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!1
A Message for You
First and foremost, congratulations on being selected as to be a part of the CD
Baby & Berklee Valencia European DIY Musician Conference! This will likely be
most rewarding and challenging project you’ll work on at Berklee. Being able to
work so closely with staff from both Berklee and CD Baby is going to provide
you with invaluable insight and real-world experience that will greatly benefit
you during and after your time here at Berklee.
We have created this guide for you to be able to reference throughout your work
as Project Manager, Talent Manager or Marketing Manager. Although you will
probably face your own set of unique challenges to overcome, we hope that this
guide will help you make the best decisions possible and serve as a general
reference that you will be able to learn from.
If at any point you feel like this guide isn’t providing enough information, please
feel free to contact us at jjgconnor@gmail.com, ariverarivero@berklee.edu or
spiedrahita@berklee.edu
!2
Project Summary
After hosting many successful DIY Musician Conferences in the United States, CD Baby was proud to announce the
first ever European DIY Musician Conference in 2018. CD Baby continued collaborating with the Berklee College of
Music’s Valencia campus in Spain and presented their second edition on April 5th ,6th and 7th 2019. The conference is
to be spearheaded by a team of students from the Global Entertainment and Music Business masters program,
completing the Culminating Experience requirement if selected and successful in their position.
There are dozens of music industry conferences, but most offer very little takeaway value to independent artists. The
DIY Musician Conference is the antidote to all of that. The programming, speaker selection and networking events are
geared towards independent musicians hoping to have their music reach a global scale. The conference is intended to
bring artists the information, tools, resources and people that could help them grow professionally and creatively.
Who GEMB students, Berklee Valencia Faculty, CD Baby Marketing Department
What Music business conference, which includes keynotes, workshops, networking and performance
opportunities through night events
Where Berklee Valencia Campus and Palau de les Artes - Reina Sofia (Aula Magistral)
When Typically first week of April, three day event as a suggestion
Project Objectives
The DIY Musician Conference originated years ago in the United States with the aim of helping DIY musicians to
develop their careers. Last year, CD Baby decided to bring the conference to Valencia, Spain with the help of Berklee
Valencia. The second year the conference was held in April and has proven to be quite successful for all parties involved.
Berklee offered three positions for the conference which included Project Manager, Talent & Partnerships Manager and
Marketing & Communications Manager. These three roles have different responsibilities but there were three main
objectives the team shares.
• Program Content & Organization The first thing that should be determined is what ticketing platform will be used
and the price points for each tier. Then, determine the on-sale timeline to be approved by CD Baby so coordination
can start happening between both teams. By creating this timeline, the overall project schedule begins to come
together when you consider when dates, speakers and special events should be announced in accordance to price
increases or discount codes being released.
• Networking/Artist Showcasing It’s important that while communicating ticket sale strategies that you keep in
mind that attendees wants to see what they’re buying first so do everything in your power to answer the question
“Why should I go?”. Most attendees travel to DIY, so it’s important to make them feel confident in their decision to
purchase their pass and invest their time into the conference. The best way to do this is by posting and e-mailing
about speakers as they’re confirmed, upload photos and videos from last year’s folder, and sharing relatable articles
or clips about independent musicians from CD Baby’s website or similar outlets.
• Ticket and Event Promotion Once you reach your goal, you’ll have to handle any refund requests so please
determine what circumstances refunds could be processes and how. This means setting rules like, if there’s an
emergency or their flight got cancelled, would this be a valid reason to refund them? Can friends of attendees come
to the after parties or would they need to purchase a separate ticket? Are we selling at the door? Find answers to any
questions you anticipate and you’ll be ahead of the process.
Resources
Lead Conference Organizer
Alex Perrin
aperrin1@berklee.edu
Head of Operations
Salva Roposo
sraposo@berklee.edu
Student Affairs
Clara Barbera
cbarbera@berklee.edu
Senior Coordinator, ICC
Maxwell Wright
mwright3@berklee.edu
Marketing & Communications
Bud Lake
blake@berklee.edu
Back of House Engineer
Lucas Martín
lbmartin@berklee.edu
Head of Production
John Gibbe
jgibbe@berklee.edu
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Project Manager Role
Written by James Connor
As the Project Manager, you will be responsible for several main tasks relating to the
logistics of the event. This will include speaker selection and scheduling, day of show
logistics, speaker travel and accommodations, developing the event schedule, and
volunteer management.
This event takes an extreme amount of coordination between you, your team
members, and your faculty advisor. I highly recommend getting together with your
team members as soon as possible after the team is formed to figure out what each
other’s strengths and weaknesses are. The more aware of your team members abilities,
the easier it will be to delegate tasks and work together effectively.
Throughout the year your roles may change slightly depending on people’s strengths
and weaknesses, so again, be sure to have this at the forefront of your mind in order to
work as efficiently as possible. With the amount of work that this project requires, it’s
essential that you can trust your teammates to complete their tasks independently.
!6
Task 1: Developing a List of Potential Speakers
Just like the artists at any good music festival, the speakers at a conference are the backbone of
the entire event. They are the main reason that people are traveling from across the world to
attend this conference, so as the Project Manager it is imperative that you curate the highest
quality lineup of speakers possible.
The first thing you’ll have to do is create a list of 20-30 non-Berklee speakers from different
areas of the music industry that you believe can provide insight specifically to a DIY musician.
(It’s important to always keep this in mind throughout the speaker selection process as not
everyone has information that would be relevant to this specific audience.) The reason you need
to start with so many is because it is likely that many will not be able to attend for a variety of
different reasons.
I recommend you set a meeting with your contacts at CD Baby so you can fine-tune this list and
rank all of the speakers by the projected value they can offer to the conference, relevance to the
DIY musician, and geographic logistics/costs. These are the main things you have to consider
when developing this list of speakers. Roughly half of the speakers at the conference will be
provided by CD Baby, so you have to ensure that the speakers that you are brining are going to
be covering different topics than their speakers. This will ensure a good variety of topics for
attendees to choose from.
!7
Task 2: Speaker Outreach
Once the list is finalized, you should immediately start reaching out to these
potential speakers and gauging interest and availability. This process can
take a while, but I suggest that you create a template email that you can
then tweak for each new prospect. This will save you a lot of time as you
will be sending dozens of these emails. Just remember to give each email a
personal touch.
Throughout the initial reach out process, always keep in mind the event’s
budget, specifically for international speakers. You will be able to bring one
Berklee staff member from Boston via a Berklee grant. We were able to
bring three speakers from the United States in total, not including CD Baby
staff.
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Task 3: Interviewing Potential Speakers
As you begin to hear back from the potential speakers, the next step is to schedule interviews
with each of them. Alex (faculty lead) and I conducted each interview together. Let the
candidates know ahead of time to come prepared with some potential ideas for their keynote
and/or session. This will help you determine who fits where within the conference schedule.
For higher profile candidates, it will likely be clear after one interview whether or not they
should be speaking at the event, and you can offer them the position immediately. For all other
speakers, I would recommend doing a few rounds of interviewing. This will allow you to bring
forward the best candidate from each round, leaving you with the highest quality speakers for
the conference.
Each week you will have a team video call with CD Baby. During this call make sure you are
keeping them up to date with speaker developments from the previous week. Although you
have the freedom to bring your own guests, it is important that CD Baby is in the loop
throughout the entire process.
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Developing the Schedule
Who Fits Where?
Once the speakers are locked in, you need to start developing the two-day schedule. The first day of the conference has
been at Aula Magistral the past two years and I highly recommend booking it again for next year. The schedule for day
one is linear as their only one stage, so it is easy enough to figure out. The main thing to consider is which speakers
presentations will translate well into a keynote structure (day one), and which ones will work better as a breakout
session (day two). Also, do your best to make sure there is a balance between speakers provided by Berklee and ones
provided by CD Baby.
Developing the schedule for day two is a bit more tricky and requires a strong attention to detail. We utilized seven
rooms across Berklee’s campus for breakout sessions as the second day is based around smaller groups and more
specific topics. The best way to organize this schedule is to develop an excel sheet where you can visualize the schedules
for each room throughout the day. Work closely with CD Baby and your lead faculty advisor throughout this process.
As always, keep the attendees in the forefront of your mind as you develop the schedule.
