30. Is there a merchandising capability?The reminder of the process deals with the challenges and issues these questions raise.<br />Creating a Budget<br />There is no set formula when setting a budget to market an event. We have to look at several variables prior to generating a budget:<br />What is the potential of our event?<br />Who is our audience?<br />What is the gross of similar events held in the past?<br />We will also need to find out how many markets should be included in the release of our event.<br />The other approach to budgeting is targeting our audience and determining how best to reach out to them. This can be very tricky, since making a mistake by targeting the wrong market can destroy an event.<br />The way to ensure a strong opening is to create awareness frenzy as the premieres. Depending on the genres, we need to generate a lot of publicity, press releases and a breakthrough campaign to isolate our product amidst in the clutter. The most essential and effective tool is in building awareness for any event in a campaign.<br />EVENT: - <br />Events have always been directly linked to stability in the economy and economic growth. India's economic boom is reflected in the event management scenario with it growing into a multi -crore industries with live-entertainment events, both domestic and international, assuring a big audience. <br />A spate of highly successful international concerts, from Scorpions to Bryan Adams, Roger Waters and Deep Purple in the past few years seem to have put India on the international touring map for major artist. Event management companies are promising big international name like U2, Enrique Iglesias to name a few to be touring India in the near future. <br />Apart from these regular fares such as international music concerts and film award, event managers believe the quot;
next big thing for this segment will be sports based events, celebrity management and conventions and seminars - both on a national and international scale. In the unorganized sector, wedding and similar social engagement expect to be the ke <drivers for growth. Event management in rural areas has al been identified as having tremendous potential, though in e longer term. The spread of events from large metros to A- lass cities has already begun to meet the entertainment need the growing cities. <br />Events termed as the below-the-line marketing concepts, have also become an important tool for companies to build the brand image in the minds of the target audience and as competition grows fiercer, event marketing could become a vital marketing weapon to tap the designated audience. <br />Role of an Event Manager <br />There are four major types of events which an event manager can be called to work upon: <br />Corporate event management <br />Organizing publicity through media (TV coverage for Instance) <br />Parties and weddings Sports event management <br />There are many sub-categories within the industry that one can specialize in, depending on one's aptitude and inclination. The tasks involved in managing an event may come in three stages: <br />, <br />Pre-Production:<br />At this stage, it all at the conceptual level with sub-tasks including planning logistics, marketing and public relations. <br />Production:<br />. The most crucial and creative part, frequently involving TV coverage for a fixed slot/duration.<br /> <br />Post-production:<br /> <br />This principally revolves around public relation and media publicity, but requires planning right from the pre-production stage. <br />Master of ceremonies<br />General go-fer<br />The position calls for nerves of steel, quick thinking and the pay is not all that good ... but event manager do get a tremendous sense of achievement! They need to have good time management skills, an ability for creative thinking and good negotiation and public relations skills to assist his/her in their role as event manager. <br />The skills required to be an Event Manager…<br />No formal degrees and qualifications are required to manage events. For those with a flair for marketing and expertise at handing people and situations, a career in Event Management spells sheer success. They must have the capability to manage tasks responsibly; right from grass-root laborers who put up the stage ... to being able to sell an event to companies and manage the publicity for the event. <br />A Jack of all trades, a Go-Getter, a risk taker, a resourceful, efficient and creative leader defines an Event Manager. According to Teamwork, quot;
An event manager is a person who can wear many hats: an all-rounder, with 100 per cent commitment. quot;
