Introduction

In this unit I will be researching, creating and organising an event for the public with my class mates by working as team. Within this unit I will be covering different aspects of how to create an event including staging the event for the public, feasibility test, research , aims and objects of events and making a conclusion of the overall product.

What Is an Event?

An event is something which people will attend to once in their life time which would off appealed to them. An event can be large or small depending on what sort of event it is, some events can be on a one time occasion whereas other events can occur more frequently for example every fortnight or monthly. Some events can be held open to the public where as other events can be based for specific groups and have set opening and closing dates. A good example of this would be meetings that are made for shareholders which will participate every year. This is called an annual general meeting. There are several types of events that can be hold, for example openings for specific products can be events where the public can visit. As you can below these are all the different types of events that can be held for different purposes. It is possible that some events can fall into more than one section. For example the Olympics is a sporting event as well as worldwide. These are a few examples of different types of events that can occur and the categories which they would be classed under:

Why are Events Held?

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Events are held for a variety of different reasons. Most events are held for large social occasions and most of these will fall into the following categories:

Celebration: a large percentage of events are held to celebrate a certain occasion, achievements, milestones or historical and religious events. Examples of this could be weddings, birthdays, staff leaving parties, Christmas, prom, graduation, Easter and St Patrick’s Day. Weddings are one of the most popular events that are celebrated for example this is when two people have been together for such a long time they make a commitment where friends and family are invited, these event can take place all round the world as well as abroad. Easter is celebrate by Christians where Jesus was resurrected and came back to life people give Easter eggs and eat hot cross bun for this event as well as attending to church where they have longer ceremonies for these occasions.

Raise Funds: a large majority of events are put in place to raise money for different causes which can include charity work or money for a good cause. Race for life is an event which is held every year in different places across the UK which is to raise money for cancer research. People who participate in the event usually run for someone they know who has pass away from cancer so they support the cause and raise money to help others in the same situation. Whereas some events are held by clubs or schools to help raise money for new equipment or activities within the club. For example a car boot sale can help raise money for a club which wants to buy new equipment for the customers. Larger and popular events will usually raise more money that small events.

Provide Recreation or Entertainment: many events that are held are to provide customers with recreation and entertainment. This can reach a large audience for example this can vibe individuals, common interests, communities or world audiences. Concerts, beer festivals, sporting events, sporting events and school outings are all examples of these events. These are also aimed to be big social occasions that provide opportunities for people to meet that share the same interests and to have an enjoyable time. However some of these events are usually televised for example a football mach such as England can be shown in pub or at home so that other people can watch the event.

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Business Motives: businesses also organise events, many of these events are to promote or sell new products that the business have put on the market. There are several reasons why businesses events are varied. Some events such as AGM and press conferences are held out of obligation. However the business can hold events internally which involve the staff such as weekend team building or staff Christmas parties. Business can also stage events which are created to make money. For example boxing promoter’s stage boxing contests between some of the top fighters in the world. Revenue will then increase from this as admission fees will need to be paid and refreshments will be bought which will result in the business making revenue.

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Section AChoice of event

Ideas and research

Short-listed suggestions

Final decision

My Event – DBS Olympics

DBS 2012 is my choice of event. The main idea of the event is to involve a wide audience of DBS to participate in the mini Olympics for a fun and enjoyable day with the school and

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families. This will include team races, individual, pairs and non sporting events for the students, parents and teachers at DBS. This will work by having entries that sign up for the event in teams of 8-14. Each team will pick a team name and different activities for individuals to participate in. This will then result the participants being selected into 4 different teams which will be under the categories of countries. Each race will have points for positions that the opponents come in. The team with the most points will win a prize as well as second and third. However the country with the most points overall will also win a small prize at the end ceremony.

Put this into bullet point form:

The reason why I have chosen to do this event is because

it can involve a wide range of ages and both sexes’ which gives me a large target market. This means I will be able to sell the idea to a wider audience than an event which can be based only at one or the other.

it brings the students, teachers and parents closer towards the business (DBS).

Its brings a good reputation for school as they are trying to involve their customers by doing something fun where other parents can meet new people and children will be able to have a fun day with their friends.

This is also good for the children’s health as they will be participating in exercise. Therefore the parents may believe that the idea of the event will also be beneficial for their children if the event goes as planned this should give DBS a good recognition and word for the customers to tell other parents which can then result in more children visiting or joining the school.

This is beneficial towards the school in the long run. It also is another way to celebrate and praise the customers who enter for their hard work in taking place.

My Target Market

For this event I need to look at the appropriate way which will work for teams and ages. For example it would unfair to race a child against an adult, therefore when people sign up in their groups the need at least one participate which is stated in each group. There will be events that are based for children, some for adults and teachers and others for all. This is important that this goes correctly or the event won’t have a good effect on the customers as it would like it be. Therefore this is what I am going to include on the signing up form.

Ages That Should Participate In Each Team

5-6

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7-9

10-12

13-15

16-18

Adults of Any Age

The only problem of this would be certain groups would not have the correct ages to sign in a team. Therefore I have decided to categorise different activities for different ages. If the team do not have anyone to participate in the event then they will be able to score 1 point which would be the same for others who didn’t come 1st, 2nd or 3rd. This should ensure fairness of marking. This will also apply to the other events where this problem occurs. However the countries will be divided up equally in categories of ages and gender. Entries will just have to mark if they do not have a team member in a certain category within their group.

Races will be divided by gender, so the team will have to have a good amount of both men and women so that they can gain extra points. One reason for choosing the target market is so parents who have children that are boys and girls can both participate as well as mum and dad and other entries amongst the school.

The event is also open for friends to sign up brings and bring to participate in the event so that the target market stretches across a large scale of Dubai which can result in different schools being involved. I’m basing to do this on a weekend where parents and school pupils are free from school work and full time work. For example if sixth form are going to participate in this event at the weekend other friends which they usually see who don’t attend DBS may join so that they are with their friends and participating in an event.

This shows that my target audience is to a extremely wid. However, if I looked to include any younger ages it would be very complicated organising events that can involve them throughout the day. This doesn’t mean parents can’t bring them along to come and watch.

Objectives and Aims

What is an aim?

For my event I need to create aims and objectives so that the event will run smoothly and my main achievements are met. If I want this to be successful then I need to create objectives which will help my event become successful, therefore the objectives which I create need to be SMART.

S - Specific

M - Measureable

A – Achievable

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R - Realistic

T – Timed

Aims for my Event

To provide an enjoyable and popular event for staff, students and parents at DBS. To raise awareness for DBS and the Applied Team. To ensure the smooth and efficient running of a leisure event To create a highly successful leisure event that will build on the previous year’s event.

Objectives:

1. to provide an enjoyable and popular event for staff, students and parents at DBS

By marketing and advertising the event suitably so that it will attract potential customers.

By offering good prizes for the customers which take part. Having a professional venue which has adequate facilities and space. Involving all ages and customers within the school.

2. To raise awareness for DBS and Applied

Advertising and relating that the event is for DBS and staged by the applied students. Presentations selling our event to the students and staff within the school. Contacting parents via letters and leaflets, so they can learn about our leisure event.

3. To ensure a smooth and efficient running leisure event

By having a good team effort through the production and staging of the event Good communication between the team members. Appropriate allocation of job roles between the team. By setting appropriate dates when certain jobs need to be finished. (Creating a time

line of dates)

4. To create a highly successful leisure event, which will build up on the previous year’s event

By involving a variety of ages throughout the school years. To keep up to date with progress Ensure deadlines are being met Good standard of work effort put in by all members of the team throughout the

production and staging of the event.

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Additional Secondary Objectives

Learn new skills that can be used later on in life Gain a better bond with team throughout this experience.

Primary Research

For my event it is important that I conduct a good amount of research that comes from the potential customers of my event. This is so I can see what the customers will like and how I can please the majority of people. By doing this it should result in a larger amount of people participating and a more specific event which will satisfy more people’s needs. Therefore to achieve this I have decided to conduct three different types of primary research that should give me a better and wider idea of what my potential customers would like to have in my event. I have chosen to do the following types of primary research:

Questionnaire – the reasoning behind why I have chose this is because I can receive feedback from different ages and staff within the school as these are the people who I aim to participate in my event.

Observation – by doing this I will observe the amount of people that do not participate in core physical education over the period of two weeks. This will show give me an insight to my feasibility for the event and so see how many students do not enjoy participating in physical education.

Online Survey – the reason to why I have decided to do this is so that I can contact children parents of the school and see what they would like as these are also another target market for my event. This will then give me a wide amount of research so that I evaluate the feasibility and satisfy my potential customers before organising the event if it goes forward.

Firstly I conducted a questionnaire to find out what my potential target market would like so that I could fit my event for others purposes. (Appendix 1) then I evaluated my results into graphs and pie charts to see an overall response from this section of primary research.

Questionnaire Results Evaluated

For my first question I asked how much exercised each person did over a period of time. As you can see from the results, the majority of people exercised at least once a week. 15 people said that they exercised once a week whether it was being in school

or out of school. There was a lower percentage of students who exercised monthly which is good for my event and no students said they only exercised once a month. 2 people I questioned did say they exercised daily which is extremely good results of my event.

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10%

75%

15%

How regularly do you do sport?

Daily Weekly Every 2 WeeksMonthly Rarely

This is question 2 of my questionnaire, as you can see this was to find out what the most popular sporting event was for each individual customer. The most popular event with 40% was running, however this is because it included different lengths which could have appealed to more people. On the other hand the second most popular was relay (team events). This shows that most students enjoy working in a team, which is why I have chosen for the customers of my event to sign up as a team. 20% voted javelin as their favourite sport which then was followed by long jump and hurdles. No one voted for discus which means that this may not be a good choice to involve in my event as it won’t appeal to many people. Also someone voted for high jump which I now may consider instead of discus.

I was pleased to receive this answer from the people I questioned. This is because 16 people voted that they would like the event to have non sporting activities such as tug of war, ‘welly’ throwing, egg and spoon and so on.

This means that people who don’t initially enjoy sport can also take part as there are activities for them to participate in as well as sporting one for others. 4 people who I questioned said no, however I would like to hold different types of games where smaller children and non sporty people can join in as this gives me a larger target market.

This was one of the most important questions for my questionnaire the reason for this is because if people chose that they didn’t want a DBS 2012 Olympics then this would mean the event wouldn’t be feasible as people would not want to participate. However by asking 20 people 17 people agreed and said they would like to take part in this event which is a good response. However 3 people did say no the reasoning for this was because they said they do not enjoy sport and would not participate in this as we have a sports day which is around the same time of the year. Whereas the reason for why people said they would like this event was

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40%

20%10%

30%

What is your favourite type of athletic sport?

Running (100m, 200m, 400m, 800m 1800m)

Javelin

Long Jump Relay (Team Events)Discus HurdlesOther ________________________

80%

20%

Would you like to have non sporting events?

YesNo

so they can do a sporting event with and against their friends groups where they are able to win prizes. So overall this was a good response for the question.

For this question I asked what prizes they would like to receive if they won one of the top places. 9

people said that they would prefer a free meal voucher for them and their team to go out than an amount of money as it would be unfair to split between a certain amounts of people. Although 8 people did say they would like to receive money they may have not thought of that disadvantage. 3 people voted to have a

shopping voucher for a prize these were girls that chose this as it would be more appealing to them then boys. In conclusion of this it would be good if I get my correct sponsor so that I can fulfil the customers need by supplying a free meal at a restaurant for the winning team.

For this answer I receive nearly an even amount of results. This was not what I wanted however this shows that I may have to change the day for my event. The reason to why people said no was because they may have a party or event with family which could come up unexpected. However 11 people said they would attend and get their friends to come do it with them, which is a good response for my event. However the people who said no said they were more likely being able to attend if the event is on a Saturday than a Friday which is useful primary research for my report.

As you can see from this chart it shows how much each customer is willing to pay to enter the event. I was surprised to see that people are willing to spend 10DHS to enter the event

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85%

15%

Would you like to have a mini Olympics at DBS?

Yes (Why?) No (Why?)

40%

15%

45%

What prizes would appeal to you the most?

Money Shopping Vouchers Free Meal at Restaurant Other

55%45%

Would you participate if the event was on a Saturday /

weekend?Yes No (Why)

which is good news for my team. However 8 people did say they were only willing to pay 5 DHS which means that I am stuck in the middle of deciding on which cost to set for an entry price. I was also happy that 3 people say they would be willing to pay more, I asked them the reason for this and they said if profits go to charity they would be willing to pay a higher entry fee in-between 15 and 20DHS. Therefore I need to conclude all of my findings and decide on a price which will suit most customers’ expectations.

This was one of the hardest feedbacks I received from my whole questionnaire, as you can see 50% of people said yes and 50% also said no. Therefore I will have to decide for myself whether I think it will be a good idea to run this for charity or not. However I came to the conclusion this shouldn’t be decided until average costs are settled so I can see if I have enough money to breakeven and make profit because if I don’t I will not be able to raise money for charity as well.

Lastly I asked my customers what type of advertising attracts them the most as you can see from my results over half of the customers said that posters catch their attention the most. This is because they are in school and no not have a lot of time to read newspapers or leaflets. However 4 people said they enjoy listening to the radio on the way to and from school which is where they hear about events in Dubai that can attract them to go. However 2 girls both did say they like to see advertisements in magazine however I don’t think this would be the best for magazines depending on the purpose and type of magazine it would be

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70%20%

10%

This bar graph shows what the best type of advertising is to my target

market.

Posters Newspaper LeaftletRadio Magazine Other

50%50%

This pie chart shows whether people would be more interested to take part if

it was for charity

Yes No

40%

45%

15%

This chart shows how much each customer is willing to pay.

Unwilling 5DHS 10DHS More

advertised in. Therefore this means I will need to advertise my event if it goes forward by posters across the school.

Observations

As part of conducting primary research I also decided to do observation within my school to see how many children didn’t participate in physical education over a period of 2 weeks with different age groups starting from 5 years of age to 18. The results are shown below:

Age Number of People Who Did NOT ParticipateYear 3 3Year 4 3Year 5 2Year 6 5Year 7 1Year 8 5Year 9 3Year 10 6Year 11 2Year 12 4Year 13 5

As you can see from this it shows what age group had the most students that didn’t participate in physical education over the last 2 weeks (this means 2 separate lessons). The reason why I have done this is so that I can see if there are a high percentage of students who do not participate in physical education. If there was, then my event wouldn’t be the best idea for this target market, as it shows that people will not be interested in taking part in a sporting event.

However one of the disadvantages of doing this could be the person who did not participate because they forgot their kit or because of an injury which means numbers would rise. I asked 3 people in the year 13 group why they didn’t participate in physical education to have better depth for my research. One student said they had forgotten their kit, another student said they didn’t have the correct shoes with them and another student just disliked sport. Therefore some of these results for students not participating could be for other reasons. I need to bare this in mind when analysing my results.

Overall, out of the course of 2 weeks, there were a total of 39 absences for people did not participate in physical education. On some occasions these students were the same over the 2 week period which is not a high percentage considering the amount of students within a year group. The year groups with the larger amount of absences were year 6, 10 and 13.

Sponsors

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At the beginning of making and planning what event I would like to do I didn’t want sponsors as I thought it wasn’t relevant. However, depending on the costing of the venue and other facilities this may not be able to be successful unless I have sponsorship money from businesses.. Therefore I needed to think of appropriate sponsors who would be interested in my type of event. As a result of this I chose certain companies which are situated in the UAE that would possibly be able to sponsor my event.

These are the companies that I have researched about which would possibly sponsor my event:

Gatorade - Gatorade is a brand of sports-themed food and beverage products, built around its signature product: sporting drinks. Gatorade is currently manufactured by PepsiCo which is also located in Dubai and distributed in over 80 countries.

Nandos - Nando's was founded in 1987, Nando's operates in thirty countries on five continents. Nando's specializes in chicken dishes with either lemon or herb, medium, hot, extra hot or extra extra hot Peri-Peri marinades. There are 4 different Nando’s restaurants in Dubai.

Fitness First - Fitness First is the largest privately owned health club group in the world. It comprises 540 Fitness First clubs worldwide reaching over 1.7 million members in 21 countries. There are over 7 different Fitness First Gyms in Dubai.

Zaks –this is the main supplier for school uniforms for most schools across Dubai, they provide DBS with school uniform and they aim to maintain the look and feel of discipline throughout the school.

My main priority is to achieve Gatorade and Nandos to sponsor my event the reasoning behind this is because Gatorade is one of the most famously known sports drinks, the reason the energy drink was made is for people doing sport in hot conditions. This is suitable for Dubai. The drink is well known across the UAE and worldwide and also supplies different drinks which are suitable to be sold at the event for people who are participating in sport and need to keep hydrated. Gatorade supply drink flavours so that more customers will enjoy the drink of their choice this is why I believe they are a suitable sponsor for my event.

Nandos is my other main choice to be an event sponsor as it is one of the most popular dining restaurants in Dubai where many people attend for the food. To a have a well known sponsor like Nandos for example, this can result in the prizes being well known and used by the customers if they enjoy the businesses services. Nandos is extremely well known business across the UAE and worldwide which should hopefully attract more customers to participate if they know they could win a free meal for two people.

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This will result in me contacting the correct businesses and asking them to sponsor my event. However, I will have to sell my event to these specific businesses so that they will be interested in my idea. I would be asking each sponsor to at least sponsor my event with 5000 AED so that it can help fund my event and get more recognition from customers as they will be familiar with the businesses who chose to sponsor me.

