Abstract
The internship started mid- January and lasted until the end of May. We worked as an independent team for the Bluegrass Band. The primary objective of this internship was to provide the band with three dates for them to perform in California, especially in Los Angeles and San Diego. Indeed the Philadelphia Philharmonic Orchestra has set up some performances in these places and as some of the members of the Bluegrass Band are members of the Philadelphia Philharmonic Orchestra, it was an opportunity for them to perform in the same places. This work led us to approach bars, casinos, and other places where you can perform a concert, and to communicate for the band about their performance and what they can offer. This marketing plan explains our work and describes the results we got and in another part we have worked on the band and tried to develop their position with their strengths and weaknesses.
Extract
[...] Then we were supposed to also discuss and set up ticket prices, to be in charge of the communication of the event which include: press release, creation of the flyers, creation of the design of the tickets, and so on. So on we started immediately the research for the places in San Diego and its area. To begin with we looked for the concert places in Downtown such as the Crosses, the House of Blues, the Hard Rock Café, the B Street Theater, the Cashba, the Dizzy's, le Claire de Lune. We've been sending mails, making phone calls, trying to get interviews and sending hard copy mails too but none of the above methods where successful. [...]
[...] And we have to say that it was very impressive. It was amazing and it give us the opportunity to realise that we deal with professionals. But we deal with a some problems setting up this tour. The main was that we didn't had real representative, Don, the team leader was still in Philadelphia, and the members here didn t have all the information or were sometimes telling us something different, so we get slowed down but the fact that the communication is always interrupted one way or another. [...]
[...] Or the fact that this industry is a monster, and that places don t even take the time to answer you or pay attention to you, especially when you are saying that you are a student: they don't take you seriously, and they consider that they don t want to loose their time. Also the fact of the words "blue grass" is in your band name. It closes you some doors because it is a very specific area of music and then they catalogue you because if they don t like this kind of music they don t go further; they are not listening to the CD. And also the salary that the members were expected Even thought they are great musicians, what they were expected was defiantly too high. [...]
[...] Now that they have already performed in different places and that they have already recorded some music they should take the opportunity to get some legal property. They should provide new product so they can have access to a much wider market than the one they are actually in. Taking for example the Christmas market that could get them out of their closed nut shell, by recording specified songs on the specific themes such as Mannheim Steamroller did. Threat: : As for the theats well the name of the band being a little old school may give a wrong image about them. [...]
[...] Suggestions The band should change its name. We did a brainstorming, and here are the names we thought of: NEW GRASS BLUE BAND WIND OFF THE PACIFISTS THE MERGERS OLD TIME BLUES PHILY ROLLS THE SENDERS BLUE LIGHT THE PREACHIES EDEN STAND WILD EDEN BLINDING GLASS DESILUSION EDEN TREE ENDLESS CALL ENDLESS SOUND BLIND HANDS THE ETERNAL SOUND URBAN SOUL/ SOUND They should emphise their communication by creating a My Space page for example, with description of the band, pictures, songs, places and dates when they perform etc . [...]
