 8: Tips for music lovers, DIY and audio technology
• Audio digest 6: “Do it yourself,” interesting things about sound and audio technology
• Acoustics for background sound of rooms
• How to choose professional acoustics

How to organize a concert in a club

If you lack experience, it is better not to start large events, since mistakes will be very expensive. To begin with, you can limit yourself to the size of the club.

In addition to negotiating with bands and artists, you need to pay attention to the venue itself. When deciding where to organize a concert, it is important to exclude options with expensive repairs in the toilet - spectators do not always behave carefully, and they can file claims against the organizer for damage caused.

It is also important to make sure that the club has a good dance floor, a comfortable stage and an equipped dressing room. It is better to move the chairs away from the central platform, as they are most likely to be damaged. Besides, they will get in the way.

How much can you earn from organizing a concert?

Let's use simple arithmetic. Let's say you are organizing a concert for 5 groups. Ticket price is 300 rubles. You agreed with the groups that they would bring 10 people each. In total, it turns out that you expect at least 50 people at the concert, each of whom will pay 300 rubles for a ticket. If you agreed with the club that you will pay 2000 rubles for rent, 15000-2000=13000. Your profit will be 13,000 rubles. If more people come to the concert, then your income will accordingly be greater.

Expenses

Having a clear vision of what the event will look like, you need to determine all the costs. This must be done to form the budget for the concert. You need to calculate how much money will be spent on advertising materials (printing and posting posters, a website, etc.), renting premises, paying for the services of people responsible for sound, and band fees.

It is important to determine which radio stations and channels will broadcast the announcement of the event and how much airtime it will take. How often during the day the advertisement will run.

It is necessary to take into account costs at all levels of the organization - from the basic to the smallest. The budget must be clear and well-drafted. All this data is very important in the process of finding sponsors and negotiating with them. At this part of the preparation, the main task is to sell the attention of the audience.