!10
Day of Show Responsibilities
Most Important: Compiling Assets
On the first day, each speaker will be delivering a keynote
presentation that will more than likely involve a visual presentation.
It will be your responsibility to acquire all of the presentations ahead
of time. A good idea to knock out two things at once would be to
include a note on each speaker’s itinerary asking them to send over
their slides. This way you can provide them with their itineraries
and collect all the slides at the same time. I recommend doing this at
least two weeks ahead of the conference as it can take some time to
get everyone’s back, and you don’t want to be scrambling at the last
minute for such an important asset. Let them know ahead of time to
send their decks in the same format to save yourself the headache of
formatting issues.
Once you have everyone’s presentations and have the schedule set,
you should compile them all into one deck so that you can use one
computer for the whole day. It will be more aesthetically pleasing
and less work for you in the long run.
Do what you can to avoid this, but plan for there to be issues during
some speakers presentation. Something will always go wrong, so
just be hyperaware of how the slides are looking. There were a few
times where I had to get up on stage and fix something or assist one
of the speakers during a presentation. Be on your toes!
!11
Day of Show Responsibilities Cont.
As the Project Manager, you will have a lot of responsibilities during the conference.
You will be responsible for the following things:
1. Master of Ceremonies (Introducing all of the speakers
on stage and regrouping with the audience after breaks)
2.Day 1 Check-In (Greeting early bird guests as they
enter Berklee’s campus and get their conference badges)
3. Set up/tear down (Setting up Aula Magistral for Day 1
and Berklee for Day 2 with conference signage and
branding, clearly marked signed for hard to find rooms)
4. Volunteers/Helpers (Managing the fellows/faculty
volunteering, ensuring everyone has what they need to
do their job correctly)
5. Time Keeping/Conference Flow (Giving the proper
signals to speakers to ensure they are staying within
their allotted time slot)
6. Speaker Liaison (You will be all of the speakers point
of contact; you will have to ensure that all of their needs
are being met, and that each of them are on time for
their presentation)
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New Forms of Monetization
for Artists Panel
Emma McGann
Cherie Hu
Mr. Bill
!13
Talent & Partnership Manager Role
Written by Annelise Rivera Rivero
The Talent & Partnership Manager has to coordinate the content of the conference
with CD Baby and produce the concerts which take place during the conference. It
is recommended to be able to speak Spanish (as this position involves some
communication with venues in Valencia).
For this role, you’ll be working closely with the Project Manager to help solidify the
themes and concepts for the programming. If the Project Manager organizes the
day-time event, the Talent & Partnership Manager organizes the night-time events
and networking opportunities.
Being patient and reliable is necessary in this position, since you will be speaking to
attendees or students who want or will be selected to perform at the after events.
This means taking time to listen to music submissions, inform selected artists about
soundcheck and technical requirements, gently rejecting artists who didn’t make
the cut, and maintaining a firm schedule for the sake of time and comfort.
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Task 1:Produce Concerts and Networking Events
The idea to create three official events came from our conversations with the CD Baby team where they expressed they wanted an
event on check-in day for the people who were already in Valencia for early registration and to begin the networking as soon as
possible. My focus for the first event was to find a place that would fit around 80 people, which is the amount of people we were
expecting would show up for check-in on the first day. We also wanted a places that were either walking distance to campus and
would allow us to purchase drink tickets at a discounted rate so that we could accommodate everyone. For the second and third event,
my focus was mostly on space and on production capability. Since we were expecting more people on the second and third day and we
were doing showcases during both of these activities.
•
Distance The venue selection began with Google searching venues near school and in the heart of Valencia. The priority was that all
these locations had to be easily accessible and in nicer neighborhoods since the events were taking place at night. Keep in mind public
transportation and cost when determining locations as well.
•
Stage/Production Capabilities All the venues needed to be able to have their own in-house production equipment so that we could
save on that cost. We needed to guarantee artists that they would have enough space on stage and be able to build their entire
technical set up. This also meant communicating with venue owners in the days leading up to resolve any last minute issues and
testing for sound and lighting.
•
Cost Our goal was to keep all three events under 1000 euros, based on last year’s budget. None of the venues used last year were used
this year and one of the reasons was the increased cost. Contrapunto increased their fee exponentially even though we had worked
with them in the past leading us to find another venue for a third of the cost that worked. Negotiating is a skill you’ll need
for this role, eventually reaching a point where both DIY and venues can start developing a long-term relationship.
•
Availability I began researching venues before Christmas break and began approaching venues to see if they had availability in
January. I’d definitely start approaching venues earlier because some of the places were already booked by the time I began doing so.
Regardless, finding other venues wasn’t a huge ordeal and they were all selected and confirmed well before the conference began. I
approached venues with the idea that we would sign agreements or contracts. As I went further into our talks and negotiation, I
realized that they don’t have a structure where agreements or contracts are needed. I’d suggesting creating a template for this purpose
for next year. This year, we did not work with agreements or contracts with the venues. I had everything in writing through emails
and messages and if anything was missing, I’d use those to obtain whatever I had negotiated.
•
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Task 2: Find DIY Artists
The European DIY Musicians Conference specializes in helping independent artists further their career, so booking them
for the showcases was always a priority. The Talent & Partnerships Manager acts as a talent buyer for the night events,
and plays an important role in making attendees feel valued and understood. The goal is to support musicians who are
ready for the next step and give an opportunity to perform in front of a likeminded crowd.
•
Music Curation Love listening to new music? You’re in the right position! You’ll be in charge of curating the musical
experience for all the night events, asking both Berklee students and attendees to submit their work for consideration.
This means creating submission forms, spreadsheets to input their information, making the final selections and
communicating the decision to everyone. Remember, that not every DIY Musician will be able to play so remain polite
but stern, you have an ear for this so trust it.
•
Technical Riders It’s not necessary for you to know how to create a rider. This year I sent the artists an online service where
they could create their riders: musicotec.com. Once you have all the riders together, make sure to send these to the venues
several weeks before the event so that they can tell you if they don’t have some of the requested equipment. Also, and very
important, I warned artists many times that we would NOT provide any instruments, only basic production items. A thing that
was very helpful was including them all in an email where they discussed if they wanted to share equipment and only have to
bring one of each item. This ended working incredibly well and created a deeper relationship between the participants. Also
remember to allow plenty of time for sound check and schedule everything meticulously and keep the sound check going. Most
times artists will want to play all their songs on a sound check but it’s unnecessary. Sound check FOR ALL THE ARTISTS was
vital because any issue that occurred was able to be solved before the show even began.
•
Orders Occasionally, once you’ve completed your main task, you’ll possibly be asked to get other quotes for things like
promotional material for CD Baby, food and beverages for the networking events or requesting musical equipment from
Berklee. These are some of the things I handled this year that weren’t on my list of tasks but that were able to be done with no
problem because everything else was running well.
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Artist Selection Process
I focused on having different types of music for the event. I
selected several singer-songwriter performers, R&B, Rap,
Rock and Pop artists.
The artists for the showcases held on the Saturday and
Sunday of the event were selected from a google form that
was edited by me from the previous year’s form. This form
was sent to every person who purchased a ticket for the
conference. I received 80 responses to this form, went one by
one listening to each person’s music and selecting the artists
by genre, quality of music, type of music and general vibe and
feel. I had quite a hard time selecting the artists because of
how many good ones I had to choose from and unfortunately,
left out a couple of artists I would have liked to be in the
showcase. On the other hand, there were some artists that
submitted their work that were not good at all in my opinion.
The process was quite simple, sit down everyday and examine
the new submissions and pick the ones I liked, I added them
to a google spreadsheet which changed quite often during this
process. I ended up curating showcases that included singersongwriters, folk music, pop music, R&B, Rap and music in
Spanish.
I selected 16 performers for Saturday and 7 for Sunday night.
!17
Task 3:Partnerships & Sponsorships
•
Disrupción Records The student run Disrupción Records
label signed several artists in 2019 as it started back up with
the new school year. The benefit of their model is that many
of these artists are Berklee Students. Nicole Otero,
Disrupción Records Marketing Coordinator, contacted me
to see if we could feature two of their artists during the
showcases. We were able to do this year was feature two
Disrupción Records artists as “headliners” for the Open Mic
or closing event. We gave them 20 minute slots because of
the DIY conference mission and Berklee’s involvement in
the conference. For Saturday, we had Autumn Jones from
New Jersey as the headliner and for Sunday we had
Retrovyzor from Venezuela as the headliner.
