Every new project goes through a phase of inertia, which you have to blow through to gain some momentum. The Brighton Jazz Festival has has a week or two of that, I must confess, initially due to my second cold in a month, then being busy with my own internet marketing mentoring clients at The Business Success Factory and my internet marketing consultancy clients at Cairncross Media.
I woke up determined to either break through this inertia or give up on the whole project so it’s not hanging over me and this is what I’m doing to break through it.
1. Logo competition – our press releases didn’t seem to get any traction and neither did trying to spread the word on Facebook. This morning I woke with the idea of finding out which are the biggest graphic design & illustration magazines and contacting the features editor of those to let them know about our competition. This will involve extending the deadline to the end of March but that’s ok.
2. Getting advice from the council. I’m actually a teeny tiny bit pissed off about this, as I’ve contacted Donna Close, Arts & Cultural Projects Management (who is listed on the website several times by phone and email and nada!). You can’t get through on the phone – it’s all answerphones and in the last email I also copied Lucy Jeffries who is listed on the Brighton & Hove government website as the Arts Development Officer and you would think one of those would have got back to me, if only to tell me who I really need to talk to! I’m going to try one more time then I’m going to call the council now and go up one level and ask who those two report to, if they are still there indeed, and talk to them.
3. Venues – I have remembered that I have a real resistance to just ringing people up cold but and this will need to be done to make initial contact with venue bookings managers. I have a volunteer who would be great for this, but he had a big “Help The Heroes” gig last weekend and he will be going in for heart surgery in May so I’ve just got to push through this reluctance of mine!
4. Headline Acts – Phil from the Brunswick has told me that I really will need to get one, if not two headline acts for the Brighton Jazz Festival to really put it on the map and get everyone to take me seriously. I spoke to Heather’s friend Ben Castle via Twitter just to see how it all works and he says it’s too far ahead for him to commit. Hmmmm. I have two choices here, pay someone in the usual way which will involve sponsorship (and I have some leads for that) or find someone who will do it for the PR and so perhaps I just need to call some music PR companies and talk to them. Perhaps I’ll start with Serious Music who organise the London Jazz Festival and who have just received copies of Heather’s “At Last” to hopefully open the door.
There you go, an action plan to get some momentum rolling again! I’ll let you know how I get on.
photo credit: wakalani via photopin cc