<br />Most importantly, they should have a genuine passion for events and be flexible about hours work, These are both necessary because organizing even s equinity entails working late nights and odd hours and a wide variety of events. <br />Publicity<br />Publicity is used to legitimize the claims that we are advertising about our product/event. Publicity is carried out to direct the public's attention to our event. The publicity process should begin the minute a deal is signed to produce an event and it should be continuous throughout the release. During the pre-production period, stories regarding the event, its cast, the actual event, special effects should be regularly fed to the press. Here are a few points on how to generate a good publicity: <br />a. Assemble and distribute a comprehensive press kit to journalists and critics. <br />b. Secure major stories with newspapers and magazines. Ensure these stories break around the time of our event release date. <br />c. Distribute our electronic press kit to television studios, clips of the product, event and interviews with the creative team. <br />d. Arrange screenings for opinion making groups that will help spread the word. <br />Eg-let local celebrities to attend premiere screening and also attach a radio, television and/or newspaper sponsor to the premier screening <br />What is a Special Event? <br />Special events can occur on an annual, bi-annual or any regular basis, or they can be one-off celebrations or festivals. They can be events tailored to a specific area such 'as the Tamworth Country Music Festival or the Carnival in Rio, or they can be cultural or sporting events which are transferable to any location, state or country such as the Soccer Wotld Cup and Davis Cup. There is no limit to the scope of special/events. The challenge to any Event Manager is to make his ~~~ event stand out from the thousands of other events offered to the public each year. The publicity gained from media coverage of a successful, outstanding event is something money can’t buy and is necessary for both the continued growth of the event and its necessity to attract sponsors. Special Event organization is a growth industry in India.<br />The industry has now come of age and, with the advent of globalised media coverage, new markets have opened up for sponsors to get their message across to increasingly larger audiences. There is keen competition between large corporations to sponsor prestige events but many smaller events struggle to attract even local sponsorship.<br />Special events have taken on a much higher profile with the addition of spectacular pyrotechnic displays and innovative audio-visual production techniques that is beamed to billions of special Event Managers to deliver an event that surpasses everything that has preceded it. <br />So you want to be an event manager. ?<br />The Event Manager plays a critical role in the planning, co-ordination and subsequent success ( or failure) of any event. <br />Among other things, he or she may be required to assume the role of:<br />Creative director<br />Human resources manger<br />Trouble shooter<br />Public relation officer<br />Licenses<br />Accountant<br />Health and safety officer<br /> <br />Positioning Event <br />Long before the creation of our campaign begins, the positioning of our event must be decided. The positioning of the genre of the event decide the type of audience we will reach and exactly how we will posture the event to the press, who will write about it long before the consumer will ever see it. <br />Once we have determine d who our audience will be, we can then start to research their characteristics and model our campaign after other similar events at have proved successful. <br />Creative Checklist <br />This section describes the creative elements necessary for the development of the key art and promotions required to sell our event. / <br />Key art<br />Key art is the image created for the poster and later adapted for newspaper ads and publicity materials. Key art is the first element of creativity developed long before the event. The role of the poster is to generate an early awareness for the event. The poster image should be clean and simple. It's important to remember that key art designed for the poster will also be adapted for the newspaper campaign. The graphics must be clean and powerful in order to reduce properly as our ads grow smaller in the third or fourth week of release. <br />Along with the poster comes the cut line. The cut line or copy line is generally a few words t at position or set up the event. The copy should be provocative, able to set a mood and sell the event <br />CURRENT SCENARIO<br />The organized industry has from around Rs.350 crore during 2002 to be an Rs.580 crore industry in 2003. The live entertainment and event management segment has demonstrated an overall growth of over 60%. As this segment , which is still in its infancy, become an increasingly important part of the media pie, it is expected to demonstrate a growth of 30% per annum over the next five year, in effect more than doubling its size to approximately Rs 1443 crore by 2008.<br />And that’s just the part that can be measured and estimated. There are about 10-15 large players with revenue around Rs.20 crore each many small players- around 70% of the segment remains unorganized. The event segment as a whole can be divided into several key sub- segment that include corporate events. Sports arts and theater, felicitations and contest, festival and personal events. Of these, small operations in the unorganized sector primarily manage weddings, small corporate events and festivals, which have not been considered for the purpose of the size of the industry<br />.. <br />