•
DJ Para Todos This on campus initiative seeks to improve
the equity and diversity in the global DJ scene and foster a
healthy, creative culture through DJ and music education,
theory, workshops, shows, and other experiences. Jon
Sabillon, GEMB student who was awarded a diversity grant
for the project, connected DIY to a female Berklee student
who learned how to DJ through the initiative. We were able
to have two DJs for stage changeovers, intermissions and
during the first networking event free of charge.
!18
Day of Show Responsibilities
The Talent & Partnership Manager will be responsible for the following things:
1. Customer Service/Check In For the first day I didn't work at
check-in due to sound check duties at the first venue. For
Saturday and Sunday, I was there first thing in the morning
helping out during attendee registration and in case anybody
lost their badges or any other situation, such as helping with
the coffee machines or answering questions about the
program
2. Soundcheck For all three days, sound check was scheduled in
order to make sure everything was working properly and
everyone knew where they were going. Sound check was
scheduled for the two hours before each show for all three
days. I'd suggest three hours for sound check on showcase
days because of the amount of change overs which affects
time and the possibility of artists arriving late.
3. Showtime During concerts, I made sure everyone was in the
green room on time, and also gathered artists and got them
close to the stage when their turn was coming up. I
communicated with the venue staff and made sure everything
was running smoothly. I also had the task of handing out the
drink tickets and making sure the staff had their food. Enjoy
the fruit of your labor and see how people enjoy the show!
!19
Talent & Partnerships GANTT
!20
Marketing Manager Role
Written by Stephanie Piedrahita
As the Marketing and Communications Manager, you will be responsible for the promotion of
the CD Baby, Berklee and DIY brand, ticket sale and distribution, and communication between
the organizers and attendees. Your responsibilities can range from social media postings, e-mail
blasts, discount code creation, graphic design, attendee registration…basically, the person who
holds this position must be able to juggle many tasks before and during the event, be “the voice”
of the conference before it begins, and be a professional trouble shooter.
Working with CD Baby will give you a lot of support because you can rely on their reach and
name to grab people’s attention, but it is your work that will seal the deal for most.
Communication is key within your team and for attendees, so be sure to ask for help when you
need it, as you’ll be the most active throughout the year, but set firm deadlines to help organize
workflow and have efficient time management.
Being a self-starter is essential here, the sooner you can determine what your hard deliverables
are (ticket sale goal, announcement schedule, content creation) and gather them, the easier your
job will be as the months roll by. This is a creative role, so have fun thinking of ideas that truly
show the value of what this conference has to offer to our speakers and attendees.
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Task 1:Ticket Sales
As the Marketing and Communications Manager, you are responsible for one of the most essential tasks of the
conference which is to sell the experience to people who would benefit from attending. The ultimate goal is to
improve every year in all aspects, but a bigger budget always helps.
• Platform The first thing that should be determined is what ticketing platform will be used and the price
points for each tier. Then, determine the on-sale timeline to be approved by CD Baby so coordination can
start happening between both teams. By creating this timeline, the overall project schedule begins to come
together when you consider when dates, speakers and special events should be announced in accordance to
price increases or discount codes being released.
• Pitching It’s important that while communicating ticket sale strategies that you keep in mind that attendees
wants to see what they’re buying first so do everything in your power to answer the question “Why should I
go?”. Most attendees travel to DIY, so it’s important to make them feel confident in their decision to purchase
their pass and invest their time into the conference. The best way to do this is by posting and e-mailing about
speakers as they’re confirmed, upload photos and videos from last year’s folder, and sharing relatable articles
or clips about independent musicians from CD Baby’s website or similar outlets.
• Refunds and Ticket Requests Once you reach your goal, you’ll have to handle any refund requests so please
determine what circumstances refunds could be processes and how. This means setting rules like, if there’s an
emergency or their flight got cancelled, would this be a valid reason to refund them? Can friends of attendees
come to the after parties or would they need to purchase a separate ticket? Are we selling at the door? Find
answers to any questions you anticipate and you’ll be ahead of the process.
!22
Task 2: Digital Communication
You will be managing the Facebook, Instagram, Twitter pages and the official DIY e-mail inbox, please refer to the login
and passwords document for access or ask your CE advisor.
• Email This will be your most direct, informative method of communication between you and the audience. You
will have to import the email addresses of last year attendees ad continue the growth of our newsletter. Then, once
the essential information is confirmed, begin communicating with your potential attendees about dates, early bird
prices, surveys about programming, speakers or anything you think would help draw in musicians or music
professionals.
• Social Media While things are being decided or confirmed, it’s good to keep social media channels active so
attendees become excited to attend, and possibly encourage their friends to come as well. Find appealing videos and
photos left by the previous year’s students or content produced by CD Baby to help tell the story of what we’re
building. If you’re able to, invest some money from ticket sales and publish one or two ads through Facebook Ads
Manager or boost an Instagram post through the Promotions tab that drives traffic to your ticketing website or likes
to your page. Sit down with Berklee Valencia for assistance when it comes to navigating the ad creation platform
and audience targeting.
• Website/Graphic Design Speak to CD Baby about when you’ll be receiving the new main artwork for the
conference and when the website will be updated. Their team is responsible for those two tasks unless you are a
graphic designer, which is helpful when turning around content quickly. If you do not have graphic design
experience, just let your advisor and CD Baby know so they can coordinate with their in-house departments. We
used Trello to communicate at first but it’s best to create your own personal list of what you need created, typed or
updated and send emails to CD Baby with direct requests.
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Task 3: Promotional Materials
You’ll be handling promotional material distribution, this could be physical items like pamphlets, signs, programs
and badges or ensuring that all information posted online is up to date.
• Signage and Merchandise The conference is great opportunity for Berklee Valencia and CD Baby to display
their brand and services that could help aspiring artists who are attending. Both parties have signage and
merchandise they’d like to show attendees and may potentially ask you to make a new order in Valencia for
delivery. Ask early for quotes once you have the newest artwork and have spoken about which items you’d like
to compare expenses, products and presentation options. Think about what kinds of large format signs need to
be printed, how you will distribute the program and what items should be given out (notebooks, earplugs and
pens were the most popular items).
• Program The major selling point of the conference are the workshops, speakers and networking opportunities.
Consult with your team about what topics should be covered (we polled Berklee Valencia students) and
identify potential speakers from the first week. The Project Manager will confirm speakers and be responsible
to send you their photo, session title and biography which you will then use to update the final program
document and website and to announce on digital channels. Changes will happen to make sure you have your
documents organized to save time, Google Suite will be the best place for your shared workspace.
• Badges You will be in charge of credentials once ticket sales are coming to a close. I highly recommend to have
CD Baby approve the design and send to print early, we chose to save a good amount of money by printing and
cutting it out ourselves but wasted a lot of time by not making it a priority. Also, change Band/Company to Job
Title and the last section to City/Country.
!24
Ticketing & Credential
Examples
Speaker Badge
Attendee Badge
Staff Badge
Digital Ticket
Day of Show Responsibilities
The Marketing and Communications Manager will be responsible for the following
things:
1. Information Table Be available to answer general
questions about the program, ticketing and
directions throughout the event
2. Check-In Confirming attendance of arriving
attendees by checking order receipts or guest list and
distribute the appropriate badge
3. Official Communications Be on call to send out
reminder emails or detailing changes to the program
or room locations
4. Content Creation Manage photographer and
videographers while documenting the conference for
material to be posted during and after the event
5. Customer Service Listen to attendee concerns and
find quick solutions to simple problems that would
enhance their experience
6. Collect Feedback Gather hard data about program
quality, attendee information/satisfaction and collect
finding for next year’s team
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Day of Show Responsibilities
Most Important: Social Media and Email Communication
It’ll be your job to work with Berklee Valencia’s Marketing
department about social media strategies across all
platforms for the duration of the event. Being able to cover
every session will be impossible, so map out which
workshops and speeches you feel need to be covered the
most and create a personal schedule for you to pop in and
out of rooms. You will also be the human FAQ section so
you will need to be able to send out email blasts reminding
people of important information like check-in procedure
and how to arrive to specific locations or communicate
changes of rooms or sessions in a timely manner.
