Posts

Tips for Better Time Management for Promoters

/in /by

Promoters in the festival and nightlife industry are constantly handling a lot of tasks on a daily basis. Time management is an imperative skill they need to master in order to balance their professional and personal lives and ensure everything gets done. Being a promoter means being an entrepreneur and applying hands-on business skills to your job daily, oftentimes working around the clock dealing with tight deadlines and with multiple fires to extinguish to ensure everything at their event goes just right.

Below are some key time management tricks that will help you, as a promoter, get more done in less time:

Read more

How To Make The Most Out Of An Event Failure

/in /by

As any event organizer will tell you, you cannot always expect an event to go exactly as you hoped it would. Of course, it pays to prepare for any situation that may arise in the event to ensure everything goes smoothly. But sometimes, no matter how well you have prepared, there are those instances that will completely catch you off-guard, and especially so if disruptions are caused by factors beyond your control.

While you cannot do anything in the event of those unforeseen situations, you can, however, control how you get to react in those situations. It is important to remember that your reaction in such cases can make the difference between a slight blip and a massive, show-stopping issue.

Here are some helpful tips to help you control the situation in case of an “event fail”:

Read more

6AM Introduces New Website Layout, Artist and Industry Resource Sections and more

/in /by

You may have already noticed in the last few weeks that the 6AM site has undergone some changes. We wanted to talk you through some of these and the reasons why they were made.

Firstly, we adopted an entire new stylistic layout which we hope makes reading our articles and navigating through our site easier on both the eye and the mind, allowing you to discover more news, features and the latest music from artists you may not have been aware of before.

The biggest change, however, comes in our direction. While 6AM has always been focused on the more “underground” sounds of electronic dance music, mostly highlighting the latest in the worlds of techno, house and sub-genres in between, we also recognize that there are far too many blog and news site doing just that, without providing any new real value to their readers. From our humble beginning in 2008 as sub-promoters in Los Angeles, we have expanded our global outreach, industry experience, and knowledge on the back of over 600 electronic music events we have personally promoted or produced, ranging from festivals and mega-clubs to intimate lounges and unique venues.

Read more

social media

The Correlation Between Social Media and Record Sales

/in /by

Before the turn of the century, when an artist recorded a song, you had to buy the music before you got to listen to it at will. The more record sales, the more successful the artist and the music was. People loved buying records; there was the vinyl LP, the cassette tape, the compact-disc and then the evolution of mp3s. While before you have to have a special player to hear the record you bought, today things are very different. Now you can just log on to social media or streaming sites and listen to the newest tunes.

But is there a connection between social media popularity and a track or album’s final sales? Check out the following graphs from hypebot.com to see the correlation between the two works:

Read more

9 Business Skills You Develop as a Club/Festival Promoter

/in /by

We will be the first one to admit it: there is a negative connotation attached to the word “promoter” when it comes to the nightlife and electronic music industry. A promoter can be a number of things, but is essentially the person behind planning, marketing and executing an event of any size, be it at a small local lounge, big city nightclub or even a festival.

The stigma attached to the job title of “promoter” is one that we feel is unfair and often overlooks the true skills and activities that a promoter does to pull off a successful event. Career Cast listed “Event Coordinator” as the 5th most stressful job of 2017, behind such industries as firefighters, police officers, enlisted military personnel and airline pilot. Whereas the first four are directly concerned with matters of life or death, an event coordinator, which essentially is the same thing as a promoter, is constantly dealing with a million moving particles at once and more often-than-not having to combine a wide array of critical skills to ensure multi-scale productions go smoothly despite the high risk of anything out of their immediate control going wrong. A promoter executing events in the nightlife industry faces these struggles constantly, and perhaps even at a higher frequency due to the nature of the events they are handling and all the elements that come into play when putting together club nights, live shows or multi-stage festival production.

6AM has been working tirelessly for almost a decade producing and promoting hundreds of events of all sorts of sizes and scope. From small intimate lounges to organizing Electric Island Festival — a festival on the island of Guam that is turning 5 years old this year— and everything in between, 6AM’s team has done it all, learning invaluable and critical skills along the way.

