To be held in school hall (how big is it? is this sec sch/jc/poly?)
For school project (not backed by school)
Has never happened before (is your school open to the idea?)
Few or no bands completely made up of school mates (will you school allow people from outside to perform? if yes, much easier, if not, its still fun persuading schoolmates to form school bands)
Organising team has 6 people in it (we can gauge how large a scale this event can get now)
Again, please tell if you are in sec/jc or poly. Arrangements will be quite different for each due to curriculum time which determines a very important part of the whole thing -
auditions
1) First and foremost, whether it is to be a competition... I would highly highly recommend it to be a
competition because 1, no rock concert has been organised before (you do not know exactly
how many bands there are that are willing to join) and 2, its a school event (you do not know
how good the newly formed sch bands are). You need to ensure that people who passed the auditions will continue to work hard to sound good. Some bands only work hard to pass the auditions with a song and after that, chapalang the rest.
2) Since you are uncertain of your local music scene there, its best to be
open to all genres but make it clear the
preference is something safe such as rock. You need to first capture as much people for auditions as possible. After the auditions, then decide objectively which bands are good. If there are too many good ones, that's fine because you can shave them off subjectively. If there are too few good ones, you're going to have a hard time.
3) Cheapest rental is hard to say. You can try to source around but I would suggest contacting
LutherMusic Works (93887511) / Mikemann (97337161) / Lee Kwong Seng Music Centre (91735548 ). These, imo, are the cheapest of the lot. Tell them your situation and ask them each for
recommendation of a list of equipments with your
stated budget.
4) Watts is the last thing you should worry about if you are mic'ing up to mixers into loudspeakers.
Tone is more important. Try to get guitar amps with 12" cones or even 2×12". If you can get a half stack, even better. I would
strongly advise against the non mic'ing way because you hall is a large venue and raw sound
will never be balanced or acceptable from a paying audience point of view.
5) Covering capital should be first priority.
Selling tickets is a must. You will need ticket runners... ... loads of them. Be it bands, friends, friends of friends etc.
Don't need to force bands to sell tickets but get bands who passed the auditions to
chip in equally for the expenses. (make that a policy and
be as transparent as possible. ie show them the invoice etc)
How big is your hall? What is the maximum number of people can you squeeze in without getting uncomfortable? Take the cohort number for example (ie during assembly) or ask your principal. That is the expected number of tickets you will print and sell. Decide the price from there. Assuming it can hold 800 people, pricing the tickets at $4 will get you $2.4k. A comfortable amount to cover everything including prizes and a very good list of equipment for rent.
6) Number of performers and the duration of each set is determined by the duration you intend to hold the gig. I would say
3 hours is a good duration. Give and take some emcees blabbering nonsense in between sets,
10 bands of 15mins per set will be more than enough. That's 3 short songs or 2 long songs. Remember to consider set-up and tear-down time for each band (efx pedals, quick sound check/balance, adjustment of drums etc)
7) Gears - Bands should bring (or share) their own guitars, bass, effect pedals keyboards. Everything else should be provided by you guys.
8 ) Highly not recommended
9)
$200, $100 and $50 should be enticing enough. More would blow your budget, and less would not attract them to work for it.
10) You need
high publicity during pre-audition stages. You need to at least
get everyone in sch to know its gonna be a kickass event, nicely advertised with
cool posters (DIY is also good) ask for bands to audition, state the terms and
bold the prizes. Word of mouth is a good and effective tool. After the auditions, things should be flowing more smoothly if you coordinate and work with bands like working with partners. Work in such a way that
you have the last say, but bands can
contribute any ideas cause you'll never know if some of them have more experience at organising this kinda stuff somewhere outside.
11) For equipment alone, if got lobang, can go $500. If no lobang, $1000 and above. But not to worry because you have an expected return of $2.4k (may vary, need confirmation first)
One thing that might seem trivial to you but a really huge matter to the school is, whether they would allow people from outside to come for the gig. IE friends of schoolmates. If they do, good, because you can sell the tickets faster. If they don't due to being scared wrong crowds may come (like my damn school) then its still ok, but a little tougher. Ask your school first if you can make it a charitable event (since you ARE after all, using their venue)) Come up with a sound proposal so they will know you're not doing something out of this world. If you have the school's backing, publicity will shoot up and sales will be very much better. If this whole thing goes well, the school might even consider to make this an annual thing.