You will work closely with Berklee’s in-house
photographer every day so consult with him about what
images you’d specifically like him to capture. Try to have
your CE advisor communicate hard-deadlines to them so
you can fresh content to post. I would advise to find Video
Production students who might want to film the conference
as part of their final projects for the course, they could
probably assist you with social media posting as well.
!27
Marketing & Communications GANTT
GANTT Chart generated at https://www.teamgantt.com/ on June 15th 2019
!28
Key Risks and Learnings
1. Student Team Selection - The team that was selected this year was very specialized. We believe this was one of the main reasons we had so few
problems. Each of us trusted each other to deliver on their work, and it allowed us to start . The highest priority for the Conference Organizers next year
is to identify early on who can do what faster and the preferred flow of communication. Finding students with the specific skills needed and the ability
to juggle the position and their schoolwork is extremely important. Compared to last year, we worked better as a team and had few to no
disagreements.
2. Conference Length - We think that this conference can easily go for three days. There was strong demand from attendees for more workshops, and
one main complaint was the inability to catch as many workshops as they want. If there was more space between the workshops over two days,
attendees could get more value out of the conference without feeling rushed to get to their next session.
3. Sponsorships - We did not have any sponsors this year as the revenue from the ticket sales covered enough of what we needed. However, if we could
bring in some sponsorship money, we could bring in more high profile guests from different parts of the globe. This could allow the conference to
potentially charge even more for tickets, outweighing the higher costs.
4. Volunteers & CD Baby Involvement - For the 2018 DIY Conference, the team was allowed to use volunteers to help throughout the conference. This
year, we were not allowed to use volunteers for liability reasons. Instead we had to use a small team of fellows and graduate assistants that had to be
compensated monetarily. Because of the cost, we had to enlist less help than would be ideal. Also, the CD Baby team are busy so make sure to follow up
regularly or some items might be left for last-minute. The more help you can get the smoother the conference will go!
!29
Outcome: Sold Out Event!
Ticket Tier
Ticket Price
Loyalty Early Bird
39,00 €
Early Bird
49,00 €
General Admission
59,00 €
Berklee Student Discount
10,00 €
Berklee Summit Make Up
10,00 €
Berklee Student Discount 2
20,00 €
Door Sales Walk Up
69,00 €
Total Tickets Sold
Tix Sold
19/ 30
121/ 160
57/ 136
30/ 30
2/ 2
26/26
6/10
261/394
Total Revenue
741,00 €
5929,00 €
3363,00 €
300,00 €
20,00€
520,00 €
414,00 €
11287,00 €
Early Bird Gets The Worm
Early Bird tickets sold the most out of all ticketing tiers, which means that the initial start of sales is when you need to
push the tickets the most. At this point in time, the program is not announced so coordinate to switch the banners,
profile photos, website assets and email signature to the newer version at the same time as CD Baby’s first official blast
to the 2019 attendees.
General Admission tickets sold at a slower pace but were still purchased regardless of the price increase from last year.
We extended the Early Bird sale by a few days but General Admission tickets should be advertised before they go live to
further incentivize people to secure their spot or risk spending more money. This way, there could be higher retained
earnings if the online pushes were better coordinated between both teams.
!30
Outcome: Data Collection
When we first met, we had asked for last year’s
numbers but the previous team had failed on putting
that information together before graduation. So, we
made sure to include the following charts and essential
information.
Top Countries: Spain, UK, US, Germany and Austria
Event Reach (Organic): 3,300 Facebook Users
Top Post Impressions: 2,400 Impressions
Page Likes: 424 (70 New Page Likes)
Demographics: Men & Women, Ages 25-34
!31
Outcome: Speaker Satisfaction
26 Total Speakers
Day 1
6 Keynote Presentations
1 panel
Day 2
17 sessions in English
6 sessions in Spanish
5 office hours sessions
__________________
28 total sessions day 2
35 total opportunities for attendees to
learn from
music industry professionals from
around the world
!32
Outcome: Successful Showcases
FRIDAY NIGHT – GASTRO 48 CLUB
All three events were well attended as we were
hoping. The first event was more successful than
what we had anticipated and it was a great
opportunity for people to meet and begin their
networking. We received praise for the Saturday
event, from venue selection to concert curation,
we heard many a great opinion. A few things
didn't go as planned and one of the artists wasn't
quite as happy as we wanted them to be but it
was all talked over. The Sunday event was highly
attended, something we weren't expecting but
were hoping for. The concert curation received
praise as well and the artists left feeling happy
and accomplished. We thought it would be risky
to make the event three hours after the conference
was over but it went incredibly well regardless.
The events were an added experience for the
attendees that not only helped them network
further among them, but allowed them to
discover Valencia as well as music they hadn't
heard before.
COST No venue cost. I was able to negotiate 80 drink
tickets for the attendees we were expecting + 13 euro
menu for 13 people (down from 16 euros) which
included tapas and two drink tickets for each.
Total Cost: 330 euros
SATURDAY NIGHT – RADIO CITY
COST Production and venue rental costs had to be
covered by us for 300 euros and 20 drink tickets were
60 euros. Water and snacks for artists were covered
by the venue so we were able to avoid that expense.
Total Cost: 360 euros
SUNDAY NIGHT – MATISSE CLUB
COST No venue cost. I was able to negotiate 60 drink
tickets at 1.50 euros each because we expected
approximately 100 people at the venue which would
generate money for them on a slow night/a night
they don’t usually open.
Total Cost: 60 euros
!33
Late Night Conference
Showcases
Outcome: Happy Attendees
You’ll be handling promotional material distribution, this
could be physical items like pamphlets, signs, programs and
badges or ensuring that all information posted online is up
to date.
• Instant Feedback Each of us were so overwhelmed
with the amount of positive feedback we would receive
from attendees, speakers and Berklee staff. The overall
comment was that we had done a great job and that
there was little complaints made throughout the event.
The most enjoyed part were the after event where
networking opportunities came up, surrounded by the
one thing that tied us together: music!
• Survey We did send out a survey in the following
weeks but feedback should actually be collected on a
daily basis to have better insights for the next day
instead of for just next year’s team. The survey was
answered by only 14 attendees but we still received a
positive response overall with specific comments that
should be considered for the following year like more
refreshments, time between sessions and an extra day.
Only by collecting feedback will you learn how to
improve!
• High Return Rate We noticed during ticket sales that
the Loyalty Early Birds almost sold out, meaning that
people are willing to some back, a great sign for
business conferences. We believe that the pre-promotion
before ticket sales has a bit more priority this coming
year so you could reach your goal quicker.
!35
Outcome:
Continued Relations
• Facebook Group Some attendees had taken the
initiative to create a Facebook group where they
could stay in contact with one another, share
what they’ve worked on after the conference or
support projects that are posted. Berklee nor CD
Baby had no direct access to it, so I contacted
the admin of the group who added myself and
my advisor. Alexandre Perrin, our advisor, now
has admin permissions so he’ll be able to add
the next Marketing Manager in there, which
would be a fantastic tool to communicate with
over 300 previous attendees. If I had access
earlier, it would’ve greatly impacted early
promotional strategies.
• Online Testimonials We did have testimonials
posted onto our website but I personally found
the posts made by the attendees themselves on
Facebook. They were organic, honest, and
positive reviews which definitely helped make
the conference’s brand more visible to our
target audience. I would recommend following
up with attendees and speakers and ask if they
could be quoted officially on the 2020 website
!36
Thank you!
This document was made to give you insight on how the European DIY Musician
Conference can be executed successfully and our own reflections on what can be
done better in comparison to what last year’s team had said. You may have a
similar experience or a completely different one than we had, especially if
responsibilities get moved around. Still, this should cover the majority of the
majors tasks, risks and potential outcomes you should examine.
We had an incredible time learning from CD Baby and Berklee Valencia, use this
opportunity to discover new ways of working with others and do you best.
Everything will be worth it once you see how happy attendees, staff and speakers
are.
Please feel free to contact us at jjgconnor@gmail.com, ariverarivero@berklee.edu
or spiedrahita@berklee.edu if you need any advice or suggestions we weren’t
able to cover in this document.
