Serena Simpson

Dr. Smith

Special Topics in Communication: Event Planning

Spring 2008

            The Michael Combs Concert/Bluegrass Festival was held at the Cookeville Community Center in Cookeville, Tennessee. This concert took place on March 7-8, 2008, and the services began at 7:00 p.m. This event was Christian based and held for the local church community audience, for the purpose of a revival weekend of praise and worship.
            Before the event was held, I was responsible for evaluating what food/beverages were needed for the concession stand, purchasing these items, and contacting the Cookeville Community Center for more information on where the food/beverages would be served, as well as take a tour of the layout of the facility. Two meetings were held with the sponsors, Bob Lollar of Edd Rogers Chevrolet, and Larry Littrell, executive director of the YMCA in Sparta TN. These meetings lasted about an hour each and took place at each one’s place of work.
            Prior to the event, I assisted in preparing all food, set up tables and chairs, helped set up stage equipment and the band’s product table, as well as unloaded all equipment and food products from the van. During the event I was in charge of taking up all money for the food items, and making sure all those performing were fed free food, and had condiments available in their dressing room. After the event each night, I was responsible for overseeing the teardown of the stage equipment from each band, as well as the clean up of food, and eventually, at the end of the entire festival, clean-up of the facility and concession stand, as well as loading up all leftover food and sound equipment.

Target Audience
            The target audience for this event was primarily based on the older generation of members from various Christian churches, especially those of which who enjoy country bluegrass music. For the most part, during the event, the crowd consisted mostly of mid-age to elderly people, and very few children attended with their parents. Therefore, the target audience was excellently marketed to. This is due to many church announcements and local Christian Hit radio coverage.
Research
            Prior to the bluegrass festival, the First Community Baptist Church recognized a need for an event that catered to the bluegrass generation, and developed an event that would meet that need. Michael Combs is from North Carolina, and has performed in the Cookeville area once before. The concert that was held in the past was very successful, and the members of this church organization wanted to organize another successful concert, by incorporating local bluegrass bands as well.
Objectives
            The objective of having this Christian event is to reach out to others about the message of Jesus Christ. The primary purpose is not only to offer more coverage for the First Community Baptist Church, but to allow all denominations of the Cookeville/Upper Cumberland Community to come together and unite as one in worship.
            Even though this is in fact a Christian based event, it is still a concert, so ticket sales were important as well. The bands performing did so not only to share the Word of God and worship with others, but to also fund their traveling tour so that they may continue to do so in other locations across the Southeast. The ticket sales were made to cover the rental of the Cookeville Community Center, as well as to pay the main bands that were performing. The planning process so far for this event was a bit shaky. More concrete time variables in regard to set up and expectations of the budget should have been addressed by the church.
Aspects of the Event
            Considering the event and the audience, I believe that overall the primary aspects were appealing to this elderly crowd. However, there are some things I dully noted as a college student that I would have done differently. For example, instead of using the main stage, we built a stage on the floor and set out chairs. This was not very effective. Also, the location of the concession stand was actually behind and to the left of the main stage, which meant that if you wanted to purchase items to drink or eat you would be in front of the entire audience. (These aspects are not good.) However, some appealing aspects of the event were the involvement of the crowd during concert, adequate décor, the bands items for purchase table was extremely decorated, and the food at the concession stand was good (But limited in items).
Evaluation of Event
            The evaluation of this event was primarily based on crowd attendance, ticket sales, and concession stand sales. Michael Combs had a contact/information drop box on his table of assorted items for purchase, but other than that, the primary evaluation was how much money the event made, and how many people showed up. On Friday night we had a full house, however, Saturday night was less crowded due to rain.
            The church evaluated this event very differently. They were more interested in how many people were saved at this event as a result of hearing the different bands testimony. Eleven people were saved or rededicated their lives to Christ on Friday night, and 4 on Saturday night.
            Unfortunately, there was no evaluation process that the audience could give for the concert overall that could be taken away in a documentation format. I believe that in the future a survey or comment box about the event should be distributed throughout the audience. Also, there was no meeting held after the concert to critique what could be done if the church decides to host the same event again. I believe that was a mistake as well.
Recommendations
           In the future, I believe more meetings should take place prior to the event to ensure that all event staff and volunteers are aware of the exact steps for set-up and preparation for the festival. Also, when setting up the stage for the bluegrass bands, the set-up should occur on the actual stage, and not on the gym floor. In addition, the concession stand should be set up outside in order to sell more food products, as well as to not make audience members feel they have to stand up in front of everyone to go get food/beverages. Also, the concession stand only offered cold drinks, and the primary requests were for water and coffee, which is typical considering the target audience consists mostly of elderly people, who have various dietary needs.
Christian Bluegrass Concert Planning Experience
            Many lessons were learned while planning this festival with different groups of people. For one, everyone needs to be on the same page, therefore, team meetings prior to the event should consist of everyone, not just department to department, to ensure that everyone does not miscommunication tasks, as well as to give all volunteers an overview as to what will be expected of them during the concert festivities. Everyone has a different opinion, and when voicing your opinion about a certain aspect that you would like to change, you can’t just state what you want to be different, you must pinpoint exactly why. I attempted to do this when deciding on the beverages and where the concession stand should be strategically placed. The people I was aiding in helping plan the event did not agree, and therefore, since it was their event, did what they wanted anyways. I learned that they had a drastic decrease in concession stand sales due to their inability to work as a group.
            In conclusion, planning, preparing, and implementing this event truly taught me how to work well with a group, as well as how important it is to cater to your target audience.         
 Appendix of Hours Worked
Friday, February 22, 2008: 2:00-3:00 p.m. Meeting with Bob Lollar            1 hour
Monday, March 3, 2008 9:30-10:30 a.m. Meeting with Larry Littrell           1 hour
Planning and Purchasing of Concession Stand                                              2 hours
Friday, March 7, 2008 12:00 p.m.-10:00 p.m. <CONCERT>                        10 hours
Set-Up, Staffing During Event, Concession, Tear-Down, Cleaning
Saturday, March 8, 2008 2:00 p.m. – 11:00 p.m. <CONCERT>                   9 hours
Set-Up, Staffing During Event, Concession, Tear-Down, Cleaning
TOTAL AMOUNT OF HOURS:   23 hours