Fundraising

For my event I need to raise money so that it can go toward the cost of the venue, facilities, prizes and any additional costs. Therefore a good way to achieve raising this money is by holding different fundraising events within school time which should interest the students and teachers to give money for our event. These are a few ideas of how I would like to fundraise for the DBS 2012:

Non uniform day Cake sales Ice cream/ pop sales Handmade bracelet sales Jeans day Sweet sale Goody bags for occasions.

It is extremely important that we raise money to fund our event; these are a few ideas of how I would like to raise money for my event. The best idea and way to raise money is a non uniform day the reason is for this is because all students would like to wear their own clothes to school for a day which means this can involve all years and more students that trying to sell a specific item. With a small donation of 5dhs this will be a good way to raise money for the event without having to buy any raw materials. This is the same as jeans day. However cake sales and sweet sales are also good ways of raising money. These are products which are not sold within the school cafe; therefore people will be interested in buying this as they will not be able to get this all the time. On the other hand sales like this can appeal to a smaller target market which will mean it may not be as successful as a non uniform day. The more fundraising that happens, the better success my event as it would help fulfil one of my objectives: to make money!

Venue for DBS 2012 (Secondary Research)

My first part of research was to find a venue to stage the event. These are the stadiums in Dubai which are multipurpose and hold athletic tracks and facilities for what I need.

Zabeel Stadium Police Officers Club Stadium Al Rashid Stadium Dubai Sports City

These are the only multipurpose stadiums which are in Dubai. For the event which I want to hold it is important that the stadiums have the correct facilities for certain events to take place

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for example javelin, and long jump will require space and a sand pit for these races to take place. Without these it means that the types of races will be limited which can lead to less customers being interested in participating in my event. My first choice for the event would be to hold the event at the Police Officers Stadium as this is where DBS hold their yearly sports day. This helps as DBS already has contacts with the school, an important plus for any business looking to organise a venue.

Below is a brief explanation of each stadium including information about their facilities and venue.

Zabeel Stadium

Zabeel Stadium is based as a football stadium within the UAE. The capacity of the stadium was 18000 and is used by Al Wasl football club (managed by Diego Maradona). This is not extremely far way for most customers to travel as it is in the centre of Dubai. The stadium was opened in 1974 which makes the venue only 38 years old. The pitch area is made of grass and the venue has recently been renewed with a larger capacity which now makes the venue’s capacity 25000. This is also the first air conditioned venue in the

UAE. This venue supplies all the facilities that I would need to run my event. For example they have facilities such as:

Athletics track Long jump Hurdles Tennis courts Football pitch Basketball arena Javelin and discuss area.

Source: http://www.hausabah.com/alwasl/eng/main.html

Police Officers Club Stadium

The Police Officers Stadium is where DBS hold their yearly sports day event. Therefore this would be familiar to most students, teachers and parents of DBS. This would be my first choice to hold my event. However the company does not own their own website therefore details about their venue is very brief. The venue can be found behind Sheik Rashid road which is near Al Wasl’s Sports Club. This is also a multipurpose stadium which holds facilities for:

Athletics track

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Long jump Hurdles Javelin and discuss area Football Pitch

This stadium is commonly used by many schools in Dubai for sporting events. The capacity for the stadium is 7500 which is more than plenty for my amount of customers I aim to stage the event to.

Al Rashid Stadium

This stadium is located by Al-Rasheed Road in Dubai. This is another stadium which has no located website or information for customers to browse through therefore there is limited information that can be found about this venue. The capacity for this venue is 12000 which is again more people than I expect to stage my event to. However there are no lists of facilities that this venue supplies for customers. I will need to conduct further research involving, finding a contact number or email where I will have to enquire about additional information that I would need if I decide to choose this event. Source:http://uk.soccerway.com

Dubai Sports City

This is one of the largest venues at Dubai Sports City, with a capacity of 60,000 seats for a multi-purpose outdoor stadium. The stadium includes facilities such as:

Football Pitch Rugby Pitch Track & Field for athletics (Which includes other athletic events such as javelin and

long jump)

Dubai sports city has a wide range of information on their website. It shows stadiums that are indoor as well as outdoor. However to fulfil the needs for my event the stadium will need to be a multipurpose and outdoor, as facilities such as track and field have to be included which is only found on their outdoor stadium. Source: http://www.dubaisportscity.ae/

As my first choice for the venue was the Police Officers Club Stadium, I chose to contact Mr Wright who deals with sports day internally within the school to inquire contact details so that I could talk to them. However once speaking to him he advised me not to use this venue for the event as it is not an easy and fast process to book at this venue. As it would involve me having a meeting with a general police officer before any ideas of cost could be brought

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up. This would be unrealistic for the time frame that I have set to achieve to inquire costs and bookings. On the other hand by doing this it could jeopardise the DBS sports day which is not what the school would like. Mr Wright therefore suggested different venues which are listed above.

The next step for my event is to contact the relevant venues which I believe would benefit the customers and myself to host this DBS 2012 event. I have narrowed down my venues to Dubai Motor City Stadium, Police Officers Club Stadium and Al Wasl Sports Club (Zabeel Stadium). The reasons to why I have narrowed my choices down to these three venues is because these are in the best areas from the school itself and also supply the correct facilities and have the best mount of information and contact details so that I can get hold of the venues if I choose to use this as my final decision.

As you can see here these are the three businesses that I contacted to find out about how much their venues would cost and if they were available to be booked by Christmas time. Above shows the three venues which I was most interested in to use for my final event. The reasons why I didn’t choose the other two locations was because the facilities were limited which would stop me being able to hold certain events that may attract to potential customers. The other reasons why I chose to eliminate these options was the lack of information and contact information that I could find on the internet and by talking to people. Therefore, I came to the conclusion that these would not be the best two choices to hold a successful event. There is a print screen of an email which is sent to Sports City’s business. (Appendix 1.1)

After 2 days I still had no reply from any of the venues therefore I decided to email the companies again (Appendix 1.1) there is another example of my second email which I sent to Sports City Stadium. I would have thought that I would have had a reply within this time. After my second email I still received no feedback of information from any of the events therefore I decided to contact the business via phone. This was still unsuccessful as many of the businesses did not answer their emails or phone calls. I tried calling the venue 2 times each day over a period of 3 days. I had more success with Al Wasl, however they would put me on hold for 20 minutes at a time and then cut the phone call off. This was one of the most frustrating parts of researching and booking my event. This resulted in me having no venue for my event and no costing so I could conduct how much our team would be able to fundraise, therefore my event is not feasible to run.

Licences Needed for the Event

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By researching the internet I needed to find what licences were needed to hold my event, this is a vital element for the business as if laws and licenses are not given this can result in the event being shut down or fined money which is the last thing that the team needs when trying to stage a successful event which represents our school. The UAE does not hold many laws as this is how the country is run however licenses are still needed when events are taken place. This is the information that I found out when I collected a leaflet about licenses needed in the UAE:

“If you are hiring a venue to put on an event, check that the venue has a ‘Premises Licence’ or a ‘Club Premises Certificate’ issued by the City. The licence must cover the activities you are organising, for example, some premises are licensed for music and dancing but not for stage and film shows. Your event will also have to take place in the premises’ licensed opening hours. Also if you are holding an event at a venue that does not have a ‘Premises licence’ or a ‘Club Premises Certificate’ that covers your activities, you will need to serve a ‘Temporary Event Notice (TEN)’ on the Council and the Police at least 10 days before the event. TENs can cover events that last up to 96 hours and involve no more than 499 people” (Source: Licenses of Dubai)

This means I need to contact the relevant venue when I find out about costs so see if they have any additional licenses which are required and if they are available to book the event with their costs. As there was no response for both of the appropriate venues this lead me to having no relevant information about licenses for my event, which is another reason to why my event is not feasible.

Conclusion

For my event I have evaluated all my information and research that I have collected to see whether my event is feasible to go ahead. From my report you can see there are advantages and disadvantages to running this type of event for DBS. In my opinion I think the event idea and responses from students and teachers in the school were to a feasible standard where the event could take place and go forward with a large success. However one of my disadvantages is a main element to holding an event which would be the venue. With little communication back from 3 different venues this had made my feasibility test fail as there are no venues which I could get in contact with to follow up my idea. By having no venue this puts the event to a holt as a venue is one of the vital points to holding an event.

By not having any response from my chosen venues this then gave me another reason to why my event isn’t feasible as I could not ask what licenses I would need to make sure the event is legal to be run with no problems. This was another disadvantage to my idea and research as the internet did not provide this type of information for staging my event. Furthermore cost was one of my biggest issues and drawbacks to my event. By having a limited amount of communication from my venues I could not question them about if staff would be available and included within the event the same as refreshments and costing of the event. Therefore with no communication from my chosen event this was a huge disadvantage to my idea as I was not able to conclude any overall budget or costing that I would need for my event.

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Overall my idea would not pass a feasibility test as it would not be appropriate or realistic to carry out an event which has a high possibility of difficulties.

The Presentations

All of our ideas were presented to the class in a meeting which took place on Monday 17th September. The idea of this was to be aware of what each team member could bring to the table with their event idea and how it could work to become our event idea this year. During this we needed to evaluate the advantages, disadvantages and overall conclusion about each individual’s presentation within the group. By doing this Mr Bentley made minutes for each presentation so that we could keep track of each presentation and evaluate the questions which were brought up during the meeting.

Lauren Carson – DBS Mini Olympics

This was my presentation which I used to present my idea of a good successful event to the class. My first slide was the logo which I created that could have been used for the event if this went forward. Then I decided to discuss some background information about what the event was and just a overall review of what would be included in the event and how this could work. By selling this to the class I enhanced that the event could be placed to a large target market which would result in us being able to sell tickets to a larger amount of people which could increase revenue. I then gave an explanation to why I believe that we should hold the event, by showing the positives which were evaluated and backed up with good reasons so that I could persuade the other team members to be interested in my idea. These included having a wide target market, prizes, ending ceremony and different team races which can involve the students, parents and teachers within DBS.

I later discussed my target market into more depth so that the team members could understand how all ages could participate in the event. My following slides included information about the sponsors which I contacted and would like to use for this type of event. I gave some brief information so that the other team members within the group could understand why my sponsors were relevant to this event. I discussed the aims and objectives

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of my event. This included how they could be met so that the team members could see that this event could be achievable for our idea. Later I discussed my issues with the venue. This was one of my biggest disadvantages of my event idea and presentation as I had no response from my venue ideas which lead to me having a lack of research for overall costing and revenue. Therefore I had to discuss this with my other team members and how this was an issue which may or may not be resolved.

I could have bought further research to the table such as overall costs and information about charity. This was a lack of information that I had overall. It would have been better to show the team how much profit we could of made or how many tickets we could of sold so that we would of had a basic idea.

Lastly I explained the overall feasibility for my event and whether I believed it would work and go forward. Within this slide I discussed the problems which my idea caused, these included the lack of information about costs, venue and licenses which I would have needed to persuade my team members to choose my idea. With this information I believe that my presentation could have been better and more persuasive however without this element of research it caused me to make an overall decision within the time period that my event was not feasible to go forward.

Emily Playford – Golfing Tournament

Emily had chosen to research a golfing tournament for her idea of an event; this is known to be a successful event within the school as various golfing tournaments are brought to Dubai each year.

Basic Overview of the Event IdeaThe event idea included people within the school which were sixth form that could participate in a golfing tournament at the weekend in February, with an entry fee and an ending ceremony which was open to the public. (Parents or friends of the participants) she decided on Els Club Dubai which is located in sports city as her venue to stage her event. Her chosen sponsors which she contacted were

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Nandos, Taleem, Golf House and Reebok. She explained why she believed this should be the chosen event as it can raise awareness for the DBS applied class, it is a fun and enjoyable day for the customers who chose to participate and people who want to take part need no skills or experience. In Emily’s presentation she showed her primary and secondary research which she had conducted over a small period of time. This included how many people she surveyed, how much people were willing to pay to take part in this event and how much the club hire was for her chosen venue. Her next slide consisted of the costings which she had totalled. So she could explain to the team what her overall revenue from the event would be that could go to our chosen charity. Lastly she then shared her fundraising ideas and how she would like to raise money for her event to go forward.

The questions which were raised by the team after the presentation were:Were there enough golfers to justify the event?Are there any cheaper venue places to hold this?Were any costs estimated?

Advantages The idea is feasible and well planned out Popular idea which can attract parents and sixth form Good way to raise money for charity Wide range of venues looked at. Good fundraising ideas

Disadvantages The golf club were charging a lot of money for the hiring of facilities, as Mr Bentley

suggested YAS Links which offer better facilities and hiring for a cheaper price. The target market is limited to people only interested in golf. More than 14 people should participate

How can we improve this event with further research?We could improve this event by conducting more primary and secondary research. To improve by conducting primary research this would involve asking a wider audience from DBS if they would be interested in this event so that we could broaden the target market. The secondary research element can be improved by contacting the suggested venue which would give us a cheaper location to hold the event so that we save money and make a higher profit that can go towards charity. Also it was suggested weather moving the event to November when the ‘Race To Dubai’ is here so that it will bring more people to join our event as they will be in the golfing spirit. Lastly this could be improved by having more players and an organised shotgun start so that there is no confusion or waiting for players that are participating. Overall the event idea could be feasible however with these limitations of a low target market and price for customers to pay for the event this would most likely not be as successful as the previous year’s DBS Factor as it appealed to a larger target market and prices for people to participate were free and for other customers to watch were only 40 DHS.

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Harley Allison – DBS Football Tournament

Harley had chosen to research a football tournament for her idea of an event, which involved the students of Dubai British School.

Basic Overview of the Event IdeaThe event idea included people within the school to participate in a football tournament which would take place in February. This included an entry fee per player per team and would end with a ceremony with prizes. Harley decided to use IFA Sports Pitch as her venue for this event. She looked at another venue which was Emirates English Speaking School, but settled with IFA. She planned on this being a 7aside event with a target market of years 7’s to sixth form. The cost was explained within this presentation showing that it would cost 100DHS for the use of referees and 450DHS per pitch per hour from Saturday to Thursdays, and Fridays only costing 225DHS per hour per pitch on a Friday. She later discussed who her chosen sponsors were and these included Adidas, Nike and Nandos. She didn’t not have a reply from any of these in the short time period we had. Furthermore she then evaluated the feasibility of her event and if it would be realistic to go ahead and then discussed her objectives for the event and how they could be achieved so that this was successful.

Advantages Good choice of venue Relative sponsors chosen Large target market Good overall idea

Disadvantages Misunderstood the revenue and profit therefore we would only may 75DHS from the

event. Mixed teams which would be unfair and a disadvantage for younger children Needed more the 6 teams in the tournament Pitching hours needed to be extended

The questions which were raised by the team after the presentation were:Where the costing correct and if so could she explain?How would the teams work together with the ages?How did the use of the pitches work for the amount of matches being played?

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How can we improve this event with further research?This could be improved by carrying out some more research into making the event feasible. By changing the hours of when the pitches are booked out and turning the event into a daily activity this could improve and make the tournament work. Moreover by having more than 6 teams being able to enter with rounds such as quarter finals, semi finals and finals this will lead a more organised and well thought way of being able to make this realistic. However the costing will need to be adjusted so that money is made for charity and revenue of more than 75DHS is achieved. However this can be overcome by more sponsors and fundraising across the school. The only problem which may occur to make this more feasible would be to shorten the target market so that the ages that are participating do not have an advantage over the others and so that it is a fair event. This event could be feasible with a lot more thought about how this could run smoothly and fixing limitations however this is similar to the golfing tournament the target market is very limited as most girls will not want to participate in a football match against or with boys. Also with such a low amount of money being given to charity the previous year’s event which was the DBS factor would be better than this which is not what we want to happen as we want to raise awareness for applied and make sure that are event is better than the previous years.

Scott Carson – Eclipse

Scott had chosen to research a themed nightclub evening for 21+ for his idea of an event; this is a popular event within the UK and UAE as many performers visit Dubai to perform and is a popular leisure activity amongst a large amount of people within the UAE.

Basic Overview of the Event IdeaThe event idea included people across Dubai who are aged 21 or over. This event is based to persuade customers amongst the UAE to attend to a themed nightclub with a famous performer over different seasonal occasions in Dubai. His event Eclipse is a charitably music event that he chose to hold at Trilogy which is located at Atlantis. The event is raise money for sport within the UAE. His charity which he chose to raise money for is called Sport for Music Charity. The venue he chose had a capacity of 1100 people with 2 rooms and a bar where drinks can be purchased. Within the presentation Scott mentioned why this event should be carried through. These included to raise awareness for a good cause, good life experience, a large industry and trade to get in and how it can open a lot of doors by doing an event like this and working with promoters and acts which will be

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organised to perform at the event.. Moreover Scott included his costs within his presentation and how much it would be on average to hire the venue, DJ’s Promotion and more he also showed his workings out for revenue and profit which would go to charity. Lastly Scott included what he believed was important when running this type of event which included elements of promoting so that people would be persuade to choose his event other others that could be staged at similar times in Dubai, build-up, regular contact and commitment from all team members so that this would be an successful event.

Advantages

Well thought out business idea. Strong amount of information about his chosen charity and how it could make a difference

with our help. Good choice of venue with a good reputation Deal with Virgin for sponsorship

Disadvantages Confusion over overheads on the costing Primary research that needs to come from external customers from DBS of correct age Holding an event which the team members are not old enough to participate in.

The questions which were raised by the team after the presentation were:What were the overheads involved?How will you attract people to choose your event other others?Did you email Virgin?