!37
A Message for You
First and foremost, congratulations on being selected as to be a part of the CD
Baby & Berklee Valencia European DIY Musician Conference! This will likely be
most rewarding and challenging project you’ll work on at Berklee. Being able to
work so closely with staff from both Berklee and CD Baby is going to provide
you with invaluable insight and real-world experience that will greatly benefit
you during and after your time here at Berklee.
We have created this guide for you to be able to reference throughout your work
as Project Manager, Talent Manager or Marketing Manager. Although you will
probably face your own set of unique challenges to overcome, we hope that this
guide will help you make the best decisions possible and serve as a general
reference that you will be able to learn from.
If at any point you feel like this guide isn’t providing enough information, please
feel free to contact us at jjgconnor@gmail.com, ariverarivero@berklee.edu or
spiedrahita@berklee.edu
!2
Project Summary
After hosting many successful DIY Musician Conferences in the United States, CD Baby was proud to announce the
first ever European DIY Musician Conference in 2018. CD Baby continued collaborating with the Berklee College of
Music’s Valencia campus in Spain and presented their second edition on April 5th ,6th and 7th 2019. The conference is
to be spearheaded by a team of students from the Global Entertainment and Music Business masters program,
completing the Culminating Experience requirement if selected and successful in their position.
There are dozens of music industry conferences, but most offer very little takeaway value to independent artists. The
DIY Musician Conference is the antidote to all of that. The programming, speaker selection and networking events are
geared towards independent musicians hoping to have their music reach a global scale. The conference is intended to
bring artists the information, tools, resources and people that could help them grow professionally and creatively.
Who GEMB students, Berklee Valencia Faculty, CD Baby Marketing Department
What Music business conference, which includes keynotes, workshops, networking and performance
opportunities through night events
Where Berklee Valencia Campus and Palau de les Artes - Reina Sofia (Aula Magistral)
When Typically first week of April, three day event as a suggestion
Project Objectives
The DIY Musician Conference originated years ago in the United States with the aim of helping DIY musicians to
develop their careers. Last year, CD Baby decided to bring the conference to Valencia, Spain with the help of Berklee
Valencia. The second year the conference was held in April and has proven to be quite successful for all parties involved.
Berklee offered three positions for the conference which included Project Manager, Talent & Partnerships Manager and
Marketing & Communications Manager. These three roles have different responsibilities but there were three main
objectives the team shares.
• Program Content & Organization The first thing that should be determined is what ticketing platform will be used
and the price points for each tier. Then, determine the on-sale timeline to be approved by CD Baby so coordination
can start happening between both teams. By creating this timeline, the overall project schedule begins to come
together when you consider when dates, speakers and special events should be announced in accordance to price
increases or discount codes being released.
• Networking/Artist Showcasing It’s important that while communicating ticket sale strategies that you keep in
mind that attendees wants to see what they’re buying first so do everything in your power to answer the question
“Why should I go?”. Most attendees travel to DIY, so it’s important to make them feel confident in their decision to
purchase their pass and invest their time into the conference. The best way to do this is by posting and e-mailing
about speakers as they’re confirmed, upload photos and videos from last year’s folder, and sharing relatable articles
or clips about independent musicians from CD Baby’s website or similar outlets.
• Ticket and Event Promotion Once you reach your goal, you’ll have to handle any refund requests so please
determine what circumstances refunds could be processes and how. This means setting rules like, if there’s an
emergency or their flight got cancelled, would this be a valid reason to refund them? Can friends of attendees come
to the after parties or would they need to purchase a separate ticket? Are we selling at the door? Find answers to any
questions you anticipate and you’ll be ahead of the process.
Resources
Lead Conference Organizer
Alex Perrin
aperrin1@berklee.edu
Head of Operations
Salva Roposo
sraposo@berklee.edu
Student Affairs
Clara Barbera
cbarbera@berklee.edu
Senior Coordinator, ICC
Maxwell Wright
mwright3@berklee.edu
Marketing & Communications
Bud Lake
blake@berklee.edu
Back of House Engineer
Lucas Martín
lbmartin@berklee.edu
Head of Production
John Gibbe
jgibbe@berklee.edu
!5
Project Manager Role
Written by James Connor
As the Project Manager, you will be responsible for several main tasks relating to the
logistics of the event. This will include speaker selection and scheduling, day of show
logistics, speaker travel and accommodations, developing the event schedule, and
volunteer management.
This event takes an extreme amount of coordination between you, your team
members, and your faculty advisor. I highly recommend getting together with your
team members as soon as possible after the team is formed to figure out what each
other’s strengths and weaknesses are. The more aware of your team members abilities,
the easier it will be to delegate tasks and work together effectively.
Throughout the year your roles may change slightly depending on people’s strengths
and weaknesses, so again, be sure to have this at the forefront of your mind in order to
work as efficiently as possible. With the amount of work that this project requires, it’s
essential that you can trust your teammates to complete their tasks independently.
!6
Task 1: Developing a List of Potential Speakers
Just like the artists at any good music festival, the speakers at a conference are the backbone of
the entire event. They are the main reason that people are traveling from across the world to
attend this conference, so as the Project Manager it is imperative that you curate the highest
quality lineup of speakers possible.
The first thing you’ll have to do is create a list of 20-30 non-Berklee speakers from different
areas of the music industry that you believe can provide insight specifically to a DIY musician.
(It’s important to always keep this in mind throughout the speaker selection process as not
everyone has information that would be relevant to this specific audience.) The reason you need
to start with so many is because it is likely that many will not be able to attend for a variety of
different reasons.
I recommend you set a meeting with your contacts at CD Baby so you can fine-tune this list and
rank all of the speakers by the projected value they can offer to the conference, relevance to the
DIY musician, and geographic logistics/costs. These are the main things you have to consider
when developing this list of speakers. Roughly half of the speakers at the conference will be
provided by CD Baby, so you have to ensure that the speakers that you are brining are going to
be covering different topics than their speakers. This will ensure a good variety of topics for
attendees to choose from.
!7
Task 2: Speaker Outreach
Once the list is finalized, you should immediately start reaching out to these
potential speakers and gauging interest and availability. This process can
take a while, but I suggest that you create a template email that you can
then tweak for each new prospect. This will save you a lot of time as you
will be sending dozens of these emails. Just remember to give each email a
personal touch.
Throughout the initial reach out process, always keep in mind the event’s
budget, specifically for international speakers. You will be able to bring one
Berklee staff member from Boston via a Berklee grant. We were able to
bring three speakers from the United States in total, not including CD Baby
staff.
!8
Task 3: Interviewing Potential Speakers
As you begin to hear back from the potential speakers, the next step is to schedule interviews
with each of them. Alex (faculty lead) and I conducted each interview together. Let the
candidates know ahead of time to come prepared with some potential ideas for their keynote
and/or session. This will help you determine who fits where within the conference schedule.
For higher profile candidates, it will likely be clear after one interview whether or not they
should be speaking at the event, and you can offer them the position immediately. For all other
speakers, I would recommend doing a few rounds of interviewing. This will allow you to bring
forward the best candidate from each round, leaving you with the highest quality speakers for
the conference.
Each week you will have a team video call with CD Baby. During this call make sure you are
keeping them up to date with speaker developments from the previous week. Although you
have the freedom to bring your own guests, it is important that CD Baby is in the loop
throughout the entire process.
!9
Developing the Schedule
Who Fits Where?
Once the speakers are locked in, you need to start developing the two-day schedule. The first day of the conference has
been at Aula Magistral the past two years and I highly recommend booking it again for next year. The schedule for day
one is linear as their only one stage, so it is easy enough to figure out. The main thing to consider is which speakers
presentations will translate well into a keynote structure (day one), and which ones will work better as a breakout
session (day two). Also, do your best to make sure there is a balance between speakers provided by Berklee and ones
provided by CD Baby.
Developing the schedule for day two is a bit more tricky and requires a strong attention to detail. We utilized seven
rooms across Berklee’s campus for breakout sessions as the second day is based around smaller groups and more
specific topics. The best way to organize this schedule is to develop an excel sheet where you can visualize the schedules
for each room throughout the day. Work closely with CD Baby and your lead faculty advisor throughout this process.
As always, keep the attendees in the forefront of your mind as you develop the schedule.
