CALCULATING THE MUSIC BUDGET

You’ve briefed a composer: how do you define a budget for music within your PR campaign? Gareth Cousins explains:

PCAM (The Society Of Producers and Composers Of Applied Music) publish a guideline for composers fees, which may be used as a very rough indicator of how much it will cost to commission music. The truth of the matter is that there are not set fees for this type of work, and budgets will be vary greatly, both below and above the figures they suggest. Read more »

The future of thupr

Image via CrunchBase

Oh dear – my Audioboo interview on the future of thupr

Someone very kindly bought me a glass of red wine – but I react to some reds really badly, and you can see this on my face in the picture. And that was just a couple of sips!

There’s bits you’ll hear here first…..

Thupr event, Mobile Apps – interview with Kathmandu

At this weeks thupr event, amongst the stand out things was a live call to explorer, Mark Wood,  in Kathmandu.

As a PR consultant, this kind of ‘live link’ is terrifying – you know that it can all go horribly wrong whenever you’re reliant on various pices of technology which may, or may not, perform on the day. First rule of PR: always have a Plan B.

But using Mark Smith of ipadio’s mobile, Mark Wood in Kathmandu’s satellite phone (notoriously narrowband technology, prone to foibles), ipadio and speakers, they pulled it off. Live.

You can hear the interview here, including the afterchat we didn’t hear over the speakers. (Second rule of PR – make sure the microphones are off: remember Glenn Hoddle?)

Still, Mark Smith flying by the seat of his technology pants (and in fairness, it is just a phone call with clever stuff attached!)  is nothing compared to the seat of the pants ride that Mark Wood is undertaking .

thupr and its new beginnings

The future's so bright we've gotta wear shades!

Most of you by now will have heard about the new Waves intern, Halima, who’s making a great splash here and has taken on the thupr events.

Although things are looking bright for the next thupr,a mobile apps event, it’s what happens from there on in that matters. Thupr has, frankly, been run on a wing and a prayer: it’s been pretty much a textbook case of how not to run a community. It’s not been a predictable format, it’s not on a predictable date cycle, and the event subject matter has been narrow enough to ensure a very different bunch of people each time.

I’ve been guilty of trying to please those who shouted loudest and not listening to my gut feel. And in many ways, I’d had enough and was ready to throw in the towel.

Until Stephen Haggard, who has taken on supplier outreach, asked me a question: if we didn’t do thupr, would someone else want to do it?

And when we chewed it through, and my somewhat jaded eyes were opened: the answer is yes! There’s not another event in London that puts together the tools suppliers and the people who use them in anything except a sales type environment. There’s not another forum that allows discussion around those tools, be it the ethics, the practicalities, the chance to experiment.

My enthusiasm is renewed. Halima is taking some of the strain of organising and making herself some great contacts in the process. (She’s even had the offer of work – other would be PR grads take note).  Stephen is intelligent and considered, and great to work with – a balance to my need for constant change – and between the three of us we’ve gone back to the roots of thupr, but with input that makes it easier to do and sustainable.

So here’s our formula for a thupr revival:

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