How can we improve this event with further research?We could improve this event by contacting the local authorities so see if this event is feasible to be run by the team as our ages within the group are under 21. Also by conducting some primary research which is external to DBS to find out if people would attend and be interested in a event like this so that we would have a larger potential target market where more customers would be aware of this event happening and which DJ or performer they would like to see. However the costings may need to be slightly adjusted depending on if the event is sold out to the complete capacity that the venue holds, because if we would need to sell a reasonable amount of tickets so that we make a good revenue and profit. However sponsors and ticket prices for the event were realistic and feasible for this to go forward which means that this could be a successful event in the future. However for the period of time that we have to stage our event this would not be feasible at the time as the ages of students within the school are below what the target market is therefore this would involve a lot of advertising and promoting of this event out of school hours and out of the school location which means it may be harder to keep in contact with people who would like to attend the event and could cause a limited amount of people arriving, therefore with this previous year’s event they were able to attract the customers within the school as well as participants friends and family come to the event to watch the performers on stage which resulted in the event being sold out which gave them a high revenue so that they were able to give to charity which would be another objective that our team would like to reach.

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Amina Darwood – DBS Dance

Amina had chosen to research a DBS Dance show for the students of Dubai British School.

Basic Overview of the Event IdeaThe event idea included people within the school to take part in a dance show, by having auditions to finalise the acts for the show. This was aimed to take place in February 2013. Amina has chosen to aim her event for Year 7,8,9,10,11 and sixth form. This is because more people can participate in this event which gives her a larger target market. She talks about her chosen sponsor for the event in her presentation these included Nandos, Nike and Adidas. Her reason behind choosing Nike and Adidas is because of the clothing range they sell for dancing. Amina then discussed her possible venues for the event. These included Ductac, Zabeel hall and DBS Sports hall. She claimed that Ductac was too expensive and Zabeel capacity was too large for the event therefore she decided to choose the DBS sports hall as her venue choice to stage the event. Moving on from this she then explained to us her objectives for this type of event and how they could benefit us. However she seemed confused about what her objectives were really about, as two seemed very similar. Costs were then brought up and discussed however this also seemed like an unlikely event as the costs were predicated and not researched as 2000 DHS for producing tickets is very expensive and unrealistic. Advantages

Feasible idea Good choice of sponsors

Disadvantages Objectives were incorrect and needed to be rethought for this idea to succeed. Little research on location for the event as was proven when presented Costs were made up as she didn’t not know who her lightening company was Incredibility high amount of money for ticket production.

The questions which were raised by the team after the presentation were: Who is the lighting company?

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Why is the production of tickets so high? What the capacity of DBS sports hall? How much does Ductac costs?

How can we improve this event with further research?We could improve this event by collecting a lot more correct research and information which is needed to see whether if this event if feasible and realistic to run. For example the costs would need to be researched as well as primary research so that we could create an overall budget or revenue. This would be followed by seeing how many people would like to participate in the event and how many people would watch so that we could choose a suitable venue where we could hold enough for the amount of people wanting to pay for a ticket and come to the event. We would also need to re think the objectives and change them so that they are fit for purpose so our event can run more smoothly where we can achieve an overall successful event. Overall this event is not feasible to be run as there was a lack of information which would result in us having little knowledge of the idea before we even started it which is taking a risk for the team and for the overall outcome of what the event would be like. The previous year had a really successful event therefore by not achieving ours to the same standards would not raise good awareness for DBS and the applied class. This would result in this not being the final decision from my point of view of the class.

Kirsty Gordon – Teachers Vs Students Basketball Match

Kirsty had chosen to research a student’s Vs teacher’s basketball match for the internal customers of Dubai British School.

Basic Overview of the Event IdeaThe event idea included people within DBS to part in a student’s Vs teacher’s basketball match that would take place in March on a school day. Kirsty aimed her target market for the event at all ages within the school including sixth form and teachers. This gave us a large target market so more people would be able to participate and watch the event if it went forward. Kirsty chose her venue for the event to be held in the DBS Sports hall as all facilities were available as well as an area for people to be able to sit and watch. This was a benefit for the event as the venue is free to use and convenient for the people participating as changing rooms are also inside the hall as well as the venue is on the school site. Kirsty explained that they have already held a basketball match like this at the school which was successful therefore this was another benefit if we agreed on staging this idea for our event. Moreover Kirsty then discussed her sponsor for the event these were Costa Coffee, Nandos, Gatorade and MPac. She suggested to the class that her father would be able to give us a sponsoring from Costa coffee which was excellent news for the group as well as Gatorade replying but cannot

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sponsor this event at that time of the year. Kirsty explaining the reasoning for why she had chose this event to be in March is because of the basketball season starts therefore people who are interested in this will be more enthusiastic to take part. However there were no costs involved and a few disadvantages brought up as the team were unsure if year 7’s would be on the same team as sixth form etc along with holding this event in school hours where parents would be at work and unable to watch the event. However the overall event idea could be feasible however, I don’t believe that it would be as good as the previous year event idea as this is very limited to who can participate and watch. Also there were no prizes or costing involved there is a lack of information which could show us that this event will be more successful than the year before.

Advantages

Easy and cheap venue Successful idea in the past Sponsors Wide target market

Disadvantages No objectives discussed No costs discussed Confusion of the different ages being put together, is this fair? The time of the event taking place

The questions which were raised by the team after the presentation were: Are all ages playing together? Can you charge people to enter the sports hall for this event? Who did you speak to about the sports hall?

How can we improve this event with further research?

We could improve this event by changing the formation of how the ages and teams would work, this may result in shortening the target market or grouping the ages which would consist of a longer match which would result in changing the day and times for the event to be staged. Moreover to make money for charity we would have to do more research and see if you can charge pupils to enter the sports hall to watch this event as some people may be put off by the idea as they pay to go to school as it is anyway. There wouldn’t be many changes to this event as this is a easy event which can be staged with less complications than some of the others.

Conclusion

Overall after being presented all of these ideas I believe that the talent show from the previous years would be the best event idea that we could choose, the reasoning for this would be the school are aware of this event and certain students look forward to this every year which opens up our target market already. Both boys and girls can participate in this event with any talent that they have. Parents and friends of people who participate are willing to pay and watch the event which would mean the target market for selling our tickets too

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would easily be achieved if there was a wide range of participants involved in the running of the event. Moreover this is a school tradition which can be successful and improved from the years before which would definitely meet our aims and objectives to be able to raise awareness for the DBS applied class and the school as a whole.

The Final Decision

Once we had a discussion about all 8 different possible events as a team we drew out the best ideas and the ideas which we believed wouldn’t work. After discussing these option we were left with two that we all agreed could have been a successful and positive choice, These were:

Golf day Talent show

The final decision was quite simple for our team, we decided what we believed would be the best way of choosing the final event we summed up the advantages and disadvantages and the advantages of each event. This lead us to knowing that the golf day would of been more successful leading to a higher revenue however everyone within the team had a larger interest for the Talent show as it had a larger reputation from the previous years and this would be easier to follow with guidance from our teacher and other sources. Therefore to decided what we wanted we had a group vote and the majority of the whole class wanted to carry on the reputation of the talent show for our choice of event. The Talent show is substantial as its challenging but effective because it’s interesting. By continuing this tradition we have realised that it broadens the target market for participants and customers which would come and watch the event. This also would be good for each individual of the team as they would be able to bring their own skills to the table whereas a golf event may lead to many of the team members having a lack of skills or knowledge within the area.

These are the following reasons to why we chose the Talent Show as our event for this year:

Reputation is high due to previous years Sufficient scope – enough detail for the exam board Firsthand experience from previous events Popular amongst students – attracts people Feasible Will raise money for charity Promotes image of school and applied course Manageable events Targets different age groups across the school Demand for event from students – considered enjoyable; attendance guaranteed Has become tradition of the school for the Applied A Level students to organise Proven success from previous years Scope to improve from previous years Choices of venue available Appropriate for a school event

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High profit margin Less risky as has been done before Permission from Head Teacher granted

Aims and Objectives for the Event

What is an aim?

Most business will have aims and objectives so that they can reach their target goal. Aims are what the business will want to achieve overall in the long term. Whereas objectives break down the aim so that they can achieve what they are aiming for in the event.

For this event as a team we needed to create aims and objectives so that the event will run smoothly and our main achievements are met. If we want this to be successful then we needed to create objectives which will help the event become successful, therefore the objectives which I create need to be SMART.

This then lead us to breaking these aims down into objectives so that we would have an easier way of achieving our aims.

What is an objective?

Objectives are ways that businesses can achieve their aims of an event, this leads to each aim having a set of objectives. As a team we decided that it would be appropriate to create accurate objectives that would be able to fulfil our aims success. SMART is used to remember the nature of our objectives.

S - Specific

M - Measureable

A – Achievable

R - Realistic

T – Timed

These are the aims that us a team decided on being for our final event:

1. Raise money for charity2. Increase awareness for the charity, school and applied course3. Increase overall performance of event from last year

After we created our aims for the event these were the aims broken down into objectives:

Aim 1 – Raise money for charity

To ensure successful fund raising events

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Increase number of acts to ensure more ticket sales Increase sponsorship to at least 3 sponsors Increase advertising to ensure more ticket sales Produce a DVD/photographs of event to purchase

Aim 2 – Increase awareness for the charity, school and applied course

Increase outside media coverage Increase promotion of event through fund raising events within school Increase awareness through assemblies, posters, school newsletter and internet

Aim 3 – Increase overall performance of event from last year

Greater variety of acts - ages and style of acts Greater organisation and communication within the event team and outside

organisations Produce a DVD/photographs of event to purchase To increase audience satisfaction through overall service provided e.g. understand

problems from previous events and evaluation survey to assess level of enjoyment Good prizes for participants Adequate venue and facilities

Additional objectives:

To learn new skills within event management

Criteria for Judging Success

As a team we conducted a criteria of what we believed would ensure us if we succeeded in our event and how we would achieve this success. The following is what we chose as a team that would indicate that we achieved our event successfully:

Make a larger profit than last year, sufficient to donate to charity Wider variety of acts Higher number of participants than previous years Venue filled to capacity with all tickets sold Good organisation and communication from the event team with whole team

participation Suitable location of venue Smooth running of event All deadlines are met Whole school community involved Entertainment for everyone with positive feedback from performers and the audience

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Throughout all aspects of running and creating the event, as a team we will be constantly reminding ourselves of what aims and objectives we set to achieve to be sure that we succeed in every way possible. As well as this we will also be looking at our criteria to make sure that we increase and achieve our success of the final event. by creating this it can hopefully create a positive and enjoyable event for everyone.

Chosen Charity For The Event

As a class we had to decide that the final profits from this event will be donated to a charity of our choices. As a class this was a decision whether we changed the charity which the previous years used or just continued to use the same. When deciding this we conducted a questionnaire which included the question which charity would you like to see the profits go to. (See Appendix)

We had a variety of different answers from different people these are some of the most popular charities that were suggested:

Red Cross Support for workers Dubai Autism Centre Cancer Research

However after discussing as a team which charity to use we were informed that Dubai Autism Centre deal with all paper work and do this for our benefit whereas the other charities didn’t which would mean this can be more time consuming and more work for us as a team. On the other hand, as many people also suggested continuing and using Dubai Autism Centre this is what we did. Also we felt that it was important to continue to support this charity as it is helping less able students an opportunity to be educated.

Dubai Autism Centre (DAC) is a non-profit organization within Dubai and provides its students with a holistic intervention program that includes academics and various therapies – behavioural, speech, occupational, music and play as well as professional medical care

As a team we felt that it is more important to increase the awareness of the charity as we believe that all students and children across the UAE deserve equal opportunities to learn in any learning environment by supporting the autistic children from one school community to another.

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Section B

Feasibility of the event

Market research

Marketing for the event

Contingency plans

Financial resources

Physical resources

Human resources

Administrative systems

Target customers

Event timescales

Legal aspects

Pre-Carry out the event

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Feasibility Stage

When sufficient research is not carried out and planning is not taken place there is an increased risk of the project failing. Any business would ensure that they carried out some form of research which can include primary or secondary to ensure that the event is not too expensive for their budget, a high risk of failing or that there is a common interest in the event which the business is trying to create. If an organisation receives negative feedback then this opens their opportunities to change the event idea which is in place or drop the plans before they have gone along with it.

What is a feasibility study?

As the name implies a feasibility study is an element which analyses the viability of an idea. “The feasibility study focuses on helping answer the essential question of “should we proceed with the proposed project idea?” All activities of the study are directed toward helping answer this question.” (source: www.extension.iastate.edu). If a business has a project idea and believes that it can work they will still do a feasibility study on the idea so that they have research to show as evidence of how this will be achievable. However if a business decides not to do this can goes ahead with their plans but however it is not feasible that can lead to the idea failing and the business losing money and increasing problem for the employees, managers and organisation itself.

These are some of the benefits to why businesses carry out feasibility studies within their organisations:

Better time management of the actual event Costings – will it be within budget Permission likely Understand scope of the event e.g. theatre size Increase success of the event It helps to reduce risk and uncertainty. It eases people into their roles. The team thinks through their event logistics and resource needs in a logical sequence. It brings to light any unrealistic assumptions which may have been made, such as

costs of materials. It establishes whether the preparation period (timescale) is sufficient. It establishes whether the event could actually happen, or where changes need to be

made in order to make the project happen. It gives the business on outline of the event and when to set deadlines or targets to

achieve.

Businesses have several different ways of carrying out feasibility studies, these can include survey, interviews and financial costing.

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Primary research

Throughout my report I will provide evidence of the different research we have produced as a team to show if our event will be feasible.

Primary research is data which is created by the researcher for the first time, this means it if fresh and first time collected information. This type of research does not include finding information from books and the internet. It involves the individual and the team itself going out of their comfort zone and collecting information by talking to customers or clients which may later be used throughout the project. This can be achieved by sending out or asking questionnaires to the potential customers of the event, testing on the public or holding interviews. If the data is organised properly the primary research which is collected can then be used to give opinions and answers to the questions that have been asked to the target market. This can then support ideas and decision making amongst the team.

Secondary researchThis is a type of research that has been undertaking by someone else or another company, this can also be known as desk research. Many people use this type of research for feasibility studies as it is able for them to gain contact numbers and brief information about what companies they may be dealing with and background history so they can broaden their knowledge beforehand. These are some examples of secondary research sources:

Examples of secondary research: Internet – for example search generators such as Google, Bing and Yahoo. By typing

key terms this can generate thousands of results of information Text books In house journals Newspapers TV documentaries Sales figures and own company and competitors Government publication Competitors websites and products Magazines Posters, leaflets and handouts

Advantages With technology advancing rapidly this makes it easier and faster to use the internet on many computing and SMART android devices. This can make work and researching data less time consuming than primary research which is good as it’s cheaper and most of the time free. The internet is open 24 hours a day all year round therefore it is available to use whenever its needed. Technology isn’t the only source to be used there is a wide range like books, newspapers, magazines, TV documentaries, text books etc. The difference between primary and secondary research is that primary can only cover a small area of data where as secondary can cover to a wider scale which makes this more useful when needing to know and broaden knowledge about a specific topic. The facts are normally 100% in new books

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and the research could be done by a professional. There are also a wide range of sources to use with are larger samples whereas primary research covers a smaller area.

Disadvantages Just as there are several disadvantages for primary research they are also disadvantages for secondary research, as there are no first hand data such as questionnaires or interviews from customers. This can then make the data less reliable as it may be old information and less up to date. This can then make the data less accurate and can lead to the business increasing more problems if they have researched false data via the internet. By doing secondary research it is fast however sometimes it can be time consuming trying to find the specific information that you would like which then slows the process down. Secondary research can also include a lot of reading and researching on the topic by searching around.

Financial Feasibility

Financial feasibility is an aspect of the business which will always need to be assessed very carefully as this will cover the income and expenditure for a range of event needs:

For example the business will need to consider what the starting up costs are, and what initial purchases will be needed to be investigated promptly. Depending on the business this could include licenses, permits, hall hire and raw materials. Financial feasibility will also include the overall budget for the event and how this will be derived from each cost centre and will cover all resources such as marketing, staffing, raw materials and contingences. Other aspects that the business will need to consider are the total income which they desire to achieve overall and where it will come from. This will include set targets which will include set prices to cover costs, donations, sponsorship and more. Cash flow is another element which will come under this finical feasibility the business will need to decide how this will be handled and if they are ensuring that there is correct record keeping, so that they do not over spend or over budget themselves. Some organisations depending on the event will have to consider if there are any insurance costs for cancellation, accident or damage. Lastly the business will need to look into if a budget is needed for unseen costs such as repairs, refunds, damage lost and charges such as VAT. However in Dubai there are no VAT charges, which results in this not being a major problem for our event.