Being a promoter is much more than “spamming Facebook with event invites and flyers,” and has essentially become one of the self-starter entrepreneurial careers of our time. We are sharing what we have learned, and are constantly still learning, with you today, in recognition of the hard work and skills it takes to be a promoter in the electronic music industry today:

Read more

The Need for Sustainability in Today’s Music Industry

/in , /by

More and more artists are prioritizing the need for sustainability in today’s music industry. They are slowly transforming music parties into greener more environment-friendly festivals. It all begins with small initiatives such the single-use of plastic bottles and the technology that allows tour trucks to utilize sustainable biodiesel to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. In ecology, sustainability (from sustain and ability) is the property of biological systems to remain diverse and productive indefinitely and as part of the ecosystem. It is up to each one of us that inhabit this beautiful planet to do our part to help attain homeostasis without causing further harm to the environment. More importantly in our industry, it’s imperative for each one of us to to act out and promote the need for sustainability.

As a producer, you can help out by producing more environment-friendly festivals and put a stop on wasteful party practices. Here are some of the biggest festivals that have adopted the “leave no trace behind” policy and practices recycling and other means just to cut down C02 emissions: Grassroots, Outside Lands, Sweet Life, Lollapalooza, and Lighting In A Bottle in the States, or DGTL in Amsterdam. There’s plenty more out there, with festivals, big and small, old and new, rising to the occasion to forward as many green initiatives as they can.

Read more

Internal Communication Tools To Keep Your Event Team Organized

/in , , /by

employees-connected-via-digital-communications

One of the biggest issues young and new promoters face is keeping their team synched and organized. Most of the time and out of habit, it’s easy to find yourself depending on online messengers and text messaging. While these are okay when you’re having a day-to-day normal conversation, you can never be dependent on these things when giving assignments and important information as you can lose track of valuable details and overlook due dates. We couldn’t stress how crucial communication is in order to increase efficiency and productivity amongst team members.

There are a wide range of internal communication tools available in the market right now but we have chosen 10 of the best ones to get you started in better organizing your event team, regardless of how big or small.

Email Over Verbal/Text/Unregulated Chat

E-mail is a trustworthy form of written and internal communication tool that almost everyone in the world uses. It is without a doubt better than verbal, text, or unregulated chat when dealing with business matters. As a promoter, you have to keep track of your daily-to-dos and follow up your team members on how they’re handling their assignments. Although a text message could do the trick, it is important to remember that text messages can easily get mixed up and you can result in lost details along the way.

Use of e-mails over Facebook chat or regular texting is strongly encouraged for a wide variety of reasons. With e-mails there is always a trace of every conversation you’ve had with your clients, event sponsors, and team members which you can later use for reference and/or legal purposes.

Slack

Slack is an exceptional online internal communication tool with a vast assortment of options and settings. It may not contain everything you’re looking for in a communication tool but it certainly is the best for group messaging and back-channel chat. Slack is real-time messaging, archiving and search for modern teams, with some added bonus features thrown into the mixture.

Enter Slack. “You don’t want your phone buzzing in your pocket all day,” says Hardie. “So you can just do it through Slack, instead.” Indeed, Slack offers all the functionality of texting, and more: The features designed to make the workplace more playful—GIFs, embedded songs from Spotify, custom emoji, funny replies from Slackbot—turn out to be equally fun with friends.

Asana

Asana is a flexible and well-designed online internal communication tool which specializes in workflow and task management. As a promoter, you can use Asana to keep track of your daily assignments and to-dos. It’s also a good way to keep track of your members workflow. It is far more productive than an e-mail and certainly better than any text messaging app, as it allows you to see progress for any project without scheduling a status meeting or sending an email, enabling teams to move work from start to finish.

You can check their pricing information here.

Facebook at Work

You want to stick to Facebook? Sure, but at least make sure you switch to Workplace by Facebook! Facebook has developed a new internal communication tool that is perfect for new and young promoters, following the same functionality utilized by the regular Facebook site while at the same time being specifically designed for the workplace.

We’ve brought the best of Facebook to the workplace — whether it’s basic infrastructure such as News Feed, or the ability to create and share in Groups or via chat, or useful features such as Live, Reactions, Search and Trending posts. This means you can chat with a colleague across the world in real time, host a virtual brainstorm in a Group, or follow along with your CEO’s presentation on Facebook Live.