!10
Day of Show Responsibilities
Most Important: Compiling Assets
On the first day, each speaker will be delivering a keynote
presentation that will more than likely involve a visual presentation.
It will be your responsibility to acquire all of the presentations ahead
of time. A good idea to knock out two things at once would be to
include a note on each speaker’s itinerary asking them to send over
their slides. This way you can provide them with their itineraries
and collect all the slides at the same time. I recommend doing this at
least two weeks ahead of the conference as it can take some time to
get everyone’s back, and you don’t want to be scrambling at the last
minute for such an important asset. Let them know ahead of time to
send their decks in the same format to save yourself the headache of
formatting issues.
Once you have everyone’s presentations and have the schedule set,
you should compile them all into one deck so that you can use one
computer for the whole day. It will be more aesthetically pleasing
and less work for you in the long run.
Do what you can to avoid this, but plan for there to be issues during
some speakers presentation. Something will always go wrong, so
just be hyperaware of how the slides are looking. There were a few
times where I had to get up on stage and fix something or assist one
of the speakers during a presentation. Be on your toes!
!11
Day of Show Responsibilities Cont.
As the Project Manager, you will have a lot of responsibilities during the conference.
You will be responsible for the following things:
1. Master of Ceremonies (Introducing all of the speakers
on stage and regrouping with the audience after breaks)
2.Day 1 Check-In (Greeting early bird guests as they
enter Berklee’s campus and get their conference badges)
3. Set up/tear down (Setting up Aula Magistral for Day 1
and Berklee for Day 2 with conference signage and
branding, clearly marked signed for hard to find rooms)
4. Volunteers/Helpers (Managing the fellows/faculty
volunteering, ensuring everyone has what they need to
do their job correctly)
5. Time Keeping/Conference Flow (Giving the proper
signals to speakers to ensure they are staying within
their allotted time slot)
6. Speaker Liaison (You will be all of the speakers point
of contact; you will have to ensure that all of their needs
are being met, and that each of them are on time for
their presentation)
!12
New Forms of Monetization
for Artists Panel
Emma McGann
Cherie Hu
Mr. Bill
!13
Talent & Partnership Manager Role
Written by Annelise Rivera Rivero
The Talent & Partnership Manager has to coordinate the content of the conference
with CD Baby and produce the concerts which take place during the conference. It
is recommended to be able to speak Spanish (as this position involves some
communication with venues in Valencia).
For this role, you’ll be working closely with the Project Manager to help solidify the
themes and concepts for the programming. If the Project Manager organizes the
day-time event, the Talent & Partnership Manager organizes the night-time events
and networking opportunities.
Being patient and reliable is necessary in this position, since you will be speaking to
attendees or students who want or will be selected to perform at the after events.
This means taking time to listen to music submissions, inform selected artists about
soundcheck and technical requirements, gently rejecting artists who didn’t make
the cut, and maintaining a firm schedule for the sake of time and comfort.
!14
Task 1:Produce Concerts and Networking Events
The idea to create three official events came from our conversations with the CD Baby team where they expressed they wanted an
event on check-in day for the people who were already in Valencia for early registration and to begin the networking as soon as
possible. My focus for the first event was to find a place that would fit around 80 people, which is the amount of people we were
expecting would show up for check-in on the first day. We also wanted a places that were either walking distance to campus and
would allow us to purchase drink tickets at a discounted rate so that we could accommodate everyone. For the second and third event,
my focus was mostly on space and on production capability. Since we were expecting more people on the second and third day and we
were doing showcases during both of these activities.
•
Distance The venue selection began with Google searching venues near school and in the heart of Valencia. The priority was that all
these locations had to be easily accessible and in nicer neighborhoods since the events were taking place at night. Keep in mind public
transportation and cost when determining locations as well.
•
Stage/Production Capabilities All the venues needed to be able to have their own in-house production equipment so that we could
save on that cost. We needed to guarantee artists that they would have enough space on stage and be able to build their entire
technical set up. This also meant communicating with venue owners in the days leading up to resolve any last minute issues and
testing for sound and lighting.
•
Cost Our goal was to keep all three events under 1000 euros, based on last year’s budget. None of the venues used last year were used
this year and one of the reasons was the increased cost. Contrapunto increased their fee exponentially even though we had worked
with them in the past leading us to find another venue for a third of the cost that worked. Negotiating is a skill you’ll need
for this role, eventually reaching a point where both DIY and venues can start developing a long-term relationship.
•
Availability I began researching venues before Christmas break and began approaching venues to see if they had availability in
January. I’d definitely start approaching venues earlier because some of the places were already booked by the time I began doing so.
Regardless, finding other venues wasn’t a huge ordeal and they were all selected and confirmed well before the conference began. I
approached venues with the idea that we would sign agreements or contracts. As I went further into our talks and negotiation, I
realized that they don’t have a structure where agreements or contracts are needed. I’d suggesting creating a template for this purpose
for next year. This year, we did not work with agreements or contracts with the venues. I had everything in writing through emails
and messages and if anything was missing, I’d use those to obtain whatever I had negotiated.
•
!15
Task 2: Find DIY Artists
The European DIY Musicians Conference specializes in helping independent artists further their career, so booking them
for the showcases was always a priority. The Talent & Partnerships Manager acts as a talent buyer for the night events,
and plays an important role in making attendees feel valued and understood. The goal is to support musicians who are
ready for the next step and give an opportunity to perform in front of a likeminded crowd.
•
Music Curation Love listening to new music? You’re in the right position! You’ll be in charge of curating the musical
experience for all the night events, asking both Berklee students and attendees to submit their work for consideration.
This means creating submission forms, spreadsheets to input their information, making the final selections and
communicating the decision to everyone. Remember, that not every DIY Musician will be able to play so remain polite
but stern, you have an ear for this so trust it.
•
Technical Riders It’s not necessary for you to know how to create a rider. This year I sent the artists an online service where
they could create their riders: musicotec.com. Once you have all the riders together, make sure to send these to the venues
several weeks before the event so that they can tell you if they don’t have some of the requested equipment. Also, and very
important, I warned artists many times that we would NOT provide any instruments, only basic production items. A thing that
was very helpful was including them all in an email where they discussed if they wanted to share equipment and only have to
bring one of each item. This ended working incredibly well and created a deeper relationship between the participants. Also
remember to allow plenty of time for sound check and schedule everything meticulously and keep the sound check going. Most
times artists will want to play all their songs on a sound check but it’s unnecessary. Sound check FOR ALL THE ARTISTS was
vital because any issue that occurred was able to be solved before the show even began.
•
Orders Occasionally, once you’ve completed your main task, you’ll possibly be asked to get other quotes for things like
promotional material for CD Baby, food and beverages for the networking events or requesting musical equipment from
Berklee. These are some of the things I handled this year that weren’t on my list of tasks but that were able to be done with no
problem because everything else was running well.
!16
Artist Selection Process
I focused on having different types of music for the event. I
selected several singer-songwriter performers, R&B, Rap,
Rock and Pop artists.
The artists for the showcases held on the Saturday and
Sunday of the event were selected from a google form that
was edited by me from the previous year’s form. This form
was sent to every person who purchased a ticket for the
conference. I received 80 responses to this form, went one by
one listening to each person’s music and selecting the artists
by genre, quality of music, type of music and general vibe and
feel. I had quite a hard time selecting the artists because of
how many good ones I had to choose from and unfortunately,
left out a couple of artists I would have liked to be in the
showcase. On the other hand, there were some artists that
submitted their work that were not good at all in my opinion.
The process was quite simple, sit down everyday and examine
the new submissions and pick the ones I liked, I added them
to a google spreadsheet which changed quite often during this
process. I ended up curating showcases that included singersongwriters, folk music, pop music, R&B, Rap and music in
Spanish.
I selected 16 performers for Saturday and 7 for Sunday night.
!17
Task 3:Partnerships & Sponsorships
•
Disrupción Records The student run Disrupción Records
label signed several artists in 2019 as it started back up with
the new school year. The benefit of their model is that many
of these artists are Berklee Students. Nicole Otero,
Disrupción Records Marketing Coordinator, contacted me
to see if we could feature two of their artists during the
showcases. We were able to do this year was feature two
Disrupción Records artists as “headliners” for the Open Mic
or closing event. We gave them 20 minute slots because of
the DIY conference mission and Berklee’s involvement in
the conference. For Saturday, we had Autumn Jones from
New Jersey as the headliner and for Sunday we had
Retrovyzor from Venezuela as the headliner.