Areas to Test at Feasibility Stage

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Aims and Objectives Raise money for charityIncrease awareness for the charity, school and applied courseIncrease overall performance of event from last yearThese are the aims which we have chosen as a team above, we have also created suitable objectives for these aims.Customers/Participants On the customers behalf there should be a high demand as the show has a good repuatation, with a large enjoyment level. and this show is also related to various TV Shows world wide. On the participants behalf this is good as they are able to show off their talents to the school and customers watching, it also means they are competing against others with the chance to win prizes. this also shows they have been involed with the school.This is also good for the schools reputation and commuinty as a whole.MarketingPrice - 40 Dhs for tickets, however many other financial aspects need to be covered.Product - A School Talent Show which is attractive and enjoyable for the customers and particpants of the commuinty.Place - Several locations have been looked at our three main venues included Madinat, Dubai British School and DUCTACPromotion - We have created posters, leaftlets and have started fundraisers to raise money and awareness for the school and applied team/event.Physical Resources Lighting SoundStageSeatingPrizesVenue PresenterFinanceSchool Loan, Sponsors such as Nandos, Costa and TaaleemOne member of the team will be assigned to managing the finance of the eventStaffing We will be using the applied team in year 12 for staffing on the event dayTtey will attend a few meeting so that they are aware of their job roles and how to undertake their jobsTeachers will be used to help staff the event.Our team will also be staffing and helping the event so that all tasks run smoothly.AdministrationDocuments have been held on a join email account aswell as a private webpage.Important documents such as money, licenses as so on will be held within the school administrations officeOne member of the team will be selected to organise the administraion of the eventTimescale and TargetsThe event will be held on February 5th 2013.We will need to plan when auditions will be and when rehearsal will take place.We will need to plan fundraising events and prizes for contestents.We aim to acheive a beter profit that previous years for our charity.Legal Aspects We need to research that the event is staying within the law's of the UAEAny acts will need to acceptable and respectable within the UAE Now we have chosen a suitable event for our project, we started to research the important aspects that need focusing on. This is so we can plan how we can achieve this and relate it

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back to our aims and objectives. The table below shoes all the aspects we will research and complete for the talent show.

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Market Research

Now we have chosen our final event to proceed with we can start our own research. This was one of the first pieces of research that we carried out related to the talent show in order to see what the customers wanted. Due to this I conducted a survey which was given to a selection of students within Dubai British School:

Event Questionnaire

Applied Year 13 are conducting a talent show for our coursework which we are planning to arrange for February 2013 , please could you take 2 minutes of your time to answer the

following questions.

1. Do you like shows such as The X-factor and Britain’s got talent?Yes No

2. Did you attend the previous talent shows which have been held at the school, if so would you go again? If you have not would you go this year?

Yes No

3. Would you be interested if DBS held a talent show?Yes No

4. Would you like to participate or attend? Participate Attend Neither

5. If you chose to participate, what act would you show? Singing Dancing Acting Comedy Drama Other (please specify)

6. How much would you spend to watch a talent show? 20-30 AED 31 -40 AED 41 -50 AED

7. Would you like the show to be held on a weeknight or weekend? Weeknight Weekend

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Survey Results

These were the results that we received back after asking 30 different students amongst Dubai British School. As you can see from question 1. 19 people

that we asked said that they liked shows such as XFactor and Britain’s Got Talent. Only 11 People disagreed and said they did not like these shows or

did not watch these due to where they had been bought up. This was a good response from our

survey to continue and use this idea for our final event.

The second question which we asked our customers was whether they attended the talent show the previous years and if they would continue to come again and if they had not been but would come this year. For this we received that 21 people said they would come again some being new comers that had not attended before and some being previous customers to the event. This then lead 9 people which said they would not attend. Some being too that they wouldn’t if their friends or family were not taking part and others said it wasn’t at their highest interest.

Our third question was very similar to the previous question which was asked. As you can see we recorded 23 people that said they would be interested in the show and 7 people which said they wouldn’t be. Most of the people’s answers were dependant on who would be participating weather this would be friends or family members or teachers from the previous years. Therefore this could change later on when we hold auditions for

final acts.

The next question which we asked students was whether they were interested in participating or attending the event. As you can see from these results 9 people said they would like to participate or audition, 15 students said they would like to attend and 6 said neither. This is not a bad ratio of

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Yes No0

5

10

15

20

25

Would you be interested if DBS held a talent show?

Series1

Yes No05

10152025

Did you attend the previous talent shows which have been held at the school, if so

would you go again? If you have not would you go this year?

Series1

Yes No02468

101214161820

Do you like shows such as The X-factor and Britain’s got talent?

Series1

answers for this as it can help us adapt to persuading more people to attend that are currently not interested and it gives us an idea of how many loyal customers we have already and number of auditions that we could potentially get.

As only 9 students said they were interesting in participating in the show this question could only apply to them. The following answers which we received was the following :5 Singing2 Dancing1 Acting0 Comedy1 Dramaand 0 Other

This was one of our toughest answers which we received as we want to move away from the talent show being a singing contest each year as some people said it starts to become boring. Therefore we needed to make sure that we could find other people with different talents when holding auditions. However if this was not possible we would have to follow the same years and have more singers than other acts which isn’t a problem but wouldn’t reach our aim to change the event to have its own unique point this year.

This was an important question that we needed to ask the customers of our event as we were discussing as a team to increase the prices of the tickets this year to raise more money for the Dubai autism centre. Therefore we asked students what they would be willing to pay for a ticket to the show. As you can see from this bar chart 7 students said they would pay 20-30, 10 students said they would pay 30-40 which was around the same prices as the year

before and 13 students said they would be willing to pay 40-50 as the cause is for a charity and they know that there money is going to help others which was a great answer that we received from this survey as a team.

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20-30 AED 31 -40 AED 41 -50 AED02468

101214

How much would you spend to watch a talent show?

Series1

Singing Dancing Acting Comedy Drama Other (please

specify)

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

If you chose participate what act would you show?

Series1

Participate Attend Neither02468

10121416

Would you like to participate or attend?

Series1

20 of the students that we asked said they would prefer that the show was held on a weeknight due to having plans and commitments at the weekends which would mean they would have less chance of attending the show, whereas 10 people said that they would like to have it on the weekend as the show is usually late on weeknights and this would involve having school the next day.

Golf Day - Research

A first part of my primary research for the event was with my team researching a popular event in Dubai called ‘The Race to Dubai Golf World Championship’ from this we asked 20 attendees that

visited the event for their opinions. We decided to use this to help us know the positive and negative aspects of an event in general due to the public opinions as well as how we can apply this to our finial

event.

1. Do you think this is a good location and why?

All people that we asked this question agreed and said that they believed it was a good location to place the event, as it is in a large spacious area with a wide range of facilities and views that the public can visit. The golf course is easy to access to be able to watch and the club house is professional and clean for people to visit or apply if you are considering becoming a visitor. Overall most people were happy with the location choice as it gives you a range of activities to participate in the day and you can view the golf course from a wide range of places so that you do not miss any of the golfing action. Relating this to our talent show went in February this shows us that it is important that you choose the correct venue to hold an event as the public value where the event is being hosted as well as the facilities that are included within the venue. As we are using DUCTAC for the event this is one of the most spacious venues that we could afford to use with a wide range of facilities that can be provided within the centre if not the mall.

Advantages Disadvantages The parking was really good and

close to the main gate for everyone. Jumeirah Golf estate has been very

well created. Taxi drivers were aware of the

location. Spacious and wide amount of space.

The location is set for directions right next to a busy main roundabout that holds a lot of traffic

Traffic staff could have been more helpful.

2. What do you think of the services provided?

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Weeknight Weekend 0

5

10

15

20

25

Would you like the show to be held on a weeknight or weekend?

Series1

All 20 of the people which we asked this question to said the services provided were good as there was a wide range of services that the public could visit or enquire about. Moreover some of the stalls were able to give prizes or freebies to the public which would be able to draw in more attendees. Some stalls offered products that the public could win if they entered (contributing in a quiz for example.) some of the services that all 20 people were disappointed in was the small choice of food offered to the public as well as the prices that they were charging for these services. The most successful service that 15 of the attendees were impressed with was the bar due to the wide range of beverages available charged at standard prices that they would expect to pay for these items. 7 people that attended said that the best services provided was the free golf lessons or golf activities as it related to the event and gave them the opportunity to be able to participate in what they attended the event for.

Relating this to our event services provided would be inside of DUCTAC for example there are refreshments available to be bought as well as toilets and general facilities and services that would be needed inside a theatre. However this year we are giving the opportunity for the general public that attend the public to have the chance of winning prizes that are worth over 1,000 DHS.

3. If this event was not free would you still have attended?

8 attendees said they would of not still visited the event if it was not free as they are not highly interested in golf and they attend to socialise and visit the different stall or promotions that are available within the venue. Some of the attendees said they attend to give their children a day out experiencing the golf and the different activities that are available for them free of charge. Moreover 12 people that we asked said they would still attended if the event was not free as they are more than willing to pay to see the golf as this was either interest of sport or hobby. They also said they would still of attended as there is a wide variety of stalls that are available which offer free promotions that they would be interested in.

Therefore relating this to our event, previous years have all charged for this event as it helps cover costs and raises money for Dubai Autism Centre therefore we are able to charge money as the public are willing to pay.

4. Is this a good time of the year to hold an event if so why?

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Yes No0

4

8

12

Bar Chart Showing - How Many Members of the Public Would Still Attend the Golf Day if they

Had to Pay

15 people said they wouldn’t agree that this was a good time of the year to hold this type of event as it is very hot in the day which leads to most people feeling dehydrated also they said that the venue does not provide enough places that have shade therefore this would have to be an improvement. Moreover 5 people said they believe it was a good time of the year as it is nice weather and is the correct time to hold golfing event due to the golf championships.

Our event will not be outside however it has been arranged at a good time of the year (February) as this is the middle of the school year and just before a holiday so a late night will not be a huge problem for the people coming to watch the event. We had to choose this particular time because we need to consider the time of year for students because of exams and holidays.

5. How did you find out about the event?

The answers that were provided from the questions shows me that there was a wide range of marketing techniques used to promote this event, also I proved an example answer that showed that the public had seen advertisements on roads that brought their attention to visiting the venue. Moreover for our event as it is not on such a large scale will be using school newsletter, assemblies, posters, ticket sales, website, t-shirts, fund raising and auditions to raise awareness for DBS Has Talent this year. This will then ensure that more people are aware of the talent show and hopefully buy tickets and attend.

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I always drive past the huge advertisement

(Billboard) by the green community

round about ion the way to work, always catches my eye and

persuaded me to sign up and attend this

year!

Yes25%

No75%

Pie Chart Showing - Is This Considered a Good Time of the Year to Hold This Event?

“Such a wide range of activities for my children, all free of charge. All stall were labelled helped me

out a lot!”

6. Do you think it is well organised and why?

There were a wide amount of information stall and informed staff which were around the area at all times, this was good as it showed they were organised and ready to help if directions were needed. As well as this all areas were marked or names so that the customers were aware of where they were going. There was also a large amount of activities for children therefore the event had thought out its target market which is good as accommodated for all ages. Most of the people that we asked would agree that the event was regularly organised and well thought through. They also provided maps for the public that wanted to view the different pitches for the golf. For our

talent shows, we will have fully informed staff by using peers to help with the overall organisation, all job allocations will be given to the younger years as well as our team itself. Before the show starts we will run sounds checks for all auditions and make sure that everything is in order so that we limit mistakes.

Primary Research (Businesses)

1. What marketing do you use and why?

BMW – BMW used two different bike models to promote their products for the day as well as car models placed around the course so that people are able to look at the products that they sell and how it looks in person. This is their most used promotion at the event this weekend as it gives the chance for the customer to see their newly ranged products that are on the market and ask any addition information about them so they can find out about more.Fitness First – the marketing they used this day was offering people free day passes for the course of 3 days. This is a good way to promote their products as this gives the chance for the public try out their service so they will have a larger percentage of people joining if they have enjoyed their trial. Fitness first was also marketing by offering free socks to people that come by and visit their stall for information about their gyms and promotions which they are offering for the golf day. The reasoning they stated that they use this method of promotion is so the customers are able to try their gym for free of charge and this will bring more people to use the gym than paying for it when they haven’t already tried therefore by doing this they will be able to see if they experience a good time at the business and if this is achieved they may choose to become a member or visit more regularly than before. Emirates – the promotion which emirates were using at the golf day was to offer the chance for one member of the public to win a trip to Scotland with accommodation and free flights from emirates. This type of promotion gives the opportunity for someone to take part in participating in a quiz and winning their promotional prize. The reason emirates stated that they do this is as the winner will be able to use emirate and experience their service which may mean the winner may use this airline of they have a good experience when flying also this may encourage the winner to use the airline company more often than before.

2. What type of marketing is most successful?

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BMW – the most successful marketing that BMW use is by promoting their products at venue’s where they are sponsoring so that the public are able to view the items in real life as well as look and ask for information from a trained employee if needed. They said when they sell promotions on new cars or motorbikes are also one of their most popular marketing techniques as the public are always looking at saving their money when it comes to buying newly ranges vehicles therefore BMW always have first month offers on selected models that they sell. Fitness First – fitness first believe their most successful marketing campaigns includes discounts on membership fees at the beginning of the year or free trails to the public for example what they offered at the golf day. The reason for this is people are looking at saving money on memberships at the beginning of the year due to New Year resolutions. However offering free trials to the public also mean more people are willing to give the business a try therefore they use this more often as they will end up with more people joining or using the gym if they offer free trails so that the customer can give it a go first before committing their money.Emirates – emirates believe that their most popular marketing strategy is offering reduced prices on their flights as most people will prefer to choose an airline which has new facilities such as emirates and when offering prices which are lower than usual and around competitors prices they are able to have more customer book flights with them. They do this at peak times of the years when people don’t not fly to a large degree however if customer need to travel by airline emirates offer a good service and by offering cheaper/reduced prices this is a huge benefit to customers and always ends up with the business making more money and gaining more customers flying with their airline.

3. Why is it important to wear uniform/ company logo?

BMW – the reason we wear our logo around our events which we visit to sell and promote our products is so that people are aware that we are working for the business and if they have any questions they know who they can come and ask. Fitness First - we wear our logo and company uniform so that it raises awareness that we are involved in the business and so that customers know who to come and ask if they need information or help about fitness first. Emirates – we wear our business uniform as people who fly with our airline are aware of who we are and if they have questions or need information about our business they are able to come and find us. It also raises awareness for Emirates and brings good reputation to the business.

(Examples of business marketing leaflets and promotions can be found in appendix)

Dubai World Championship Website Review

This is the website of the event and how they keep their customers informed and interested about the latest news and updates of the golf. As you can see the website is extremely colourful and holds a wide range of information display across the site for the customer to access. By using pictures this gives the customers a chance to see the recent images that have been taken at the event and how is

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participating within the event this year. As you can see their sponsors are also involved within the website so that people can browse through what they have to offer and can see the type of stands and stalls that will be included in the event this year.

The website also includes a virtual tour of the golf course so that the customers can see what they are expecting and the type of golf course their players are participating on. Moreover the website informs the customers of the daily temperatures and the scoring board of where the players have come throughout the tournament. The website does hold a lot of information and can be confusing to navigate trough. Moreover it is not as easy to book tickets online as it involves a wide amount of stages and verifying of email addresses and phone numbers to even be able to print them at home.

This can link to our event that we are hosting as it is equally important that we can update and keep our participants and customers involved in information via the internet. Therefore we decided that it would be important to create a Facebook page where the customers are able to view when tickets are on sale, the prizes that can be won and rehearsal times for the people taking part and so on. By doing this is leads more customers being aware of what is happening and when it is happening. This is important as we need as many potential customers as possible to raise money for the Dubai Autism Centre.

The reason to why we didn’t create a website is because it is too time consuming for the event which we have in place for the upcoming few months. This may cost more money and we only need to keep in contact with the customers and students/teachers at Dubai British School. Therefore by making a Facebook page this is an easier form of contact as more students and teachers use social networking sites due to talking to their friends or family which may be abroad etc, they will also be notified with recent adding’s to the page and we can see how many people view our posts which is ideal as we can get the message across and know what has been viewed and what hasn’t. This will become more useful closer to the time of the event it will also involve us adding auditioned participants that have been put through to the final so they can be updated with information about the day and what they need to bring as well as meeting which will happen more regularly in January time.

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Secondary Research – DBS Has Talent

As well as the primary research we carried out as a team to achieve vital information for our event, it was important that I also carried out secondary research in order to broaden my ideas and knowledge about the event that we were doing and how we could make this most achievable and successful for our team and the customers:

This secondary research included the following:

Google – How to run a successful Event?This then lead me to looking on various different sites until I found one which was more suitable and helpful towards our event. The website link was called 10 steps to a successful event. This website was extremely helpful as this was also for charity and it supports 3rd world countries called ‘SOS children’s villages Canada’. The reason to why this was the best website choice for secondary research was because it was able to give you a list of options and different steps of how to achieve a successful event. These are the most suitable points that I found from this website and used to make sure that this was the best event that Dubai British School has run so far.

Decide what type of event is right for you

Brainstorm with friends, family, co-workers Contact us for a list of suggestions and event templates Think of who will most likely attend your event...who is your target audience? See our event suggestions

Set your fund raising goal!

How do you plan on reaching your financial goal? Outline a realistic budget considering all costs associated with running your

event...don't forget that your event expenses do take away from your donation

Promote your event

Determine your audience & market your event to them Flyers, posters, brochures, invitations, tickets & email are all great marketing tools.

Please note: SOS Children's Villages must approve all print material & logo use on all publications

We reserve the right to change the use of our logo to ensure we are being represented appropriately

We want our name out there - We are happy to work with you! We can suggest ways in which our name can be used We can help you promote your event on the web and community pages

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Event Logistics

Whether you decide to go big or small, some planning will be needed to run a successful event

Event day is always comes as a challenge - good planning is your key to success Create a timeline We would be happy to provide some insight - contact us for suggestions and tips

Congratulate Yourself

Taking on the challenge of hosting your own fund raising event is not an easy thing to do - we recognize the challenges you will face and appreciate all your support!

Remember - every donation helps children around the world! Your commitment to being creative and having fun while supporting an important

mission makes you an amazing person and we thank you! Be proud of your success and feel good that you have contributed to making this

world a better place for its children.

(Website Source: http://www.soschildrensvillages.ca )

The second piece of research that I conducted was about the popular TV shows that our event was related to. These were XFactor and Britain’s got Talent. As these are both well known shows across the UK and world wide it was important that we did some research into both of these and see which had higher stats or reviews so that we could have a brief idea on what to base our event on. As the previous years have used both DBS Factor and DBS Has Talent.

