Anna Moulson from Melting Vinyl with Dv8 Live Events and Music students

Continuing our stellar guest line-up we welcomed Brighton’s legendary Live Music Promoter Anna Moulson, from Independent Promotions Company Melting Vinyl. Anna has been working in the industry for over 18 years and has a wealth of experience she was happy to share with our determined Live Events and Music Production students.

Anna’s live music promotion is a diverse and constantly evolving position. To give a basic understanding, a promoter is “the middle person” between artists/agents and the venues. They provide a live music platform, a wage for the artists, and supplies the audiences with quality entertainment.  Some of the roles involved include programming, pre-post production, marketing and ticketing, networking and repping. Research is a big part of Anna’s life too! She spends sometimes a couple of hours a day listening to bands on the radio, and checking out profiles of artists on Facebook too.

Over the years Anna has worked with all manner of creative artists from small local bands to worldwide stars. Some of Anna’s claim to fame involves putting on both The White Stripes and The Strokes first ever regional show! Every band has to start somewhere and as well as organising higher capacity shows with days worth of technical pre-production, Anna loves to stage grassroot shows so that she can go on a real journey with emerging artists as they climb the mountain that is the music industry.

Some of our favourite pieces of advice from Anna to propel yourselves into the world of promoting are…

  • Start by promoting local bands. Not only will this give you a good understanding of the processes involved, but that of the bands too.
  • When promoting on Twitter, get more out of your 140 character limit. Use an engaging image and tag in venues, artists, and ticketing companies for a larger audience reach.
  • Try not to discount tickets – sinking ship indicators!
  • Location of venue and even weather can be important variables to factor in when choosing where to put this gig on.
  • Be strong, resilient, patient and persistent.
  • Don’t be afraid to big yourself up. You’re young, you’ve got large peer groups, share what events/work you have done.
  • It’s quite good to have a niche.
  • It’s very difficult to live off of promoting, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with having a job on the side to help earn you an income.
  • Don’t expect people to come to you. Anna has been running Melting Vinyl for 18 years and still has to approach artists.
  • Working out how much to pay artists is a skill and takes time.

Thanks ever so much for sharing your experiences and words of wisdom with us Anna!

If you’d like to begin your journey into one of the creative industries, why not apply to join a Dv8 course in September!

Quick links: Introduction to Music, Media & Digital | Music Production | Media Production | Fashion & Design | Live Events & Promotion | Paid Internship Programme 

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