•
DJ Para Todos This on campus initiative seeks to improve
the equity and diversity in the global DJ scene and foster a
healthy, creative culture through DJ and music education,
theory, workshops, shows, and other experiences. Jon
Sabillon, GEMB student who was awarded a diversity grant
for the project, connected DIY to a female Berklee student
who learned how to DJ through the initiative. We were able
to have two DJs for stage changeovers, intermissions and
during the first networking event free of charge.
!18
Day of Show Responsibilities
The Talent & Partnership Manager will be responsible for the following things:
1. Customer Service/Check In For the first day I didn't work at
check-in due to sound check duties at the first venue. For
Saturday and Sunday, I was there first thing in the morning
helping out during attendee registration and in case anybody
lost their badges or any other situation, such as helping with
the coffee machines or answering questions about the
program
2. Soundcheck For all three days, sound check was scheduled in
order to make sure everything was working properly and
everyone knew where they were going. Sound check was
scheduled for the two hours before each show for all three
days. I'd suggest three hours for sound check on showcase
days because of the amount of change overs which affects
time and the possibility of artists arriving late.
3. Showtime During concerts, I made sure everyone was in the
green room on time, and also gathered artists and got them
close to the stage when their turn was coming up. I
communicated with the venue staff and made sure everything
was running smoothly. I also had the task of handing out the
drink tickets and making sure the staff had their food. Enjoy
the fruit of your labor and see how people enjoy the show!
!19
Talent & Partnerships GANTT
!20
Marketing Manager Role
Written by Stephanie Piedrahita
As the Marketing and Communications Manager, you will be responsible for the promotion of
the CD Baby, Berklee and DIY brand, ticket sale and distribution, and communication between
the organizers and attendees. Your responsibilities can range from social media postings, e-mail
blasts, discount code creation, graphic design, attendee registration…basically, the person who
holds this position must be able to juggle many tasks before and during the event, be “the voice”
of the conference before it begins, and be a professional trouble shooter.
Working with CD Baby will give you a lot of support because you can rely on their reach and
name to grab people’s attention, but it is your work that will seal the deal for most.
Communication is key within your team and for attendees, so be sure to ask for help when you
need it, as you’ll be the most active throughout the year, but set firm deadlines to help organize
workflow and have efficient time management.
Being a self-starter is essential here, the sooner you can determine what your hard deliverables
are (ticket sale goal, announcement schedule, content creation) and gather them, the easier your
job will be as the months roll by. This is a creative role, so have fun thinking of ideas that truly
show the value of what this conference has to offer to our speakers and attendees.
!21
Task 1:Ticket Sales
As the Marketing and Communications Manager, you are responsible for one of the most essential tasks of the
conference which is to sell the experience to people who would benefit from attending. The ultimate goal is to
improve every year in all aspects, but a bigger budget always helps.
• Platform The first thing that should be determined is what ticketing platform will be used and the price
points for each tier. Then, determine the on-sale timeline to be approved by CD Baby so coordination can
start happening between both teams. By creating this timeline, the overall project schedule begins to come
together when you consider when dates, speakers and special events should be announced in accordance to
price increases or discount codes being released.
• Pitching It’s important that while communicating ticket sale strategies that you keep in mind that attendees
wants to see what they’re buying first so do everything in your power to answer the question “Why should I
go?”. Most attendees travel to DIY, so it’s important to make them feel confident in their decision to purchase
their pass and invest their time into the conference. The best way to do this is by posting and e-mailing about
speakers as they’re confirmed, upload photos and videos from last year’s folder, and sharing relatable articles
or clips about independent musicians from CD Baby’s website or similar outlets.
• Refunds and Ticket Requests Once you reach your goal, you’ll have to handle any refund requests so please
determine what circumstances refunds could be processes and how. This means setting rules like, if there’s an
emergency or their flight got cancelled, would this be a valid reason to refund them? Can friends of attendees
come to the after parties or would they need to purchase a separate ticket? Are we selling at the door? Find
answers to any questions you anticipate and you’ll be ahead of the process.
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Task 2: Digital Communication
You will be managing the Facebook, Instagram, Twitter pages and the official DIY e-mail inbox, please refer to the login
and passwords document for access or ask your CE advisor.
• Email This will be your most direct, informative method of communication between you and the audience. You
will have to import the email addresses of last year attendees ad continue the growth of our newsletter. Then, once
the essential information is confirmed, begin communicating with your potential attendees about dates, early bird
prices, surveys about programming, speakers or anything you think would help draw in musicians or music
professionals.
• Social Media While things are being decided or confirmed, it’s good to keep social media channels active so
attendees become excited to attend, and possibly encourage their friends to come as well. Find appealing videos and
photos left by the previous year’s students or content produced by CD Baby to help tell the story of what we’re
building. If you’re able to, invest some money from ticket sales and publish one or two ads through Facebook Ads
Manager or boost an Instagram post through the Promotions tab that drives traffic to your ticketing website or likes
to your page. Sit down with Berklee Valencia for assistance when it comes to navigating the ad creation platform
and audience targeting.
• Website/Graphic Design Speak to CD Baby about when you’ll be receiving the new main artwork for the
conference and when the website will be updated. Their team is responsible for those two tasks unless you are a
graphic designer, which is helpful when turning around content quickly. If you do not have graphic design
experience, just let your advisor and CD Baby know so they can coordinate with their in-house departments. We
used Trello to communicate at first but it’s best to create your own personal list of what you need created, typed or
updated and send emails to CD Baby with direct requests.
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Task 3: Promotional Materials
You’ll be handling promotional material distribution, this could be physical items like pamphlets, signs, programs
and badges or ensuring that all information posted online is up to date.
• Signage and Merchandise The conference is great opportunity for Berklee Valencia and CD Baby to display
their brand and services that could help aspiring artists who are attending. Both parties have signage and
merchandise they’d like to show attendees and may potentially ask you to make a new order in Valencia for
delivery. Ask early for quotes once you have the newest artwork and have spoken about which items you’d like
to compare expenses, products and presentation options. Think about what kinds of large format signs need to
be printed, how you will distribute the program and what items should be given out (notebooks, earplugs and
pens were the most popular items).
• Program The major selling point of the conference are the workshops, speakers and networking opportunities.
Consult with your team about what topics should be covered (we polled Berklee Valencia students) and
identify potential speakers from the first week. The Project Manager will confirm speakers and be responsible
to send you their photo, session title and biography which you will then use to update the final program
document and website and to announce on digital channels. Changes will happen to make sure you have your
documents organized to save time, Google Suite will be the best place for your shared workspace.
• Badges You will be in charge of credentials once ticket sales are coming to a close. I highly recommend to have
CD Baby approve the design and send to print early, we chose to save a good amount of money by printing and
cutting it out ourselves but wasted a lot of time by not making it a priority. Also, change Band/Company to Job
Title and the last section to City/Country.
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Ticketing & Credential
Examples
Speaker Badge
Attendee Badge
Staff Badge
Digital Ticket
Day of Show Responsibilities
The Marketing and Communications Manager will be responsible for the following
things:
1. Information Table Be available to answer general
questions about the program, ticketing and
directions throughout the event
2. Check-In Confirming attendance of arriving
attendees by checking order receipts or guest list and
distribute the appropriate badge
3. Official Communications Be on call to send out
reminder emails or detailing changes to the program
or room locations
4. Content Creation Manage photographer and
videographers while documenting the conference for
material to be posted during and after the event
5. Customer Service Listen to attendee concerns and
find quick solutions to simple problems that would
enhance their experience
6. Collect Feedback Gather hard data about program
quality, attendee information/satisfaction and collect
finding for next year’s team
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Day of Show Responsibilities
Most Important: Social Media and Email Communication
It’ll be your job to work with Berklee Valencia’s Marketing
department about social media strategies across all
platforms for the duration of the event. Being able to cover
every session will be impossible, so map out which
workshops and speeches you feel need to be covered the
most and create a personal schedule for you to pop in and
out of rooms. You will also be the human FAQ section so
you will need to be able to send out email blasts reminding
people of important information like check-in procedure
and how to arrive to specific locations or communicate
changes of rooms or sessions in a timely manner.