I firstly found statistics of how popular the shows are within the UK:

Britain’s Got Talent 2012

‘An average of 11.4 million viewers saw Ashleigh Butler and Pudsey triumph in BGT – more than twice as many as The Voice's 5.6 million.. ITV claimed the programme was the highest rating show of the year so far, nudging ahead of a Coronation Street episode that pulled in 11.2 million in January. Adding viewers of ITV's +1 channel brought the audience to 11.9 million, and the peak audience to

14.5 million. The peak without +1 was 13.8 million.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk

XFactor Stats

The ITV1 show has suffered falling ratings for two years. Saturday's episode was down more than 2 million viewers on the same weekend in 2011, and the series as a whole is down by well over 1 million viewers an episode on average compared with last year.

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With a top audience of 8.6 million, 800,000 fewer people tuned into the show than the previous week's peak of 9.4 million - as well as being 2.4 million down on last year's peak of 11 million. 

Latest viewing figures reveal the talent contest pulled in an average of 7.8 million viewers - down from 8.4 million the previous Saturday, and two million on the same show last year with 9.9 million tuning in. 

Website Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk

For each pieces of this information you can see that there has been a recent change in one of the popular shows which is the XFactor by dropping a large amount of viewers due to previous years. This shows that there may be less popularity for this show anymore and less people have decided to tune in and watch this show. However Britain’s got talent has outstanding views this year which shows that this has been one of the UK populations most watched and popular shows amongst the viewers which is good for our event as we were deciding on changing the name this year.

Venue DecisionPossible Venues for the Event – DBS Has Talent

For the last 2 weeks as a team we have decided to explore the venues which are able to hold our event within Dubai. This included the team conducting primary and secondary research so that we can find a venue which is suitable for our talent show. We had to remember the venue that we choose needs to be successful and fit all areas of what we are looking for, this is so we decrease limitations that could occur further down the line. Therefore we picked a wide range of venues which would have been usable for this event. These included the following:

DUCTAC – Mall of the Emirates DBS – Sports Hall Madinat – Jumeirah GEMS – World Academy of Dubai GEMS – Modern High School Dubai College Palladium – Media City

By choosing a wide range of venues that could of been successful for event we decided to contact all of the venues which are listed above. This would then depend on the response that we would receive, and then we would shortlist these venues and then finally decide on one. Some of the venues we did receive some successful replies whereas others there was limited information or no response.

The Palladium in Media City was the biggest scale venue that we researched when looking into venues to hold our event however after trying to call their business line as well as contact them via email we received no response. The phone line was dead over a long period of time

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which could of meant the business had shut down or no longer be in use therefore this was one venue which we could not shortlist to be one of our chosen hosts. We decided to ask our teacher for some guidance about the GEMS schools which are listed above, once talking to the head teacher of the school it was agreed not to use these venues as they were not Taleem schools which was acceptable and understandable to why we should not rely on these venues, however we did already contact these venues via email and did not receive any responses which made this non feasible data to why we could of used these venues.

Dubai College was another venue which is within the UAE and had a auditorium within the area therefore we thought that there would of been a higher percentage that we were going to be able to tour and look at their facilities which they had to offer, after emailing the business we did receive an email back. (See Appendix) which as you can see showed that their auditorium was not available to be hired which then limited us to using this to hold our event. However this was good primary research as we received a reply, even though it wasn’t what we specially wanted.

This then left us with our last 3 venues, we already knew from previous years that DUCATC and Madinat allowed to hold this event, which meant we had a higher chance of being able to sustain good contact with these companies. Therefore our first venue which we looked into more detail from our shortlisted venues was Madinat.

Madinat - Jumeirah

Firstly for this venue we decided to contact the business via email (Appendix) which we also received information back, this was then extended by us calling the business and deciding on when we would like to book a meeting so that we could meet the events manager and discuss any information such as prices, capacity, sponsoring, tickets etc with the business. This would then follow being able to go to the business and visiting the auditorium and being able to see the facilities which they hold beforehand so that we could collect our findings and take appropriate photos to evaluate the venue type. However after our reply on the email we struggled to keep contact with the business, therefore a member of the team decided to make a phone call to the events manager. We were told that she should call us back as she was busy.

We did not receive a phone call back later that day we tried calling the same number on a various amount of occasions including a text message and still failed to receive any answer back. This then lead us to use a different number to call the business to try arrange the same meeting, this time we were able to get threw however we were told the same that she was unable to talk at that moment of time and would call back later which again we did not receive any phone call back.

Due to this we decided that even though we had little communication with the business, we would still go and visit the venue, whilst visiting the

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venue we were approached and talked to by a manager of the business who gave us information booklets and leaflets (Appendix) about their stage, facilities and auditorium which was helpful primary research. However we were unable to go and visit the stage and auditorium area due to the setting up of a different event on the same day. The employee suggested that we should make a meeting with the events manager in the business. Which then lead him giving a business card referring to the women who dealt with this area. This resulted in us having more information about their auditorium and the surrounding/location of the venue however still being unable to withhold any contact with the events manager. This was wither because she was not interested in the event idea we had to give her or that she was busy as she claimed.

During the visit to the venue, the surroundings of the venue and the location was extremely professional and modern which was up to our standards, there are a variety of stands which are spreaded out through the Madinat and a amazing view of the Burj Al Arab which is one of Dubai’s main attractions. I have personally already visited the venue due to last year when the event was going to be held here. The stage and inside of the auditorium is modern and professional. But a problem which I also noticed was the size of the venue and the size of the stage. Due to this venue having a smaller capacity level this means that we will not be able to attract as many customers as we would liked to. The location of the Madinat is in Jumeirah this is not as easy to travel to then DUCTAC from the school area where DBS is situated. Also the Madinat is a huge tourist attract for Dubai due to the areas around this location which could lead to heavy traffic and acts or customers being late or struggling to reach the venue on time.

Relevant Information Collected / Facilities Available

Size Small auditorium however very modern and overall outlook and location of the venue was outstanding.

Capacity 442 with 2 levelsSound Sound is included within the auditoriumLighting Lighting is included within the auditorium

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Box Office On site as you can see from this photo evidence.

Stage Area The width of the proscenium is 11.9 metres, front of the stage is 23metres, full stage width is 23.6 metres and full height of the stage is 14 metres. Which doesn’t mean the stay is to a large scale.

Food & Beverage Services There are a variety of food and beverage stalls within the Madinat areas for customers of the event.

Seats All seats are cushioned, involved them being able to go back 1.88metres, there is also a distance of 150mm between each row of seats so that the customers have enough leg and body room.

Dressing Rooms Dressing rooms backstage include 2 female and male rooms accommodating up to 10 people in each, included facilities such as toilets, showers, washbasins, prep areas for performers and sinks.

Price This was the once part of information that we did not receive from the business as they suggested a meeting to discuss this however the lack of contact and replies from the business resulted in us not receiving this information. On the other hand from secondary research that I conducted from the previous applied team last year the cost for this was 20,000 AED

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Advantages

There were several advantages for us if we were able to use this venue for our chosen event. For examples these would include:

Location and surroundings Overall appearance of the venue Several food and beverage stalls Dressing rooms were easily accommodated and had a wide range of facilities. Seating was appropriate and was comfortable. Light and sound were available Staging was available.

However even though there were a good amount of advantages for this venue there were several disadvantages which made this venue not feasible to work with for example:

Small staging area Not as large capacity intake we were expecting No prices were included Bad communication received from the business No placing for judges to be seated in the auditorium

Due to these disadvantages it made it hard for us to receive some of the most vital and crucial information that would be needed for us to carry this event any further. Therefore we decided to look at our next venue and see what they had to offer.

DBS Sports Hall

This venue is within our own school therefore this would be a convent place to hold the event. However the school is currently constructing an auditorium which is supposed to be finished by the time we would like to hold the event, moreover we could not be certain of this in case of any changes, therefore we had to keep are options open. We went and collected the plans of what the auditorium is meant to look like for when it is completed in February. (See Appendix) We were also told that this should hold at least 500 people however due to looking at the plans we are not sure whether this will be able to hold this many people and what the size of the stage is going to be. As you can see this is an image of the construction in October.

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So by keeping our options open we decided to contact the head of the school which is Mr Ford to ask about whether we would be able to use the sports hall as are final venue for the school if the auditorium was not finished in time. This then lead to us talking to his assistant and the manager in charge or the events within the school. They said it would be able to go forward depending on the feasibility of the location and facilities would be practical and good enough to improve the event from the year before and make it a memorable and successful talent show for the participants and the customers coming to watch.

We decided to go and view the sports hall to see the size and surrounding of what facilities would be available for the event. This was one of the biggest downfalls of the venue, as this is a sports hall there is a seating are however it is not the most practical and comfortable for the customers who are paying to come and watch, other venues could provide this which would be better. Also there is no sound or lighting if we decided to use this as our venue, which would mean having to go and rent this equipment for a cost and setting it up professionally so that it looks good and has no health and safety issues.

This is not a large disadvantage as the money you would save from not spending it on hiring the venue could be used for the lighting and sound however overall the outlook and appearance of the venue may not look as good as it would in a more professional auditorium. Which lead this venue into being another small disadvantage as the overall appearance is not as professional. This may lead customers being disappointed with the outcome of the event which is not what we would like to achieve.

Relevant Information Collected For DBS Sports Hall

Size Large performance area for participants to do their finals acts, wide seating area as well.

Capacity 300+Lighting Not available would need to be hired Sound Not available would need to be hiredSeating Loads of seating available on levels, simple but maybe not as

comfortable as expected.Changing rooms Changing room available for female and male, within the sports hall,

these include showers, sinks, toilet and changing area which also have one large mirror.

Back stage facilities Not any available unless classrooms were usedEntrance The outskirts of the building are simple but not as modern as the other

venues we have visited. Refreshments area There is a canteen which can be used, this could include us supplying

are own refreshments such as bake sale, sandwiches, or we could hire the canteen company which is used at school for this event. This can

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be suitable for the event as the canteen is in walking distance from the venue which would be useful when we have a short break throughout the show. Moreover if we sold our own food and beverages this will raise additional profit for our charity and from past experiences, examples of what could be sold is the following:

Popcorn bags Cakes Fruit Cookies Crisp’s Cold drinks Hot drinks Tea / Coffee Sweets Hot Dogs Etc, we would have to research popular food and beverage’s at

shows.Style Modern and smart, can be used.

Price of Venue N/A

The venue does have changing rooms however they are not as spacious for all of the participants and do not having mirrors for makeup etc which can be an issue when the participants want to practice or get ready. The dressing rooms do include toilets showers and sinks however the keeping of these are not as well furnished as Ductac or Madinat therefore this would be another downgrade to the venue from the previous years. After discussing the disadvantages this would have by using this venue we decided that it would not meet our aim to achieve the talent show being improved and more effective from the previous years due to the lack of facilities. Therefore this could be feasible however wouldn’t have a larger affect on the customers and participants of the school. Which lead to us contacting Ductac for our final venue.

Ductac

DUCTAC has been the choice of venue for the last 2 years of the talent show for DBS. For our year we wanted to consider a larger venue which would hold more seats so that our capacity and target audience could be stretched to a larger scale. Due to the lack of information and replies from our other chosen venues this has been the best venue which can held a strong amount of information and contact with us a team overall. DUCTAC is a very popular venue within Dubai for holding events for professional businesses and companies. This is within an easy location and access for the public who may be purchasing tickets for our specific show.

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In the teams and my opinion, we believe that this is possibly the best venue choice with all the facilities that are needed for our type of show. There are not many disadvantages for this venue as the overall venue is modern with a good layout and professional look, also the facilities are at a high standard which would lead to no extra work for the team. However the cost for hiring the venue is quite large, once we received an email back from Layla the events manager at DUCTAC she sent us the information included the prices for hiring the event as well as hours. For a whole day the costs for this event would be 25,000 DHS whereas half a day which can be 10-3 or 4 – 10 this is only 12,500 DHS. This would be affordable for our business including our chosen sponsors. However if we chose to hire the venue for a whole day this would mean we would need to sell out the whole venue as well as charging 50 DHS per ticket, this could

cause a high risk of we did not achieve this therefore we would have to open and re think about all of our options and how long we would need the venue for if we decided to chose DUCTAC.

When we visited DUCTAC we organised a meeting with the events manger so that we could broaden our knowledge about the auditorium they had to offer as well as the facilities, prices and capacity etc. On our visit to the venue we were greeted by Layla and she discussed dates that we were looking to book our final event for which we suggested was the 4th, 5th or 6th. Due to a booking the 4th was not possible for our event however in her calendar she drafted our business idea and name so that we had a larger chance of sustaining a place for hiring when possible. We were able to look at the stage and seating however it was too dark for photos therefore she suggested emailing us some photos which have been used on the previous page.

Overall me and my team members who came with me for this visit would agree that it wasn’t the most successful meeting as we felt as if she was not highly interested in her job and helping us with the correct information face to face. We ended up asking various questions which we did not receive a wide amount of information about. She just suggested that she would email us all of the information that we asked for. Even though this meeting was not up to our expectations, it was important that she still made time for our booking request and interest in their business. She did follow up and send us the provided information that we needed and this is some of the relevant information collected / facilities available at DUCTAC:

Size This state of the art theatre, tiered on two levels and featuring a 120m2 (1291 ft2) proscenium stage, is equipped with excellent sound, lighting and audiovisual capacity. Has

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a capacity of 543 seats.Capacity 543 with 2 levelsSound Sound is included within the auditoriumLighting Lighting is included within the auditoriumBox Office On siteStage Area Stage area is large, with the availability of

different curtains that can be used and a large space backstage for participants to warm up and for facilities to be moved on and off stage.

Food & Beverage Services There is a food and beverage stall within the DUCTAC foyer for customers of the event.

Seats All seats are cushioned and modern which have been tested and previously used by ourselves.

Dressing Rooms Dressing rooms backstage include 1 female and male room accommodating up to 13 people in each, included facilities such as toilets, showers, washbasins, prep areas for performers and sinks.

Price 25,000 AED for a full day 10am to 10pm12,500 AED for half a day which can be 10am-3pm or 4pm – 10pm.

Following this information this was a gallery layout of the stage and seating for DUCTAC’s venue, this gives us a better idea of how the stage is set it and the overall look of what the auditorium is like.

By having this information given to us it broadens are knowledge of specific seating for the VIP members of the audience and seating for the judging panel, if we were to use this venue.

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Advantages

There were several advantages if we were able to use this venue for our chosen event. For examples these would include:

Location and surroundings Overall appearance of the venue Available food and beverage stall / machine Dressing rooms were easily accommodated and had a wide range of facilities. Seating was appropriate and was comfortable. Light and sound were available Staging was available. Previous experience with the venue an employees at DUCTAC. Good reputation

DisadvantagesHowever even though there were a good amount of advantages for this venue there were only few disadvantages which made this venue more feasible to work with for example here were the 3 disadvantages that we experienced with DUCTAC;

Not as large capacity intake we were expecting Hours of hiring could be longer Prices are expensive.

The disadvantages that we experienced can be overcome, as they wouldnt fail the feasibility test if we decided to select this venue. For example we can always contact DUCTAC and push them for an extra 2 hours in the morning, this can be done as last year they arrived at DUCTAC by 2pm as there was no other bookings this meant they were able to set up early which is what we would like to be able to achieve. The capacity of the venue is not as large as we would of liked to achieve however it would be achievable for us to at least sell over 90% of seats however we can always adapt our ideas by having a primary performance earlier in the day or at our school venue to increase the revenue that we can make and the capacity of customers coming to watch our event. Lastly the prices for the venue are expensive however this can be overcome by our chosen sponsors agreeing to go forward with sponsoring us, also by having successful fundraisers and a large amount of ticket sales we will be able to pay for the venue and achieve a healthy profit for charity.

After several different meetings, viewings and discussions we needed to choose a venue that we believed would be the most suitable for our event. As a team we came to the conclusion that Centrepoint DUCTAC Theatre (Mall of the Emirates) would be the best venue for our event. With the costing of 12,500 from 4pm-10pm this can be done and is achievable due to the previous year’s which have used this venue. By knowing that we have to place a 3,000AED deposit on the venue this then sets us a place for the event to be held and for us to push forward with advertising and other important topics to make this event successful. Due to having the 3 sponsors which we plan to achieve their behalf of helping us fund the event,

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this would help us afford the venue costs meaning additional money earned such as fundraisers tickets sales etc would help us raise money for our chosen charity.

The venue price at DUCTAC included:

· Full front of house support: 1 Duty Manager, 1 Front of house Manager and 4 ushers · Usage of In house sound and light equipment  · Standard technical set up (light/sound/stage)· Podium · Standard Technical operation · Dressing rooms (up to 5 maximum)

Having these facilities included within the price we decided to chosen this venue as we believe that it is most suitable and appropriate for the Talent Show that we want to hold. The location of the venue is appropriate and well known by most people internally and externally to the school as previous applied groups have held this event with the same venue. As discussed with head of DBS the show will be proposed to be held at on 5th February 2013. This has also been discussed with Layla the events manager at DUCTAC when we proposed our first meeting with her, also our communication with Layla is through emails, phone calls and meetings at the theatre.

