UWS Christmas Bash for Drake

Christmas is a universal time across the world; despite the fact the festive period is rooted in Christian beliefs and further beyond that old pagan beliefs, Christmas has become a world-recognised holiday focused on giving, especially giving to those in need. The Winter period can be deadly for some and deeply troubling for others, but seeing as Covid-19 has slightly lifted its veil and left us with some breathing space, my colleagues and I decided to set up a Christmas End Of Year Gig at UWS Ayr Campus, with all proceeds going to the charity Drake!

Drake Music Scotland is a charity based in Scotland which helps disabled children and adults get the tools, equipment, and ability to learn music and to pursue careers in music; my colleagues and I considered a vast variety of charities across Glasgow and Scotland, however as we wanted to tie the end of year gig into something we could all unify behind, we believe Drake was the perfect choice.

Our team consisted of myself, Daniel Beattie, Erin Sinead, Samhradh Douglas, Steven Allan, Amar Chhina, Christian McCabe, and Luke McRitchie; as the team was much larger than the other 2 projects prior to this, task distrubtion was MUCH more difficult to handle.

The project as a whole was rather tough to nail down, as our premise was set around live events or a product to garner money for a chosen charity; we already tackled the charity, however landing a venue to host the gig was another matter.

As the gig was to take place around Christmastime, this caused a couple of problems; to start, the Covid-19 pandemic was still in full swing, however it was slowly crawling down towards Christmas, meaning that while we did have the opportunity to hold a gig, not a lot of venues would have been comfortable with it, especially now since there is a 500 person limit in all large-scale venues across Scotland for live events.

Originally we planned to host the gig at the Glasgow Britannica Panopticon, the oldest survivng music hall in the world, where comedians and performers such as Stan Laurel of Laurel and Hardy fame once played. Upon contacting them, however, we were told that everything up to Christmas and even into February was fully booked, leaving us with the second problem; too many places were already in use.

This left us with the only option being the Student Union bar at UWS Ayr Campus; they were the only venue available at the time, and despite the concerns around Covid-19, the university campus itself was still open for access, meaning people could come to the bar to enjoy a gig regardless.

Thus, we settled for the charity gig for Drake Scotland to take place at the Student Union at UWS Ayr on 15th December 2021.

Task distribution was incredibly tricky, as 8 people managing a small gig proved to be very disorganised; Erin took the unofficial role of leader due to her expertise in live sound reinforcement and took care of equipment acquisition, live sound engineering, and contacting some of the acts, while Daniel was left to help with live sound engineering alongside myself, as well as helping to set the venue up, Samhradh to organise a bake sale at the entrace of the venue to garner extra donations as well as contacting one of the acts, and myself to cover multiple areas, including transportation of equipment, creation of a brief repeating video showcasing the charity and their causes, and helping out around the gig with setup, footage recording, and more.

This left Amar and Christian with the main handle on promotional aspects, as Christian composed the fliers advertising the event in person and online, while Amar helped distribute them. As Amar was out of the country and Christian had work scheduling issues, they were given these roles so as to still be able to contribute to the gig, despite their absence.

The same was applicable to Luke and Steven who also had work commitments; this led to Steven helping out where possible in the promotion and in the contacting of the venue and charity alongside Luke; they played a vital role in getting the charity to recognise our gig for their cause and helped us set up a PayPal donation setup for contactless ticket payments for the gig's entry.

While four members of the group were a lot more hands-off due to their circumstances, they still played vital roles in ensuring the gig could go ahead; the remaining four including myself, Daniel, Erin, and Samhradh, worked together to come up with ideas to implement other donation-generating ideas alongside the gig; one idea was a games area where people could relax near the gig and play old school video-games on a PlayStation 1 or PlayStation 2, acting almost like an arcade. However, due to the space available and the fact that the one room that could have been used was more detached away from the gig, amongst other determining factors, we ultimately scrapped this idea.

3 acts were contacted to perform; Bethany Ferrie, an acoustic guitarist singer/songwriter we have worked with in the past, Teose, a band Erin knew who perform a fusion of alternative and emo rock, and Jack Hill, another singer/songwriter who Samhradh has had prior work with before. The gig also had a karaoke/open-mic session after the last act Teose finished playing.

We billed the gig to last from 7:30pm til approximately 11pm, with there being a 1 hour, 30 minute section for people to participate in the karaoke and open-mic session; set-up would begin at 4:30pm, with a 5:30pm soundcheck before the doors would open at 7pm and then close at 12:30am to allow for the Student Union bar to shut for the night as we took the equipment apart and transported it back.

Equipment was provided by New College Lanarkshire in Cumbernauld, as Erin had contacted them in order to get access to the relevant equipment, since this was her former place of study. UWS Ayr themselves were unable to provide the equipment due to their deadline of equipment needing to be back in the store for over the Christmas period by 9th December. I also provided additional instruments in the event the artists had to change due to a broken string or malfunctioning electronics, including an Ibanez electro-acoustic, and a Squier Stratocaster.

Bethany began the gig by performing a total of 7 songs before Jack came on at 8:30 to perform 5, leaving 50 minutes for the main act, Teose to play as the lead act for the night, with Erin taking control of engineering Teose's sound, Daniel engineering Bethany's, and myself engineering Jack's.

The gig went successfully as we raised a total of £108 by the end of the night, through ticket sales and bake sales; overall it did prove to be a bit messy due to the circumstances surrounding Covid-19 and the fact we had VERY little time to prepare for the gig to happen as the project brief's timeframe was only 3 weeks, where a standard gig, even on a scale such as ours, would usually take approximately 2 months or more's time.

I do believe this provided us with good experience with thinking on our feet, as there are instances in the creative industries where this is a necessity, where project briefs are given to industry workers on short notice for a variety of reasons; personnel dropping out, dates originally planned being shifted, external influences from other forces, etc., and I feel that with this experience it has allowed us to see the potential we have while working with grace under pressure.

Overall, I am extremely happy that I got to work with my colleagues on a gig for promoting a charity as fantastic as Drake Charity Scotland; the proceeds going towards the charity will help more disabled children and adults gain more reach and ability to pursue a career in music, meaning that one day many of these people may be able to work alongside my colleagues and I in the future.