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Introduction
This report outlines the event strategy plan for managing this year’s summer music festival. The purpose of this year’s festival is to raise funds for assisting needy children in England. The target audience includes the people living in London City. However, participation will be limited to people who are above fifteen years of age. The festival will be held on July 13 and 14, 2013 from 12:00 pm to 3:00 am at Hyde Park in London City. The event will provide a memorable entertainment experience to the participants through a live stage performance by artists and bands such as Black Eyed Peas, and Pulp among others. Other activities will include a beer party, food stalls, singing competitions, and interactive games.
Aims and Objectives
The main objective of the festival is to raise funds for the Children Society of the United Kingdom. The festival should be a public event so that it can attract a large number of participants. The financial objective is to raise at least 1,500,000 pounds through the event. The Children Society will use this fund to support needy children by providing them with services such as education, advice, and health care.
To avoid high costs, the event should operate as simply as possible. Nonetheless, the participants must benefit from it by getting value for their money. In this regard, the social objective of the event is to provide a memorable entertainment experience. To achieve the financial and social objectives, the festival will include activities such as a live stage performance by 10 artists, a singing competition by upcoming artists, a beer party, food stalls, and interactive games.
The Marketing Screen
The selected activities for this year’s festival are too many. During the 2012 and 2011 festivals, the number of people who attended the beer party was less than the desired number of participants by 50%. Research concerning the causes of the low attendance indicates that visitors were not ready to pay the extra fee (separate ticket) for the party. In addition, the participants were interested in the live stage performance by artists rather than drinking beer in a separate venue. Thus, the beer party will not be part of the activities that will take place in this year’s music festival.
The Operation Screen
Even though visitors enjoy the signing competition, staging it is usually very difficult. This is because a very large number of artists usually express their interest in the competition. This complicates the process of selecting the competitors because the auditions must be done over a long period. Additionally, we do not have enough judges to select the right competitors for this year’s festival due to time constraints. Thus, this year’s festival will not have a singing competition.
Financial Screen
In the last two years, the festival did not raise much money through interactive games. This is because the games can only take place between 2:00 pm and 6:00 pm. However, nearly half of the participants usually arrive after 6:00 pm. Consequently, games generate little money because only a few people participate in them. Experience shows that renowned artists usually charge a high fee to participate in the festival. Since the purpose of the event is to make money, the number of artists will be reduced from ten to six to reduce operating costs. Based on the above screens, the festival will include a live stage performance by six artists and the food stalls from which the participants will buy food, drinks, and snacks.
Table 1: Forecast Budget for Stage Performance by Six Artists.
Table 2: Forecast Budget for Food Stalls.
Stakeholder Analysis
Stakeholder analysis aims to facilitate the identification of the people whose participation is central to the success of an event (Ali-Knight 2008, p. 56). In this regard, the stakeholders of the music festival include the public, charity organizations such as Action-Aid, interest groups such as UNICEF, sponsors such as soft drinks manufacturers, artists, and the local government. The importance of these stakeholders in terms of their power and interests is illustrated in figure 1.
The local government (Municipal of London) has a high power because its officials have the authority to permit and ban the event. However, their interest is low because they are not involved as sponsors or participants. People below the age of fifteen years have low power and less interest in the event because they will not be allowed to participate. On the contrary, artists, patrons, and sponsors have high power and interests. Sponsors have high power since their financial contributions will be used to pay for the costs of the event. They also have high interest because they will get publicity or opportunities to market their products through the event.
Similarly, artists have high power since their participation will determine the number of visitors who will attend the festival. They also have high interest because they will be paid for their participation. Patrons have high power because their participation in terms of ticket and food purchases will enable the event to meet its financial targets. Additionally, their interest is high because they usually enjoy the entertainment associated with the festival. The stakeholders highlighted in green are supporters and advocates, whereas these highlighted in red are critics. The stakeholders marked in yellow are neutral.
Opportunities and Risks
Identifying risks and opportunities is central to the success of an event (Bowdin 2012, p. 113). Opportunities refer to the factors or situations that are likely to enhance the success of an event (Anderson 2010, p. 76). Risk refers to the degree of vulnerability to the adverse effects of future occurrences (Preston 2012, p. 82). Marketing Plan
The target market for the event consists of the youth or people aged between fifteen and forty years. This age group consists of people who enjoy live entertainment and outdoor activities. Additionally, those who are above twenty years are likely to be employed. Thus, they are likely to have enough money to spend during the event. The patrons in the age bracket of between 15 and 20 years are likely to be responsive to prices because most of them are not employed. Thus, price discrimination will be used to set the ticket prices. Concisely, patrons who are between 15 and 20 years will pay 150 pounds, whereas those above twenty years will pay 200 pounds.
The catchment area for the target market is London City. Most of the patrons live in areas such as Dagenham, Greenwich, Southward, and Tower Hamlets. The patrons can connect to Hyde Park by train, cars, taxis, and buses. Hyde Park is approximately three minutes drive from the central business district of London City.
The marketing objectives include the following:
- To attract at least 20,000 patrons in 2 days: 8,000 on 13th and 12,000 on 14th July 2013
- To increase the number of patrons attending the festival by 3,000
- To raise 2,000,000 pounds by selling tickets
- To achieve an 80% satisfaction rating of excellent
Positioning
Positioning involves communicating the qualities and benefits of a product to the target market (Saget 2006, p. 117). The festival will be positioned as a high-quality entertainment event. However, the risk with this positioning strategy is that organizers of a similar event can imitate it. Consequently, some of the expected visitors might attend alternative entertainment events, thereby reducing the attendance of the music festival.