You will work closely with Berklee’s in-house
photographer every day so consult with him about what
images you’d specifically like him to capture. Try to have
your CE advisor communicate hard-deadlines to them so
you can fresh content to post. I would advise to find Video
Production students who might want to film the conference
as part of their final projects for the course, they could
probably assist you with social media posting as well.
!27
Marketing & Communications GANTT
GANTT Chart generated at https://www.teamgantt.com/ on June 15th 2019
!28
Key Risks and Learnings
1. Student Team Selection - The team that was selected this year was very specialized. We believe this was one of the main reasons we had so few
problems. Each of us trusted each other to deliver on their work, and it allowed us to start . The highest priority for the Conference Organizers next year
is to identify early on who can do what faster and the preferred flow of communication. Finding students with the specific skills needed and the ability
to juggle the position and their schoolwork is extremely important. Compared to last year, we worked better as a team and had few to no
disagreements.
2. Conference Length - We think that this conference can easily go for three days. There was strong demand from attendees for more workshops, and
one main complaint was the inability to catch as many workshops as they want. If there was more space between the workshops over two days,
attendees could get more value out of the conference without feeling rushed to get to their next session.
3. Sponsorships - We did not have any sponsors this year as the revenue from the ticket sales covered enough of what we needed. However, if we could
bring in some sponsorship money, we could bring in more high profile guests from different parts of the globe. This could allow the conference to
potentially charge even more for tickets, outweighing the higher costs.
4. Volunteers & CD Baby Involvement - For the 2018 DIY Conference, the team was allowed to use volunteers to help throughout the conference. This
year, we were not allowed to use volunteers for liability reasons. Instead we had to use a small team of fellows and graduate assistants that had to be
compensated monetarily. Because of the cost, we had to enlist less help than would be ideal. Also, the CD Baby team are busy so make sure to follow up
regularly or some items might be left for last-minute. The more help you can get the smoother the conference will go!
!29
Outcome: Sold Out Event!
Ticket Tier
Ticket Price
Loyalty Early Bird
39,00 €
Early Bird
49,00 €
General Admission
59,00 €
Berklee Student Discount
10,00 €
Berklee Summit Make Up
10,00 €
Berklee Student Discount 2
20,00 €
Door Sales Walk Up
69,00 €
Total Tickets Sold
Tix Sold
19/ 30
121/ 160
57/ 136
30/ 30
2/ 2
26/26
6/10
261/394
Total Revenue
741,00 €
5929,00 €
3363,00 €
300,00 €
20,00€
520,00 €
414,00 €
11287,00 €
Early Bird Gets The Worm
Early Bird tickets sold the most out of all ticketing tiers, which means that the initial start of sales is when you need to
push the tickets the most. At this point in time, the program is not announced so coordinate to switch the banners,
profile photos, website assets and email signature to the newer version at the same time as CD Baby’s first official blast
to the 2019 attendees.
General Admission tickets sold at a slower pace but were still purchased regardless of the price increase from last year.
We extended the Early Bird sale by a few days but General Admission tickets should be advertised before they go live to
further incentivize people to secure their spot or risk spending more money. This way, there could be higher retained
earnings if the online pushes were better coordinated between both teams.
!30
Outcome: Data Collection
When we first met, we had asked for last year’s
numbers but the previous team had failed on putting
that information together before graduation. So, we
made sure to include the following charts and essential
information.
Top Countries: Spain, UK, US, Germany and Austria
Event Reach (Organic): 3,300 Facebook Users
Top Post Impressions: 2,400 Impressions
Page Likes: 424 (70 New Page Likes)
Demographics: Men & Women, Ages 25-34
!31
Outcome: Speaker Satisfaction
26 Total Speakers
Day 1
6 Keynote Presentations
1 panel
Day 2
17 sessions in English
6 sessions in Spanish
5 office hours sessions
__________________
28 total sessions day 2
35 total opportunities for attendees to
learn from
music industry professionals from
around the world
!32
Outcome: Successful Showcases
FRIDAY NIGHT – GASTRO 48 CLUB
All three events were well attended as we were
hoping. The first event was more successful than
what we had anticipated and it was a great
opportunity for people to meet and begin their
networking. We received praise for the Saturday
event, from venue selection to concert curation,
we heard many a great opinion. A few things
didn't go as planned and one of the artists wasn't
quite as happy as we wanted them to be but it
was all talked over. The Sunday event was highly
attended, something we weren't expecting but
were hoping for. The concert curation received
praise as well and the artists left feeling happy
and accomplished. We thought it would be risky
to make the event three hours after the conference
was over but it went incredibly well regardless.
The events were an added experience for the
attendees that not only helped them network
further among them, but allowed them to
discover Valencia as well as music they hadn't
heard before.
COST No venue cost. I was able to negotiate 80 drink
tickets for the attendees we were expecting + 13 euro
menu for 13 people (down from 16 euros) which
included tapas and two drink tickets for each.
Total Cost: 330 euros
SATURDAY NIGHT – RADIO CITY
COST Production and venue rental costs had to be
covered by us for 300 euros and 20 drink tickets were
60 euros. Water and snacks for artists were covered
by the venue so we were able to avoid that expense.
Total Cost: 360 euros
SUNDAY NIGHT – MATISSE CLUB
COST No venue cost. I was able to negotiate 60 drink
tickets at 1.50 euros each because we expected
approximately 100 people at the venue which would
generate money for them on a slow night/a night
they don’t usually open.
Total Cost: 60 euros
!33
Late Night Conference
Showcases
Outcome: Happy Attendees
You’ll be handling promotional material distribution, this
could be physical items like pamphlets, signs, programs and
badges or ensuring that all information posted online is up
to date.
• Instant Feedback Each of us were so overwhelmed
with the amount of positive feedback we would receive
from attendees, speakers and Berklee staff. The overall
comment was that we had done a great job and that
there was little complaints made throughout the event.
The most enjoyed part were the after event where
networking opportunities came up, surrounded by the
one thing that tied us together: music!
• Survey We did send out a survey in the following
weeks but feedback should actually be collected on a
daily basis to have better insights for the next day
instead of for just next year’s team. The survey was
answered by only 14 attendees but we still received a
positive response overall with specific comments that
should be considered for the following year like more
refreshments, time between sessions and an extra day.
Only by collecting feedback will you learn how to
improve!
• High Return Rate We noticed during ticket sales that
the Loyalty Early Birds almost sold out, meaning that
people are willing to some back, a great sign for
business conferences. We believe that the pre-promotion
before ticket sales has a bit more priority this coming
year so you could reach your goal quicker.
!35
Outcome:
Continued Relations
• Facebook Group Some attendees had taken the
initiative to create a Facebook group where they
could stay in contact with one another, share
what they’ve worked on after the conference or
support projects that are posted. Berklee nor CD
Baby had no direct access to it, so I contacted
the admin of the group who added myself and
my advisor. Alexandre Perrin, our advisor, now
has admin permissions so he’ll be able to add
the next Marketing Manager in there, which
would be a fantastic tool to communicate with
over 300 previous attendees. If I had access
earlier, it would’ve greatly impacted early
promotional strategies.
• Online Testimonials We did have testimonials
posted onto our website but I personally found
the posts made by the attendees themselves on
Facebook. They were organic, honest, and
positive reviews which definitely helped make
the conference’s brand more visible to our
target audience. I would recommend following
up with attendees and speakers and ask if they
could be quoted officially on the 2020 website
!36
Thank you!
This document was made to give you insight on how the European DIY Musician
Conference can be executed successfully and our own reflections on what can be
done better in comparison to what last year’s team had said. You may have a
similar experience or a completely different one than we had, especially if
responsibilities get moved around. Still, this should cover the majority of the
majors tasks, risks and potential outcomes you should examine.
We had an incredible time learning from CD Baby and Berklee Valencia, use this
opportunity to discover new ways of working with others and do you best.
Everything will be worth it once you see how happy attendees, staff and speakers
are.
Please feel free to contact us at jjgconnor@gmail.com, ariverarivero@berklee.edu
or spiedrahita@berklee.edu if you need any advice or suggestions we weren’t
able to cover in this document.
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