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After working in the Entertainment and Hospitality industry for the last 12 years in the UK and Hong Kong from all sides I have picked up plenty of experience on how to promote events that work. Being press, promoter and a member of the general public you get to see all angles of organising an event that most promoters themselves don’t get to see.
Since coming back to Hong Kong 5 years ago and setting up such sites as www.hkclubbing.com and www.hkentertainment.com I have encountered such scenarios as:
- Promoters ask me about the artist that they have paid millions to bring, when they do not know anything about the artists music or history.
- PR agencies ask me how they should do PR.
- Organise a seven figure event and they don’t even have a press release or photos of the artist.
- Only provide a press release in English or Chinese (or not at all).
- Releasing event details just a few days before the event (or not at all).
- Advertising to the wrong target market (one of the most common).
These are just a few of the surprising things that I have encountered, I wont go into all of them as that would be being too helpful for promoters looking to correct the way they currently operate.
In this article I will touch upon lead time and some of the things that should be included in the management of lead time.
There really is a simple process to organising an event and planning your lead time. (Lead time is the period between the day you set the event to the date of the event itself, this term is used by hotels and airlines who manage the lead time effectively so that they are able to achieve the highest occupancy on the date itself.) Just think of how airlines and hotels organise their lead time and that can partially be applied to events.
Depending on the size of the event depends on the length of lead time you need. For large sized concerts I recommend at least at least 3-4 months lead time. For smaller dance music events 1- 1½ months is plenty of time. A continuous updated, reminder and news development should occur throughout the lead time to the specific market that the organiser is trying to target.
The key information should be given at the beginning but during the lead time you should keep something back that can then be brought up e.g. the times when a dj will play on the night, special guest appearance of another singer for example. The lead time should be managed so that the potential person attending the event should be kept excited and reminded about the event that they want to and should go to. The time should be kept warm the whole time, if you release information one day and then nothing else is sent out people will easily forget about the event and may miss it.
A lead time plan should be drawn up from day 1 on what should happen and why. For example press information should be distributed to these publications on this date because that is their deadline and then you will know that you have 1 month of exposure in that publication.
I hope to write more on this topic and others as there are so many areas to cover including presentation of information, managing the press correctly, targeting the correct market, collaborations, partnerships and sponsorship management.
Our company Entertaining Asia does provide entertainment consultancy services from a one hour session to a complete event or venue project. Please get in touch for more information. Even a one hour session can give you an outsiders perspective from someone who has worked from all areas industry.
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