Differentiation
The music festival will be differentiated in terms of its image and the quality of the entertainment services. In this regard, the event will focus on providing excellent entertainment to those who will attend it. This will be achieved by inviting talented celebrities to entertain the patrons. Effective differentiation will distinguish the music festival from rival entertainment events, thereby increasing its attendance (Peters & Donnelly 2012, p. 341).
Segmentation Strategy
Segmentation involves dividing a target market into groups of customers with similar tests and preferences or needs (Winer & Dhar 2010, p. 211). The segmentation of the target market for the festival will be based on demographic and psychographic factors. Demographic segmentation involves dividing the target market according to age groups (Gupta 2004, p. 413). In this regard, the first segment will consist of visitors in the age bracket between 15 and 25 years. This age group has a strong preference for fast foods and snacks. Consequently, stalls that stock this type of food will be available. The second segment consists of visitors who are older than 26 years. This segment consists of people who are likely to demand full course meals. Thus, there will be specific food stalls that sell full course meals.
Psychographic segmentation involves dividing the target market in terms of the consumers’ values, lifestyles, and personalities (Bradley 2007, p. 241). In this case, the target market will be divided in terms of the type of music that visitors like. The three types of music that will be presented include reggae, hip-hop, and rock and roll.
Product Strategy
This year’s music festival will be adjusted to make it more attractive and appropriate to the target market. The first adjustment involves extending its duration from one to two days. This change will enable more people to have adequate time to attend the festival. The second adjustment will involve improving the ambiance of the venue through high-quality decorations.
Pricing Strategy
The markup pricing strategy will be used to set the prices for food and the tickets for the event. Markup pricing enables firms to make a profit by selling a product at a price that is higher than the cost of producing it (Kazmi 2009, p. 267). Thus, it will enable the festival to generate more revenue than the cost of staging it.
Promotion
The promotional tools that will be used to market the festival include advertising, billboards, and celebrity endorsements, as well as, symbols and logos. The music festival will be advertised through print and electronic media. Similarly, it will be advertised through billboards that will be positioned at strategic locations such as highways and high-rise buildings. The adverts will include the symbols and logos of the companies that will sponsor the festival.
Finally, the festival will be marketed through celebrity endorsements. In this case, some of the invited celebrities will use their fame to promote the festival. The benefit of celebrity endorsement is that it will attract new patrons, create awareness, and improve the image of the event. However, the risk of this strategy is that it can be very expensive, and the celebrities might misrepresent the event.
Budget Plan
Table 3 presents the revenues and expenditures associated with the music festival. The table shows that ticket sales will be the main source of revenue. The risk associated with this budget is that a large percentage of the revenue depends on the festival’s attendance. Concisely, the revenue target will be met if the attendance is high and vice versa. Nonetheless, there are opportunities for generating additional revenue. These include photography and merchandise sales. These sources of revenue will enable us to avoid the risk of missing the revenue target.
Table 3: Budget.
Project Plan
Figure 2 outlines the activities associated with the organization of the festival. The activities will be executed in the order in which they appear in figure 2 in order to avoid failure.
Figure 2: Gantt Chart.
Activity time (weeks) cost revenue
Event Project Schedule
Table 4 shows the schedule of the activities that will take place during the music festival. The event will take two days and it will be open to the public from noon until 3:00 am.
Table 4: Schedule of Activities.
Evaluation Methods
The pre-event evaluation of the music festival will be done by assessing the extent to which the progress of the project matches the project plan. Concisely, it will involve examining the success of the organizers in executing all the tasks or activities that must be completed during the planning or managing of the festival.
The post-event evaluation will be done with the aid of surveys that will measure the satisfaction of the stakeholders. In this regard, questionnaires will be sent to all stakeholders so that they can rate the event and give their opinions concerning its quality or suggestions, or future improvements. Additionally, a management audit will be completed to determine the successes and the failures in the organization of the festival.
Summary and Recommendations
This report presented the plan for managing this year’s summer music festival. The event will be held on the 13th and 14th of July 2013 at Hyde Park in London. The purpose of the event is to raise funds to support the Children Society of the United Kingdom. The target market includes the youth in the age bracket of between 15 and 40 years. The main risk associated with the planning process is that the expected revenue might not be obtained if the attendance is low. Additionally, the local government might ban the event if it does not satisfy the permit requirements.
In light of these risks, the planning team should ensure that the event meets all regulatory requirements to obtain a permit to stage it. Additionally, the marketing promotion activities such as advertising should be intensified to create adequate awareness about the event. This will improve its attendance.
References
Ali-Knight, J, 2008, International Perspectives of Festivals and Events, McGraw-Hill, New York.
Anderson, J 2010, Events Management Simplified, Oxford University Press, London.
Bowdin, G 2012, Events Management, Routledge, New York.
Bradley, N 2007, Marketing Research, Macmillan, London.
Gupta, S 2004, Marketing Research, Oxford University Press, London.
Kazmi, S 2009, Marketing Management, Palgrave, London.
Peters, J & Donnelly, J 2012, Marketing Management, Prentice Hall, Upper River Saddle, NJ.
Preston, C 2012, Event Marketing, John Wiley and Sons, New York.
Saget, A 2006, The Event Management Handbook, McGraw-Hill, New York.
Winer, R & Dhar, R 2010, Marketing Management, John Wiley and Sons, New York.
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