Event Case Study #5: Christians 20/30 Music Festival

This is the fourth case study within the mini-series Event Production & Management, which consists of the following articles:

1. General Introduction
2. Christians 20/30 Great Gatsby Ball, held 26 July
3. Operation Christmas Child Packing Party, held 30 July
4. Friend’s Wedding held 9 August
5. Surprise Events (x3) planning
6. Friend’s Wedding held 13 September
7. Christians 20/30 Music Festival, held 4 Oct (this article)
8. Operation Christmas Child – UCC Packing Party held 14 November
9. Friend’s Wedding held 15 November

Christians 20/30 as an organisation is explained at this page under the XBOP Causes section. Our final major event for the year was a Music Festival, held on Saturday 4 October 2015, which was conceived in the mid year period while the Gatsby Charity Ball event plans were still being finalised.

My services to the event were more as a support role, whilst the main project managers took charge of the key logistics. Given the nature of the event, a large amount of planning and logistics was required in the lead up to the event itself.

Securing a venue was the first priority and after an initial selection of one venue, a change was necessitated by a number of factors. Settling on the North Melbourne Meat Market, the team efforts swung into marketing both for sponsorships, performers as well as general attendance. Parallel to the specific event planning efforts, I focused on establishing the main Christians 20/30 website, which we used to launch and promote the event and some of the promotional videos.

The concept of the event was originally focused on having a more carnival atmosphere, with stalls for Christian businesses scattered around a more open-area venue whilst a concert stage would have provided the focal point for the music entertainment. The eventual event that was staged was probably most dramatically different from the original in that it was held indoors, which shifted the balance to becoming more like a concert atmosphere with the stalls located at the front entrance of the hall.

Similar to the raffle ticket sales effort undertaken at the ball in July, my on-the-night contribution focused again on selling raffle tickets which helped to recoup a few $100s from the high event costs. General support for the team of coordinators saw me also move around the venue.

A brief period of overlapping interests transpired early in the evening when I helped to set up the table/stall for Operation Christmas Child. A total of about 10 stalls formed a marketplace environment at the front of the hall, ranging from not-for-profit organisations like OCC, music bands who were performing throughout the night, and food. As part of the operating model, Christians 20/30 controlled the sale of drinks and snacks inside the venue whilst one external catering business set-up shop outside the venue, along with another coffee barista operation.

Tickets were packaged up in the music performer deals agreed upon whereby they could hand out a number of tickets to their own entourage and/or fans. Stalls were also made available as a package which allowed the businesses to utilise tickets provided to them to bring along a few people to help set-up and attend the event. The general admission tickets moved a little slower initially but sales picked up as time passed, particularly when new group offers were made available.

Overall, putting this event on was a huge effort required of the entire Christians 20/30 team of coordinators. As the most complex event ever hosted, and also being the first of its kind, we managed to get through the experience of event planning and management together but not without its challenges. The lessons learnt and experience accumulated as a result of running this event can only help Christians 20/30 bring together an even better 2015 of events.