26th of July 2025
This was a slightly crazy exercise in project management. Looking back I'm not sure what possessed me to keep at it.
Ultimately i think it shows my ability to change a design on the fly and keep calm, and to also communicate and deal with people well, from acts to venue owners.
Booked initially with 2 acts from far outside Leicester, the plan was a series of animated shorts starting in the May alongside a poster campaign. You may notice the 'animations' and what was a planned full watercolour of the venue seem a little unfinished, please read on and enjoy the journey...
Then the first disaster.
Upon finding out there was a local festival that day and 20 people i knew now no longer expected to make it, and hearing the dates for local festivals such as barefoot, i had immediate concerns for a support act burning a candle at both ends to promote it.
Due to concerns about the pressure on him, I did my first of 3 total design overhauls.
Using all my people skills I could muster another act was found, this caused the scrapping of the 2 in progress animations.
and a poster design overhaul.
The week of the gig the headliner hit a completely immovable object and had to pull out. This then caused the pulling of a sponsored online campaign of videos.
and then, ultimately there were so many festivals on in and around Leicestershire and Nottingham on that same day, there were only 5 people in the venue downstairs playing mario kart (yeah, firebug on a Saturday and 5 people, i know right?). And about 100 max in the entire city, which became evident after me and a support went on a mini bar walk after. Hopefully all 5 had a good time when they decided to come upstairs.
I was also an unlisted opening act.. because evidently, i don't know when to stop.
After this i took several days off, it turns out there's a good reason entire agencies book shows and not individual people.
all is not lost, i do have a pay the man show to reschedule, could be firebug, could be Soundhouse..could even be somewhere in Nottingham. I'll see who takes it on.