Primary Research Conducted for DUCTAC

It was important as a team that we conducted enough primary research for this venue so that we would be able to have evidence to defend the reasons to why this venue is the best and most suitable for our chosen event. The first piece of primary research that we conducted was emailing the company. Due to emailing the company we keep a good and strong relationship with the business being able to adapt strong communication levels with the event manager, (See Appendix) this primary research then lead us to being able to contact her for a personal meeting about the venues information, capacity and price. Primary research that was conducted included a business card which we received from the manager of DUCTAC. Other primary research which followed the visit was photographs and a booklet which included all additional information that we needed to achieve including booking forms, laws that have to be followed when using DUCTAC including marketing, ticketing and how these have to be presented when we produce these items. (Appendix)

Secondary Research Conducted for DUCTAC

Secondary research that was conducted for this venue would have been previous coursework from the past 2 years at DBS who have used this venue for their event. By having a good knowledge of the venue and every team members being part of the show last year this gave us a head starter when it came to choosing the event, this also follows the school and the teachers who help out with the event as they are based within familiar surroundings which is better and should achieve a more smoothly run event. Some of the information collected from this year and last year has slightly changed however previous coursework was able to acknowledge us with their experiences using DUCTAC and what they believed was the advantages and disadvantages that they conquered when using this venue. Another source of

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secondary research that we used was the DUCTAC website to be able to receive contact details and history of the venue. This was also useful as we could see upcoming events and how popular the venue if for holding events amongst the month on the calendar.

I personally believe that using DUCTAC as a final venue has been a good choice as we have common background knowledge and experience with using this venue, each year this event has been held at DUCTAC it has been successful and enjoyable for the customers who have experienced watching the event. This means we would be able to withhold this customer satisfaction and if not boost it so that people are able to enjoy our show more. By using this venue it also includes facilities which may be needed at other places and we already know from experience that the sound, lighting, dressing rooms and so on our useable and effective for our performers and overall performance.

However as a team we needed to decide what our contingency plan would be if this was to fall through with DUCTAC therefore we decided the way to go about this would be to use The Madinat as our contingency plan, even though we have experienced a bad communication level with this company we have still decided that this is the most professional looking business and best to use. If we had to fall back onto this company and use this venue we would have to push ourselves upon the business by visiting and booking in person as we haven’t experienced the best communication via phone calls and emails. Moreover the reasoning to choosing this venue would be the venue includes facilities such as lighting, stage and sound therefore we wouldn’t have to try rent this in a period of time if our other plans fell through, the seating is comfortable and the overall appearance of the venue is in a good location including modern facilities and building. We also believe that this would be suitable due to the previous year using the Madinat as their original plan of venue. When we visited the venue they provided us with good customer service and provided us with many leaflets and booklets for us to read about their business which shows they could achieve good communication if we pushed ourselves to achieve this venue.

Name and Logo

Once we had chosen our suitable venue for the event as a class it was time to decide a name and logo for the event which would be eye catching for the potential customers and participants in the show. The show last year was called DBS Factor which is related to the popular TV series X Factor.

As a team we drew up a few ideas of what the show could be called as we were thinking on changing it this year, however due to the previous year’s being called DBS Factor we wasn’t sure whether this would be the best decision to change it as it already has a well established name. As we wanted to make this different this year and better than the previous years we decided to send a questionnaire out to all the tutor groups regarding relevant questions for what the show should be called including our options and what charities would be the best cause to send the overall money to.

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Effective communicationSatisfied customersProfitEffective CommuinicationWe experienced some problems when doing this as some of the questionnaires was not done properly where as others were not completed at all. This then resulted in us going around to each class and asking everyone the question and collecting answers as we went. This ended up with an overall total of DBS Has Talent with more overall votes. This was successful for the class and meant we had a good reason to change the name of the event without damaging its reputation. Also by using this as our name for the event it is related to another popular TV series which is Britain’s Got Talent. One of the main reasons to why we adapted the name of the event is because most people believe that this contest is only for singers, as last year there was little acts that were not singers which made the event repetitive and boring. Therefore by adapting the name to DBS Has Talent would imply that the final show is not just singing and would mean for more people to participate and get involved which is what people would like to see so that the show is mixed and interesting for judges and customers.

Choosing the logo was also a hard decision for the team as each of the members had different ideas and it was hard to collaborate these. Due to a long decision the team finally came to the decision to use this as our final logo, which would be used to promote the event on t-shirts, poster, assemblies, tickets and other promotion merchandise. The good points about having this logo was that it involved the schools colours as well as the UAE national colours which relates to the school being in the UAE and eye catching as these colours are noticeable ad bright, as well as the layout of the text is similar to the original show which draws people attention as they may have recognised a similar logo before, if the students have seen the original show.

Marketing

Marketing is known as a business function that creates value by stimulating, facilitating and fulfilling customer demand. It does this by building brands, nurturing innovation, developing relationships, creating good customer service and communicating benefits. Marketing in a business is usually about meeting the needs and wants of customers, marketing is a business-wide function – it is not something that operates alone from other business activities; Marketing is about understanding customers and finding ways to provide products or services which customers demand.

Source: (CIM 2006) Marketing Uncovered – Andi Robertson and http://www.tutor2u.net

When businesses use marketing effectively, the positive outcomes of this can be:

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Why do businesses use marketing?

Marketing is the best tool used by a business to attract customers to learn and understand your brand image. Most of the time businesses use this to achieve some of the most effective worldwide campaigns and for the customers to understand the business and the products which they are offering. All business, companies and organisations will use a wide variety of advertising or marketing in order to attract potential and target market customers. The success of holding an event can depend significantly on how well the business markets and promotes their product of services offered.

Unlike large companies such as Coke, or Cadburys that use expensive large national or internal events or media including television or radio adverts, our marketing will be at a lower scale, as we do not need to attract anyone outside of the school community as this is a private event only selling to student, teachers or parents which are within the Dubai British School. As this is an event that will be raising money for charity with the sale of tickets it will be crucial to use specific advertising.

How will we market the talent show to relate to the aims and objectives?

When creating the different types of marketing which needs to be used for the talent show event it is extremely important that we follow a marketing plan, therefore this will include:

The aims and objectives A SWOT analysis of the event team A PESTLE analysis of the external factors Identification of customer needs A marketing mix of the 4p’s: Price, Place, Product, Promotion. Marketing communications proposals

For the talent show we will be using marketing to attract previous and new customers from the school community in many different ways. For example a way of doing this would be to hold an assembly and talk to the different year groups amongst the school raising awareness of our team and the event we are holding. This will also attract people to buy tickets when they are on sale and attract other students to participate For the talent show, following this we will also use different types of marketing to promote our event for example: poster, emails, letters, and fundraisers.

At the beginning of organising the event unit, we needed to choose an event which would be best to hold. Therefore we sent out a questionnaire to students and staff around the school to understand the needs and wants of which the customers were looking for. We also agreed at the end of the event we would hand out customer feedback forms which could be filled in so we could access our overall performance. Most of the marketing we used was ideas which were given from the previous years which had held the talent show before. Therefore we were able to have a head start and already knew ways which would attract and bring more customers into attending and supporting out event for charity.

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When creating an effective marketing plan as a team we needed to take into consideration and remember what our aims and objectives were to ensure that in the long term we would meet these and achieve an successful event. These can be used in relation to raising the attention towards the talent show, our aims are:

Raise money for charity Increase awareness for the charity, school and applied course Increase overall performance of event from last year

We needed to be sure that are advertising specifically raises awareness that the show is a charity event as this will more likely attract customers into buying money or making donations . This also shows more support to our chosen charity (Dubai Autism Centre). Are popular leisure event is the talent show as we know there was a demand for the show from the previous year and the popularity for it again. For us to be able to create a positive marketing campaign we first need to research the SWOT and PESTLE analysis so we are aware of all the internal and external factors which could potentially affect the event plan or running.

SWOT Analysis

A SWOT analysis is a tool which businesses use for assessing and evaluating the internal and external factors that may affect the event itself or planning of the event. SWOT is an acronym; Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.

As a team when conducting a SWOT analysis it is good to look at all of the other aspects to make sure the businesses has more strengths than weaknesses. Ways for a business to create a more professional SWOT analysis would be by:

Being Honest Being Objective Use all types of marketing research when possible Decided what situation is to be analysed Decided on the perspective for the analysis Think laterally around the situation Try not to be subjective, biased or too flattering Use the ‘So what?’ question to critically analyse SWOT’s

This is a table below that shows the SWOT analysis for our event, which is created and related to our team . We discussed who is good/bad at doing what and why we have chosen this. This included who had contacts with different businesses and the work ethic of each member amongst the team. Who has preferences for doing certain jobs; what are the constraints e.g. time, money etc. and any other aspects that relate to our own event.

Strengths Good communication – certain times

communication was strong by emailing system, technology (phones, internet networks) meetings.

Experience of running events Large amount of venue choices

Weaknesses Offsite venue which was not as easy

to access Practice/auditions –auditions will be

time consuming and practices will only be able to be held once which is on the night of the event.

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Enthusiasm of staff and students Good reputation from previous years. Lauren had good contacts for

sponsors. The show had previous reputation

from the past years, therefore a loyal customer base is already achieved, which means customers are already attracted.

The charity is very supportive towards the event and attracts students to want to participate more than they would if the event was not for charity.

Great team in the year below to work as staff to support the event on the night

Danny Mackie was outstanding on the night of the event

The venue is ready for the night with adequate professional facilities

David Grey had an amazing camera contact which was able to lend us JVC camera for the event night to film the show.

Photographer was already booked for the night of the vent to have photos of each act and the team that was working to achieve the final event.

Only 7 team members – heavy job allocation

Ryan missed a variety of the days at school working up to the event and had little participation

Had bad communication with some of the sponsors which were helping us with our event.

Ensure that we meet deadlines, making sure we are on top of emails

Communication was struggling at times amongst certain people I n the team

Some team members struggled to work as a team more than others.

DTCM and Ductac communication

Threats The year 10s were holding another

talent show originally as an charity event for PSHE however this was then later changed

Talk of postponing the event

Opportunities Better location for event could of

used the school auditiorm which was just built

More sponsors could have been able to help us with our event.

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PESTLE Analysis

PESTLE is what businesses use to evaluate external factors within the business. PESTLE stands for: Political, economic, technological, legal, social and environmental. We have evaluated these to see which will affect our event externally.

Below the table shows the example effects of each individual character of the PESTLE analysis with a link to how this could affect the talent show event.

PESTLE Example Effects How can this effect the talent show event?Political Changes in

Government Policy Changes Interest Rates UAE Government

This can affect our talent show as DTCM run the government laws and security on how the tickets and money is processed through the venue. This can cause extra charges and as we are based in UAE it is important that we follow the government laws appropriately so that we do not offended anyone or break the law.

Economic Minimum wage Redundancies Spending amount The selling of luxury

products decreases when the economy is declining

The economy affects what people send and how much they spend. This can affect our talent show as if the economy is declining then the students and parents may be less willing to purchase a ticket or make donations into our event and cause. This will decrease sales, which then would leave us as a team to have to market in ways which would work around the economic situation to attract customers.

Social Public attitudes Behaviour Leisure time Sport Fashion

Current times are changing rapidly every day. For the talent show we will have to consider factors which would include leisure time, from the questionnaire results it was stated that more people would like the event to be on a weeknight rather than a weekend which could affect the amount of people theatre going to buy tickets and participate or visit the event. Also older student’s attitudes towards school events decrease so we need to be sure to aim to event specifically to all ages.

Technological Digitally based technologies, and the development of new and enhanced tech products.

Impact of the internet

Telecommunications Satellite and cable Equipment

Because of the speed that technology has improved over in the last few years many companies and businesses have learnt to adapt rapidly so that they can keep and attract more customers . for the talent show we will be using technology in many ways for example:

Documents will be produced on a computer

Cash flows will be electronically produced

We will create a social networking page for customers and people to join within the school

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We will create a group email account where the team will be able to contact sponsors or people we are working with.

Legal Changes in

legislation Currency changes Insurance increase

As our event is a one of and will only be once on a particular date we will not be extremely affected by long term changes in legislation or legal aspects however we may be affected by small changes which could be present at the time.

Environmental Waste management Save trees Green issues

As a team we need to take into consideration the environment of Dubai in terms of the amount of paper we use and what we recycle, e.g. this could be packaging, waste etc. Within the school there are recycling bins which we will use when we do not need any forms etc anymore or waste that is not needed. For printing of programmes we will do one for every other act as this will save the use of paper and paper which is wasted. As this will support the environment.

Characteristics Of The Product

DBS Has Talent is a school event which is held to raise money and awareness for the chosen charity of our team. It is a talent show which will include a variety of different acts throughout the school including ‘singers, dancers, comedy, bands and musicians. The theme of the show have been based on the hot TV series Britain’s Got Talent. This show consists of auditions and acts competing to preformed their talent in front of the royal family and the Queen. The acts which will be selected for our show will be a selection of ages from year 7 – 13 and a range of teacher acts. However this year we have added a twist to our show and have been the first team to introduce and stage primary acts on the live final night where the customers are able to come and watch. The show will be held at a professional auditorium as there is high demand for this event due to previous years holding and continuing the tradition.

Target Market

For our event we have decided to aim this towards the students within the secondary years of the school. This will include the acts and the audience. The reasoning for doing this as the stage that we have selected to use for venue will involve over 500 people watching the acts therefore older students will have developed a stronger personality and performing skills which will illuminate any issues that we could of have with younger acts. By having more acts that are from these age groups will mean that they are more independent and responsible to trust and to organise on the night of the show , as they will be more understanding of what is happening and how much work and effort it takes to put into the show to have a good outcome.

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When we carried out the questionnaire (which is show previously in this essay). As you can see it showed there was a high demand for the talent show that people would either participate or attend.

We also choose this type of target market as people within these age groups like to watch these TV programmes on the weekends as they have a higher interest that adults therefore this so increase and emphasises more people or customers to become involved in our event.

Market segmentation Market segmentation is where the market is divided into categories of customers that have common characteristics.

The orange which is show above is used to illustrate the segment s of the market like a orange for example. Usually a business would use this type of method so that each group within the segments is treated separately and so that the business can develop a product to meet the needs of each group. This can also show a business which segments are performing well and which ones need to be improved. Market segmentation also helps make decisions on which segments are most profitable towards the business and the product and which segments could be ignored. For our event these are the groups which we have broken them down into:

Age Income Gender Interests Culture

The reason we used market segmentation for our event is so that we could analyse and look closer into the customer’s needs and wants.

Age – this is important as there are different age groups for certain people which will mean a variety of customer needs and wants. However for our event our age group is based to ages 11-19 as this is the secondary base within the school which can then later attract parents and staff into contributing.

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Participate Attend Neither02468

10121416

Would you like to participate or attend?

Series1

Income- This part of market segmentation is very important for looking at the businesses money situation and spendings that need to be made. This will be able to show us how to spend money which will please the customers but keep the business in profit and have an overall customer satisfaction from expenditure. For the talent show the prices for tickets will be extremely lower than to professional staged performances. Many students within the school will not be earning money as they may have their ticket paid for by parents; we want the tickets to be affordable for all students so they have the opportunity to purchase them.

Gender – Is a part of market segmentation as some products can be split into certain gender types or unisex for example. If the business knows what gender they are aiming their product at this is it helps other sections of the business to design and create the product. As we are holding a talent show within the school this would mean our product is aimed at both genders including audiences and acts. This is because it is suitable for both as males and females across the school could both have good talents that need to be staged for our final event. Which would result in attract both genders for our audiences.

Interests- Market segmentation will look at what the customer wants and needs from the business are. For the talent show we want to know what the customers’ interests are and how we can relate our final project to this. For example what TV shows do they like to watch, do they attend concerts or social event which are similar to outs. This can also then help us with planning and advertising our event.

Culture- Culture is extremely important for our business considering that we live in a Muslim culture. This can effect each individual as they can all be different depending on religion, language etc. Dubai has changed immaculately over the recent years, for example it is more westernised which is so that English and American tourists visit the country more as it allows more businesses to open here due to brand image and name known from other places. For our talent show we need to take into account there may be Muslim customers attending the event or being involved this can then create a language barrier. This will be taken into consideration when choosing suitable acts as we want them to be culturally aware of the Muslim ways.

Marketing Mix

What is the marketing mix?

The marketing mix is used in all business on all products and services which are offered, this is used as an expression which is related to business marketing activities. The marketing mix looks at the combination of the 4 main variables that make up a business strategy plan to have a successful product or service offered to the public. The 4 main variables are Price, product, Promotion and Place. These are always considered when a new product is launches into the markets. Businesses use this as it can develop and achieve the businesses objectives and aims. They influence the needs and wants of customers as they are related to primary and

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secondary research and are managed to create a positive increase in sales as they are created to attract the objective customer.

Product

A product is the general term for the good or the service which the business provides to its customers. If a business is looking at creating a successful product then they need to consider a number of features, one of the most important factors of a product must be that it is attractive to the customers so that people buy it. The need of the customer is identified through market research. Businesses tend to include different features that appeal to customers, offering products that are fashionable, safe, reliable, durable and convenient will always grab the customer attention. The product is the main core of the businesses marketing mix as the product will then depend on how the business is going to market, price and sell this good or service successfully to their customer. Once a business has chosen their product this will then determined their target market and who their audience will be.

The product for our business includes our plan of holding an event, this was chosen to be a talent show. This has become a yearly tradition at Dubai British School. This product is going to be called DBS Has Talent which will consist of the consumers purchasing tickets to attend the event. This will then total all costs to our chosen charity.

The talent show which we have decided to hold this year is going to be more unique and personal to our business than the previous years, as we have changed the name and introduced younger acts by involved more age groups within the school. The aim of our product is to produce an entertaining show for the audience which includes staging a variety of different acts with different talents and for people to see the talented students that are amongst the school itself. To attract students to participate in the event we are holding prizes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd and gifts for the students and teachers that helped within the event. As this is a higher level of motivational for all the team. All of the acts which are performing on stage will be judged by 4 judges which are teachers within the school of our own choice relating to the style of Britain’s Got Talent.