We’ve also built unique, Workplace-only features that companies can benefit from such as a dashboard with analytics and integrations with single sign-on, in addition to identity providers that allow companies to more easily integrate Workplace with their existing IT systems. (Source: newsroom.fb.com)

Allo

Allo is an online chat application created by Google for Android and Apple devices. It is regarded as a beneficial internal communication tool by event promoters, producers, and even student groups. It is integrated with Google Assistant and does most things you would expect from a messaging application like sending pictures, stickers, and group chats. It also identifies you by your phone number or Google ID which make sit easier for your business contacts to sync.

Introducing Google Allo, a smart messaging app that helps you say more and do more. Express yourself better with stickers, doodles, and HUGE emojis & text. Allo also brings you the Google Assistant.

Spaces

Your easy way to figure things out, together.

Another Google application, Spaces lets Gmail users make a group via invitations and start conversations regarding different topics. You are also allowed to share links, videos, images, and even articles. One of the amazing features of this internal communication tool is that it allows you to browse through shared links without leaving the app. Mainly because Google has unified its services like Google Search, YouTube, and Chrome in this application.

Furthermore, Spaces allows a free flowing communication with lots of people in a group and lets you search past conversations with ease. Definitely better than text messaging! When someone shares a new message or file, a conversational view allows you to look at the entire group’s chat at that certain moment. In instances where you want to review past topics or conversations, you can use Spaces quick search feature to find what you’re looking for.

Workgroup

“Forget email, communicate and discuss your projects in real time, with all the right people.”

Workgroup is aimed towards professionals and people who converse and deal with multiple clients and businesses, thus the name Workgroup. It’s basically an application that makes group work communication effortless, faster, and more convenient through online messaging. While a lot of internal communication tools like emails and Slack are more popular, these could leave you with long chain emails with endless CCs and such. Workgroup saves you from such hassle.

Trello

An internal communication tool that organizes your projects into boards and cards. Trello is a great tool for promoters to keep your team and workflow organized. It has a minimalist but highly customizable interface, especially if you own a Premium Account. The drag and drop feature makes it fairly easy to use even for beginners, and you can arrange your cards by colors to specify its hierarchy on the priority list and represent groups. Trello also shows you what projects are being worked on and who are working on them at one glance.

On top of it, Trello’s Slack plugin is an excellent feature.

Trello lets you work more collaboratively and get more done. Trello’s boards, lists, and cards enable you to organize and prioritize your projects in a fun, flexible and rewarding way.

Google Documents, Sheets and Slides

Google Documents, Sheets and Slides are a free and impressive online suite of office applications which are accessible from web browsers and various portable mobile devices. All three features have an an elegant visual design packed with great features, enabling promoters to work effortlessly with their team both remotely and none, thanks to Cloud file sharing. You can also chat with your group members directly inside a document or add comments with their e-mail addresses, allowing for modifications, corrections and reference on the go and from anywhere in the world with internet connection. With Google Docs, Sheets and Slides it is easier to work together as a team with one document at the same time.

Google Docs brings your documents to life with smart editing and styling tools to help you easily format text and paragraphs. Choose from hundreds of fonts, add links, images, and drawings. All for free.

Dropbox for Business

Dropbox is well-known for its sharing and syncing features. Unlike the personal account, Dropbox for Business is integrated with additional security and amazing features, one of which is its unlimited version history cache. This enables users to recover past/lost documents. They also allow users to retrieve deleted files through their web application simply by clicking on the deleted items icon.

As a promoter, it is important to keep a record of all documents relating to your event planning and transactions. It is also ideal to keep records of past events that may deem useful for future planning. It also allows you to share your files with your team members and even people outside your team like clients and sponsors. Dropbox for Business makes saving and sharing documents easy as a breeze.

Securely share, sync, and collaborate

Dropbox Business is the secure file sharing and storage solution that employees love and IT admins trust.

For a list of Dropbox Business Plan comparisons, click here.

If you found this article useful, sign up for our newsletter to learn more and to stay up to date with 6AM’s news and features on the world of electronic music.