On 13th April 2024 I organized my first concert ever! The group that played is called Imposteur - and what an experience we had! :) But let's start from beginning!
The médiathèque has two types of music programs:
- Médiacoustics - the professional, paid artists
- Scène offerte - amateurs or unpaid artists
In February, I did a formation in BNF, and there I met Carole, a fellow music librarian, who has a duo group. I knew we had some free dates for Scène offerte so I invited her to play. They accepted, and the médiathèque accepted (my colleague is in charge of this program)! Hell yeah!
The concert was organized in the l'Espace musique et cinema. Usually, it's the acoustic gig, but Imposteur is a duo with electric guitar and synths, so we needed some amps. I brought two guitar amps from my home, and my colleague brought a bass amp. They brought their own amps also.
We installed 30 chairs in front of the stage. It was sunny weather, and so quiet at the library! I was afraid nobody would come! But we had 21 persons! :) :) I was so happy!
There was a slight uncomfortable moment, with the song "F*** you you f****** f***", when a mom with two children left because of the lyrics... Great lesson for the future - I need to make sure lyrics are fine for everyone, so it's family friendly.
I created some promotional materials before the concert - posters and handouts. We also mentioned this concert in our newsletter, and in a special email event announcement.
I tried couple of extra things for this concert:
- I recorded their performance.
- After the concert, I placed the band members in front of CD stacks and asked them to talk one or two minutes about their experience of the library and to pick one CD from the collection and talk about it. I will try to use these videos to create some promotional material in the future.
- I created a fun "certificate of performance" and gave them this document in A3 format.
- I printed their band photo, put their band name and the date, and asked for their signatures. If we continue to do that in the future, we could create a wall with signatures of all guests. I saw this in Le Forum club in Vauréal.
The next step is to create a story of this event. I need to meet with my boss to see what are the possibilities and what are the needs. But the fact is that we need to work on our marketing! We need to be visible :)
This concert was a great professional experience for me! I think event was a success, and I felt good in this organization. Looking forward for the future adventures!