‘DBS Has Talent’ was a name chosen by our team which has been adapted from the original hit TV series Britain’s Got Talent. By adapting this we hoped that more students would be interest in our product and link the entertainment which we offer at the final show to the TV programmes which they may watch at home. ‘

This image on the right shows the brand logo we have decided to use for our product. This image will be used on all forms or marketing material including; assemblies, posters, letters, emails, t-shirts etc. This has been designed to fit the original TV show however with UAE colours as our school is based in Dubai.

As one of our aims is to provide a popular leisure event for the students teachers and parents within the school community, our talent show will consist

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of 13 secondary acts, 2 primary, and 2 teachers acts, so that I will interest most customers that are interested in going. This means we will have a larger chance of attracting a target market this year that the previous years.

Price

According to our findings from the questionnaire which we sampled to students and teachers amongst the school, we asked how much they would be willing to pay for a ticket to our talent show. As you can see from this graph the highest percentage of answers which we accumulated said that people would be willing to pay 41-50DHS for a ticket as it a charity event and their money will be going to a good cause. From the previous year’s most of the applied teams have charged 40 DHS for a ticket. However this year as a team we decided that we were going to charge 45 DHS for a ticket due to the answers that we received from the questionnaire, and also as we were offering prize to a lucky customer in the audience which was worth a lot of money from one of our sponsors ‘Premier Inn’ therefore this was a top selling point and gave us more leeway to charge a little extra for a ticket.

When deciding on a price it is important to consider all the costs to create the event, for the talent show this will include:

Printing costs for the tickets Contestants prizes and teachers gifts Venue hire DTCM charges Staff – The staff will be voluntary as they are students from the school Events uniform – Students will be asked to wear their own black school trousers and a

black t-shirt Teams t-shirt – We are considering purchasing printed t-shirts

Therefore by doing this we made a predicted cash flow of the money which we thought was reasonable would be coming in and going out of our business. This gave us a chance to budget our money and become more knowledgeable about how we could achieve to raise more money that the previous year or money than we spent of expenses which are stated above.

As a team we decided on what types of pricing that would be suitable to use for our event. We need to decide on what types of pricing we will be using. All of the pricing strategies I

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20-30 AED 31 -40 AED 41 -50 AED02468

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How much would you spend to watch a talent show?

Series1

need to consider are; to attract an existing market as the talent show was previously held in the year with its existing or expanding range of customers, and to make sure all its costs are covered and a particular profit is earned.

Cost-plus pricing

For our even this was decided to be the most suitable pricing strategy would be using cost plus pricing, therefore to do this it involves:

Estimating how many of the products will be produced then, calculating the total cost of producing the output and finally adding a percentage mark-up for profit.

This will cover the cost of the product and make an additional amount of profit for the business.

The costs of running the show are approximately 16492AED we are selling the tickets at 45 AED

We believe we can sell 450 tickets as from last year they sold out all of their tickets however they did postpone the event and were able to sell tickets for a longer period of time therefore we have aimed to sell 450 out of 500. If we sold the tickets at a lower price we would be able to sell more tickets however this would leave us to making less profit.

We have decided to price the tickets at 45 AED, this is a slight risk as from all of the previous year’s this is the highest price that the tickets will have been sold at. Therefore this may put customers off from buying a ticket if the overall performance isn’t as good as they expected. But with the offer of giving a customer to win a holiday away in a Premier Inn hotel this slightly covers the extra cost of the ticket and will be a unique selling point for us to sell more tickets regardless of the price increase.

For our business to breakeven through ticket sales only this would involve us having to sell 511 tickets due to our overall costs which was 23000. This is not including the sponsorship or any other inflow of money to our business. Just from ticket sales we would need to sell 511 in order to break even. This would of been possible if we used the same marketing as the previous years however due to our marketing technique we did not sell this many tickets and also this would be pushing the amount of people within the venue as we only could seat 508 max due to not using the boxes and booths as places for customers to sit.

Promotion

When businesses look at promotion they need to consider what will promote their product or service to its best extent. Promotion is usually a series of marketing activities which is designed to attract customers to the product or service. It is also used to make the consumers aware of the product and to draw them in a persuade them to purchase the product which is being advertised. Promotion is a very important part of the marketing mix and there is also a variety of different types of promotion.

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Advertising – this is where a business pays for communication with actual and potential customers which could be through television, magazines, radio, internet and media. This can be an expensive way to advertise however it is often very successful in influences the customers to purchase the product and to inform and create awareness of your product to the viewers. Persuasive advertising usually aims to persuade the customers that the product is better than other competitors which are on the market. Therefore many brands or businesses use advertising to draw in customer to the business product and to expand the amount of consumers in their market.

Branding – a brand is usually a sign, symbol, design or name which is used to distinguish a products or business from its competitors which are in the market. Creating a brand can achieve higher awareness of the business product and can help boost sales and profits from encouraging customers to make repeat purchase. This known as brand loyalty.

Merchandising – merchandising is a term which covers a range of tactics used by businesses at a point of sale to higher sales and figures. Merchandising tactic can include offering special display stands to encourage consumers to purchase or try the product and it will encourage them to place the businesses product in a more prominent position within the stores. Also it will ensure that the product is available at extra locations with insufficient quantities during periods of high demand. Lastly another tactic of merchandising which some businesses use is to supply a point of sales advertisement to display in retail outlets.

Public Relations – public relations are activities which are carried out by the business which hold the intention of improving their standing in the eyes of consumers and other interested groups. Some businesses may engage in a variety of public relations exercises. These can include making donations to charities, sponsoring sporting or other cultural activities and allowing visits to the business by members of the public. On the other hand public relations can be a very expensive form of promotion; it also can be difficult for business to assess the effect of public relations on sale.

Brochures and leaflets

These are two types of marketing with is very similar and can draw attention but at the same time supply a wide amount of information. Using brochures are more formal and bulky where as leaflets are smaller and more convent to carry around. The advantage of doing this is that all the information that is needed to be included can be which usually attracts more customers and broadens their knowledge about what is being promoted. The disadvantage of doing this can be if there is too much information some customers may be put off and not interested reading a large amount of text as it can be time consuming. Leaflets have similar advantages as they can include all information needed and are in a smaller and more convent form which means more people are likely to collect or read a leaflet as pictures and colours can persuade people to look and see what the leaflet is about. They are also only on one A4 double sided or smaller rather than a book type formats like a brochure. With the use of computers now and

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graphic designers the use of producing and publishing software, this type of marketing is a lot cheaper and easier to create professional looking documents.

Promotions and marketing that has been used to promote our event ‘DBS Has Talent’

As this is a school event the promotion and advertising will need to be kept within the school area which will minimise us to the amount which we can do. However we came to the conclusion that these were the best forms of advertising and marketing which would raise awareness for our final event. Posters, Presentations, Notices in tutors, Emails to teachers and parents and letters home to parents. We will not be using advertising out of school: newspapers and television as this show is only aimed towards the community of Dubai British School. The costing of our advertising will also be very low or there will be no cost as we will be using the schools resources; posters (paper and printer)

On the following pages I have shown all the different types of promotional activity we have included increasing the awareness of ‘The DBS Has Talent’

Posters

For the few weeks of the event we decided to place our logo around the school as a poster so that people were aware that the show was back again for another year running, this was then to encourage more people to sign up and be aware of when our auditions and signup sheets would be ready. This then helped us raise awareness for when our assembly was going to be shown so that people were aware of the new team and group that were holding the end for this year.

Once it got closer to the final event these were the second posters that were placed around the school as you can see we had our logo redesigned in HD by Aggreko and we included information that showed how much tickets were and where the customers were able to purchase them from. This included that already half of the tickets were being sold so that we made sure more people would purchase their tickets sooner than later so that we were able to have a higher chance in selling out for the final show.

Another poster we placed around the school was to attract the students. We achieved this by creating a line up of the final acts that were going to be in the show so that students themselves and their friends would be able to see who the competitors would be for this year and to

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increase the awareness of the overall event and its performers. These were places within classrooms and around the school corridors and canteen.

T-shirts

For the show and the upcoming of the event we decided as a team that it would be important to create and have t-shirts. The reasoning for this is to raise awareness of the event and the team members which are included in the making of the event. This is because if anyone has questions they know the right people to go to. These will be used as they are eye-catching to potential customers.

As a whole team we fell that these are suitable and professional, which will give an overall professional look for the team members as uniform for the final event. The theme of the t-shirt follows the previous years with the logo on the front and the team members name on the back, this is laid out to be like a concert t-shirt . Due to knowing people in the type of business we were able to achieve a large amount of discount for the printing as it would usually cost 65 DHS for a front and back print. However for 7 people we paid a total of 315 DHS. This will be taken out from the account at the end of the event as we used our own money to purchase these at the beginning, which have been recorded as expenses.

Below are the design plans for the t-shirts which will be created:

‘DBS Has Talent’ Facebook Fan page

The image below shows ‘The DBS Has Talent’ on its new Facebook page. Facebook has become one of the most popular social networking websites across the world. Therefore the majority of student’s within the School have Facebook which leads us to having an easier way of contacting the acts or the customers in order to raise awareness of our event. This is a free way of advertising and there were more than 400 million active users in 2010. The page that we have created is open to the public to join, this is so other friends can see recent activity on the page which can lead to more people being able to join and see our event

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details. For our event this is an excellent way for the customers and participants to engage with the event and our work which we have done to make this event successful. As this is a school event we have invited students within the school to join the page s that they can see our posts and updates.

This is a screenshot of our current page where the students and customers can connect to. This can been extremely useful as we are able to:

Post important update and details of the event Upload videos and images for the customers to see Students are able to post questions if they are interested or need to know something. We can advertise fundraisers so that students know about our other ways to raise

awareness for the event.

Advantages of having a Facebook fan page is that it is an extremely easy to use, it cuts costs and connects and reaches out to a wider audience as many students use Facebook on a daily basis. Disadvantages of doing this can be that it does not have a personal design effect as the layout is the standards Facebook layout which can be very boring for some customers also not all participants and customers have Facebook due to the creators being different ages to potential customers and participants which would mean they are not friends with these specific people which means they may not fid the group as easily as others, especially parents wanting to watch the show.

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Tickets

When potential customers purchase tickets to see the show it is important that they are presented with a professional looking ticket. This will be one of the customers’ expectations to receive a ticket which is attractive and informative. The tickets which we have created this year were designed within school by myself (Lauren). This was decided as a team that I was nominated to design the ticket. We had many issues about where to get the tickets oriented as many companies were quoting high prices for a charity event ticket. However Ryan one of the team members had a connection through his father’s work which were able to print tickets for free along as their companies name was placed on the ticket which was not an issue. This was successful for us and looked extremely professional. Which lead customers from previous years commenting saying that the tickets we produced had been better from previous years which was an achievement for the team.

The design included the ‘DBS Has Talent’ logo on the front side and information and sponsors on the back. Information included Price of the ticket, Location, Opening times and the date of the show. However as we were fortunate this year from our sponsors our ticket also included the prize which one of the members in the audience are able to win once buying a ticket to show. This was more persuasive to the customers and encouraged more people to buy a ticket to our show, which was a selling point for us this year.

This is a computerised image of the tickets which we were selling to the customers this year for our event:

FRONT BACK

However due to Ductac having a different manager dealing with us we were not informed that we could not use these tickets for the show as they did not fit the guidelines advised which we were not told about. Another problem was that we already sold 250 tickets to the customers with this design therefore it would be time consuming and complicated asking for all of them back. However after contacting Ductac we were able to come to arrangement that we needed to create 3 tear tickets that suited the guidelines for the venue and just swap these with are original ones on the door which was not an issue.

There was only 7 days left to the event when we were told this therefore we were struggling to find a company which were able to do this in such a short period of time not for a high price. Due to a member of staff at the school we were able to design the tickets to suit the

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guidelines and send them to the member of staff which were able to use a previous company that have printed tickets for him before and have them done in a short period of time for a small cost. Once these tickets had been created in booklets we needed to take these to DTCM (The Government) and allow them to be stamped and signed by Ductac in order to allow the event to go forward and without us being fined for not abiding with the legal requirements.

This is a computerised image of the tickets which were created by me which fitted the guidelines for Ductac.

FRONT

BACK

Emails and Letters To Parents

During the event we thought it would be important to increase the awareness of the students parents throughout the school community as moist of our advertising will directly attract and show students or teachers that are within the school area on a day to day basis. Therefore to achieve this we decided the most suitable way of advertising to parents would involve emails or letters home. We decided as a team the emails will be more useful as this is direct to the parents and there is a higher chance that they will be able to receive and read this instead of

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handing students letters which could be forgotten about or thrown away. We produced a letter which then the school administrator emailed to all of the parents within students in the secondary years to inform them of the show. This image below is an example of one of the letters which were sent to parents about our fundraiser quiz night that we held in awareness for the show and to raise money for the autism centre.

Also a few weeks before the show we handed out letters and emails to the acts parents in confirmation that their child was allowed to perform in the show and to remind parents to purchase tickets for their children.

Press Release

Our chosen charity is Dubai Autism Centre which is an extremely popular charity in Dubai, within our country the importance of supporting autism is very strong and they encourage strong advertising to increase the awareness. Due to this as a team we decided to write a press release which was sent to many of the local newspapers in Dubai which we hope will want to report our story of the work we have produced and how we have helped Dubai autism centre.

Regarding this we have asked for a report after the show as we did not want to attract sales from the public as this is a school event and is kept within the school community due to the law and ticket sales. By doing this it does not support the effect of ticket sales but it does raise awareness of the show after and can increase popularity of the applied course Dubai British School offers.

This is an image of the press release that we made as a team, and later on when the event was stage gulf news arrived and took images and reported which was excellent news for our team.

Assemblies

This was another type of marketing that we used to promote our event. By doing this we were able to talk to the whole school. By introducing and explaining about the event we were holding this year and how everyone could be involved. Our first assembly held was to introduce the event that we had chosen to do and to get people signed up for auditions which would then be later held that month. To do this we thought we would film are selves giving ideas about what people could sign up and audition with. As we wanted more than just singers for final show. This was successful and got everybody talking about the event around the school. We did this for all years including primary. The most effect year group that

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enjoyed our assembly was the primary students and we had over 45 children sign up to audition for the show.

Later on in the year closer to the event we had an assembly to show all the students who the final acts where and a short clip of their audition. This was during the study leave period in January therefore we couldn’t reach out to all the students as most of them were not in school at the time. We also used this assembly to promote the ticket sales and to rush people to buy tickets for the event as we didn’t have a lot of time left. We suffered with a few technical issues but the assembly went forward and was successful but not as organised as our previous assembly at the beginning of the year.

Place

This was an important factor for our event as it involved deciding on a final venue for our show. This had to be a suitable venue where we would be able to hold a talent show, within the market research section (section 2) you will see that we visited 3 different venues that we believed were the most suitable for our event. we could not hold the show within our own school as the auditiorm plan were being built at the time at it was a risk to take if the building wasn’t build in time, and would not hold as many seats as other auditoriums did that we looked at. This then left us with two choices which both of the previous applied teams had both worked with before for this event. This was DUCTAC and Madinat. Ductac had better communication skills than the Madinat therefore we got a price cost from DUCTAC for around 12,500 DHS for the full hire of the venue.

Place also relates with the location of selling tickets. It is important to have the tickets sold in a suitable place as this is where the customers will be purchasing the product and this is where it will attract them. When selling tickets for the event the place which was easily decided on was the library. This has been the place where the previous groups have sold their tickets and where the staff are comfortable and knowledgeable about what to do. We could not sell the tickets outside of the school due to legal aspects, and as the event is based within the school and the school community the library would be the most suitable place and accessible for our target market.

The reasoning to why this is the most suitable as all the school productions ticket sales are sold and kept here. The library is open all day and the staff working within this area are always available and all students know where to find the library if

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needed. Also the librarians will keep a record of the amount of tickets sold and a daily count of the cash which will then be cashed away in the accounts folder in the school office.

On the previous page is a print screen of the ticket sales from which we made for the library to record who has purchased what tickets in case of any need to refund due to changes in the date of the event, or any chances of postponing.

Contingency Plans

All businesses will know during the planning and staging of any event, problems will more than likely occur. Some may only be small problems which can easily be overcome however there can also be unforeseen circumstances and cause serious circumstances. However before these problems occur it is important that all businesses produce a contingency plan, this plan is produced to be a guide which a team should use to overcome these problems. For our event it is important for us to create a plan as if any problem occurs which is likely we can recover the situation as quickly and efficiently as possible with little cost. We will be producing a contingency plan for all the issues that could have happened for example:

Below we have created a contingency plan for particular situations for the talent show:

Contingency plan Non-appearance of act Stakeholders involved

If an act did not show up on the night of the event to perform, the stakeholders which would be involved would include:

The customers: some may be disappointed as they have paid to watch particular acts on the night which has then not turned up, at short noticed they would find out on the event evening which may be disappointing.

Other acts: if acts do not appear on the night it will affect the running order and timings which can lead to the event becoming unorganized.

Team/staff: Everyone is going to have to be noted of the new running order to ensure that the show is run smoothly, so that there are no mistakes and that the lighted and sound is not affected by this when the show I live to the audience.

How it might occur The act may become ill and will not be able to arrive or perform at the show.

The acts could be delayed and not turn up at all or there could be high traffic near the venue which would mean we would have to rearrange the running order.

Special guests; sponsors, may not be able to attend because of busy schedule

Worst case scenario

This will look negative towards the team as stakeholders may feel that this use is due to our lack in planning the event, therefore we would have to inform all the audience at the beginning of the event with an apology, to keep customer satisfaction still at a high rate.

We could contact the acts and try to work around them being

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available. Members of the audience, who have purchased tickets, may

want a refund which would lead a loss of profits for our business.

Measurements to manage

To ensure that all acts appear on the night we will: We will have registers to make sure all acts are in school on the

day and not absent on the show night. If an act is not within the school we would be able to contact them via phone or Facebook to see if they are attending the event on the night.

We will have all contact details of acts in case of a problem occurring and we need to contact them to discuss the issue.

Other problems which could occur would be:

Lack of sales and customers buying tickets to the show -If customers were not purchasing our tickets for the night of the talent show this would mean that we would lose a lot of our main profits for the event, and the auditorium that we hired would look extremely space. This would leave the audience less committed and motivated than previous years.

A plan to overcome this problem would be that we would need to push are marketing of the tickets and the event so that we could interest more customers into buying a ticket. If sales were still slow at increasing we would have to result in postponing the event to give us more time in order of selling the tickets. If worse come to worse we would have to consider lowering the prices of the tickets so that more people would be willing to participate and purchase a tickets, however we could try make this money back from selling or holding fundraisers so that we did not lose a specific amount of money towards our chosen charity.

Risk of fireIf a fire was to occur the main risk would be that any stakeholders inside the building will be putting their life at risk of death. Therefore the customers (audience) will need to be ensured where the fire exits are in case of any emergency at the beginning of the night, as if a fire occurred then this could lead to the customers being distressed if this occurred which would ruin every ones overall opinion of the night.

To overcome this issue we would have a member of backstage stage to check all the changing rooms for electrical items which may not have been switched of, we would have to make sure all evacuation lights are illuminated. Check with the DUCTAC that all fire extinguishers and fire alarms are working, and lastly it would be extremely important to check that all fire exits are not blocked.

Act Injury

If one of the acts are injured due to DUCTAC or any problems occurred by the venues stage/equipment this would lead to the acts parents and other customers being very disappointed and annoyed with the running and organising of the event and venue hire. For

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example this could happen if pparticular wires may be loose across the ground on the stage for microphones; other items may not be packed away appropriately and left in a pile.

If an accident happens which can be very serious for the act this would result in us having to call an ambulance and for assistance. Also to inform the parents of the act what has happened to their child and for them to come immediately to be aware of the case that has happened. Any accident or injury will cause bad reputation on our team organisation which will also affect the school; parents may feel there was a lack of care towards health and safety

To limit this from happening we will:

Ensure that the stage is safe for each act to perform on by taping all the wires down appropriately and by also ensuring that all backstage staff or helpers are fully of wires around the stage to make sure they look out for any dangers.

Acts Not Turning Up To Auditions

When holding auditions for the event it was important that this run smoothly where all acts that applied to audition were able to arrive to their allotted audition time without confusion of where and when there times were. However there always will be people who forget their times or decide not to participate without any notice. This then will lead the auditions to becoming unorganised and running slower than predicted.

To prevent this from happening when seeing each act it is important to give them a slip which includes all the details that they need for their audition. By also asking the act if they are still participating this can predict changes in the times in the long run so that we are able to speed up the process of auditioning the acts. We also speeded up the process of this by rating each of the acts therefore this was then a way where we wouldn’t have disagreements of which acts had the higher rating for the final show. If there were any disagreements we were able to discuss them as a team however all the team members agreed with our top 12 and later changes were made as some acts dropped out.

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Financial Resources

Financial resources- for our business we needed to know what types of fianance is most suitable to use, by looking at the list of long term and short term finance this gave us a broader idea of what aspects the business would need to finance all the different resources in order to make this event successful. Source of funding

Below the table shows what types of sources of funding are available and whether they would be applicable to use for our talent show ‘DBS Has Talent’

Examples Possible Not possibleSell Shares: selling shares to the general public. It is a quick and easy way to earn revenue. Disadvantage would be that they are giving away a part of a business

Bank loan: Quick and easy but interest needs to be paid. We wouldn’t not use his for are event because of the risk. Advertising: Other company’s would be prepared to advertise on the program for a certain cost. Advance ticket sales: Selling tickets beforehand will create great revenue for the business. Program sales: can create a profit if programs sold Sales at door: Ticket sales on the door at the event evening to boost more overall sales in case there are spare tickets available.

Sponsorship: Great prizes for the acts.

Loans from school: It would be possible but it may not be needed. Indirectly if the venue is free. Loan from parents: would not need to pay interest. Fund raising activities: Fun for participants and gains a lot of revenue

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Raffle: Relates to fund raising

Food and drink sales: Cake sale

Sources of Finance We Used for The Event

Sponsorship: As discussed previously this year we were extremely fortunate that we were able to have more sponsorship that all previous years that have held this talent show. These include Premier Inn, Nandos, Taaleem, Fun City, Kraft and Costa. These companies will be offering a range of prizes and money for the show. In return we will be advertising the companies on leaflets, banners, tickets, posters etc.

Loan from the school: Mark Ford the head of the school was willing enough to loan us 3,000 AED in order to cover the deposit on booking the venue hire at DUCTAC. This was added to the cash flow under loan which will then later be paid at the end of the event.

Loan from parents: As a team if we were in need of any money then Amina Darwoods father was able to loan us 2,000 AED.

Own Funds: The opening balance for the event will have to be our own funds, due to not having many fundraisers or money to hold fundraisers; therefore we put our own money into the funds which were then later taken out as expenses.

Fundraising: During the time we are preparing for the event we have decided to hold fundraisers around the school to gain profits in order to help cover costs for the night of the show. Ideas we have discussed for fund raiser to hold include:

Bake sale - many cakes and treats available at the lunch period Teachers ‘v’ students basketball Christmas bake sale – many cakes and treats available at the lunch period Quiz Night – were students and parents are able to come to a quiz night which

is held by our class with prizes to win. Non school uniform day (theme) – This is where students pay a set price to

come to school in non-uniform.

What costs are involved with the event?

Below is a list we have constructed from all the financial Costings which we had to take into consideration for the event. It is extremely important that we investigate these ideas because it gives insight of what to consider when dealing and creating financial plans in the long term.

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VenueThe venue we have chosen is will cost 12,500AED (already reduced from 15,000 AED) However DTCM have charged us for the amount of ticket sales which we produce and sell even though it is a charity event. This was a deposit of 7,000 AED. And DUCTAC were able to drop their process to 10,000 AED instead which was a bonus to our event.

Cost of refreshments As we are using the DUCTAC they usually have their own refreshments staff for the customers which come and watch the shows that are within their venue. However due to late notice from DUCTAC we had to make a stall for refreshments which also had a large profit for our event which was an extra benefit.

Printing/advertisementDue to DUCTAC having to change our ticketing layout this ended up costing us 375 AED to print 11 booklets of tickets, however this would of cost more if we used a company suggested to us by DUCTAC, which was good as Ken who works within our school already had a contact which could print these for a cheaper price. Advertising was free of costs for us as we used the school printers which was another benefit to our business and event.

Trophy/prizes for winners and participants We intend to use sponsored gifts for the prizes, however following the previous years that have held this event we decided to continue their prizes and follow what they spent from last year which was a total of 1750AED for the winners of the show and 2656 AED for the teachers that helped to run the event.

Utilities, A/C and electricityThis will all be included into the costing of the venue.

Staff When we hire the DUCTAC we have within the cost of the venue - 1 Duty Manager, 1 Front of house Manager and 4 ushers. We may not need to use these staff as we will be recruiting students from the applied class in year 12 to experience the event.

Events uniform As part of the event we want all staff in uniform. The team will be wearing advertising T-shirts for the weeks of selling the tickets. The printing for these t-shirts were a cheaper price due to myself having a contact that I already knew who printed on t-shirts. Therefore this only cost us 350 AED.

Photography

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On the event night we wish for a photographer to photograph the show. Due to MR Bentley he arranged another staff member in the school to be able to take these photos for us which was free of cost.

Sponsors

This year one of our strongest points for the event was the amount of sponsors which we were able to get interested in are charity event. The previous year was able to achieve 3 sponsors which were Nando’s, Premier Inn and Taaleem. However this year the sponsors which we were able to invest in our event were the following:

Nandos – 5,000 AED of Vouchers and 5,000 Cash Premier Inn – 5,000 AED of cash and holiday away for a audience member (Prize) Fun City – 7,000 AED of vouchers Kraft/Mondelèz – 4,000 AED of Barni Biscuits and 1,000 Cash Taaleem – 2,500 AED of cash Costa – 2,000 AED of cash.

Each one of these sponsors were all offered free tickets to attend the show and their logo on all of the promotional advertisements or marketing products that we produced which you can find in (Appendix). Some of the businesses were easier than others to contact and keep in business with. Some of the businesses such as Taaleem, Nandos and Costa had a lack of communication and were sometimes hard to work with whereas the best company for communication and interest in the event was Premier Inn, Fun City and Kraft. This made the transactions and process a lot more efficient and easier.

These sponsors were approached to be part of the DBS Factor as members of the group have contacts in the company who were willing to be a part of and invest in the show.

Budgets

As our event is only run by a school organisation we would not need a massive budget like a public theatre should would need. A budget is a financial plan which is agreed in advance. The reasons why budgets are helpful are because:

They force people to plan ahead and improve coordination to ensure that they do not over spend or under spend in their business

Help to control spending and draw attention to waste and inefficiency Enable the event coordinator to delegate responsibility because others are expected to

meet budget targets May act as a review for an event, allowing time to corrective action

Budgets also work as constraints on an event or a business for example. A budget holder may claim that insufficient finds have been allocated for a particular activity. These are the example of budgets that we would use for our event ‘DBS Has Talent’

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Venue budget Prize budget Promotion budget

Cash Flow Forecast

All businesses use Cash flow forecasts when planning or managing costs. This is so businesses do not over spend or over budget there prices. However there are many other reasons to why businesses find cash flow forecasts useful. These are some of the ways that businesses can benefit from using a cash flow forecast:

Planning: This is because they are part of the planning when a business has begun setting up. When businesses construct a cash flow forecast the managers and owners have to think a plan for the company’s future. This is because they have to estimate the future cost and revenue. This also helps out as it shows whether the business will have enough money to survive and meet other spending needs.

Loan application: when a business starts up they may have to borrow money from the bank depending on the company’s circumstances however businesses will need to provide evidence to banks for a chance to have a bank loan. The forecast will show whether the business can afford repayment to the bank and it also shows that the owner or manager have taken the plan seriously.

Monitoring cash flow: during the beginning of the year and at the end. Businesses can compare cash balances in their forecast with those on their bank statements. Also constant monitoring in a business will improve cash control.

When you conduct a cash flow forecast there are 5 main elements that are involved these are the inflows of the business which will be the revenue. For my company an example of this will be bank loan and revenue of sold products. Then this brings us to the outflow of the business these include stock, wages, rent, rates purchasing of furniture, vehicles and all the money the business spends out to pay for its facilities and goods. Net cash flow is all the money that is left over after the revenue is taken away from the total and then lastly opening and closing balances are included on a cash flow forecast.

The benefits of having cash flows in a business would be:

Cash flow forecasts can show whether a business will have enough money for the future months of the year once opening.

They also warn the business owners about any cash shortages that could come up in the future.

This then motivates the business and owner to plan ahead. This can limit the problems which can occur within the company and this show effectively help the business run smoother and efficiently.

Cash flow charts can improve financial information and performance for the business this is useful for when making applications for loans

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When produced on a spreadsheet it is possible to show the changes in payments and receipts on the closing balance instantly.

Some owners of a business might manipulate forecast as well as this many overestimate the forecast which can result in the business overspending or having a higher profit than expected. On the other hand external forces such as the economic factors or competition can affect the actual cash flow of the business which will result in the business cash flow to change and not be accurate. Therefore we decided to conduct a cash flow forecast for our business so that we are able to balance our money and keep in the budget that we predict to make. This is the example of our predicted cash flow forecast for our overall event.

Week Commencing 7th October

This is the first week of our cash flow forecast. As you can see there is no cash in on this week however there is cash out. Due to buying team t-shirts to promote our event this included printing for all 7 people within the class therefore we estimated this to be around 385DHS in total. Another cost which came under our cash out was travelling costs, this included taxis, metro and petrol to attend venues such as DUCTAC and Madinat, and stores for t-shirts and printing. This means for our first week commencing we have predicted that 522 DHS will come out of the business which does leave us in minus figures.

Week Commencing 14th October

This week we have predicted that we should be able to gain a loan for the deposit on DUCATC. This cost is 3,000 DHS therefore we have aimed to achieve this by this week and then book the venue the same week so that we have a secure venue for our event. This results in us having the same closing balance which is minus 522 DHS.

Week Commencing 21st October

This week we have planned to set up a fundraiser which includes us having an income to our cash flow forecast so that we are not in minus anymore. This was decided by the team that we were going to do a bake sale or sell items at lunch time for the students at the school. We

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have predicted that we would like to achieve 750 DHS, however this could not be as easy as we thought due to the school not allowing sugary snacks being sold at the school. Due to still having an achievable fundraiser our closing balance for this week has been predicted to be 228 DHS which leads us to now making profit for our charity.

Week Commencing 28th October

On the 28th of October we have planned this week to be where we achieve our sponsor money for the event, as we have predicted that we should be able to achieve 4 sponsors (Nandos, Taaleem, Costa and 1 Other) we are aiming to have an intake of 20,000 DHS. This is due to each sponsor donating 5,000 DHS each. This will then cover the overall cost of the venue later on in the cash flow so that we are able to have a better profit for our chosen charity. Once we achieve these sponsors we are have not planned to have any cash out this week which has then lead us being able to have a closing balance of 20,228 DHS this week which is leading us to having a higher profit for the end of our event.

Week commencing 4th November

This is another week where are team has decided to conduct a fundraiser for the school, this yet again hasn’t been decided on what we are planning to sell but this is going to be a fundraiser where we are going to sell healthy foods for the students at DBS. We are hoping again to raise around 750 DHS or more. This then leads us to having a predicted closing balance of 20,978 for the commencing week.

Week Commencing 11th November

This week we have predicted no cash in and no cash out, therefore the cash flow forecast does not change. We continue with the same opening and closing balance which results in the profit staying the same.

Week Commencing 18th November

This week we have predicted to conduct another fundraiser for the DBS has Talent. This time we have predicted a larger cash in which is 1,000 DHS. Reasoning for this is because we hope to either hold a event such as an movie night where people are able to come to the school and watch a movie with sales of pop corn and drinks or we are predicting to do a non uniform day for sixth form or KS3. If we were able to do a non uniform day then are predicted profits would be higher however due to other committees in the school there are many non uniform days already taken on the calendar so this has a lower chance of happening which is why we have estimated a lower income. We are also going to advertise this week as the auditions would of been finished and we would be announcing the final acts. We have decided as a team to have pop up posters which can be made by one of the team members parents. These cost around 25DHS each and by having 2 of these it would estimate to around 50 DHS. Once achieving this income of 1,000 DHS and taking out 50DHS, it will leave our closing balance for this week at 21,928 DHS.

Week Commencing 25th November

This week we have predicted to start printing our tickets for the final show. Due to not having a final printing company for this, we estimated that the total cost of this would be around 500

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DHS. We have budgeted this higher than we expected so that if it is cheaper our overall profit will increase not decrease. This leaves our closing balance for this week at 21,428 DHS.

Week Commencing 2nd December

For this week in our cash flow forecast we have decided that we would pay half of our venues cost. This is 6,000 DHS. We have no cash in for this week which means that our overall profit will be decreased. Once we plan to pay this it means our overall closing balance for this week will be 15,378 DHS.

Week Commencing 9th December

On the 9th of December we have decided to start selling our tickets for the final show. We have come to a decision that our tickets are going to be sold at 45 DHS each. Therefore we have cash in of 2,250 DHS. This means we are aiming to sell 50 tickets during this week. Moreover we are also planning on doing a fundraiser as this is will raise more awareness for the team and our event as the final show is getting closer. During this fundraiser we are either aiming to sell healthy products to the students of DBS or having a small event which will raise the same amount of money as we have estimated. Including this cash in for this week it leaves us with a closing balance of 18,378 DHS.

Week Commencing 16th December

During this week we have only planned to sell 50 tickets to the customers which are interesting in coming to our show. Therefore our only predicted cash in is 2,250 DHS. There is no cash out for this week so we have a increase in our profits which leaves our closing balance at 20,628 DHS.

Week Commencing 6th January

This week we still have no cash out for our cash flow forecast, moreover we are planning on selling at least 100 tickets to our target market. This will end up with having our team having a total cash in of 4,500 DHS for this week. This means again our overall balance is slowing increasing leaving our closing balance for 6th January at 25,128 DHS.

Week Commencing 13th January

This week we have planned to have our last small fundraiser for our event. This will involve either selling products to students amongst the school or creating a raffle where parents and students can win small prizes, we had to consider the prize costs within this therefore we have predicted a profit of 500 DHS for this fundraiser. During this week we have also predicted to sell another 100 tickets to our target market which is a total of 4,500 DHS. This gives us a total of 5,000 DHS for our cash in on this week. From our cash flow forecast we have decided to advertise this week where we have estimated this at 200 DHS. Reasoning to why this is a larger amount of advertising is as we plan to purchase 2 more pop up posters which will be placed at the chosen venue. As well as printing flyers and posters that will also

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be placed at the school and chosen venue to raise more awareness for our event. Therefore our closing balance for this week is 29,928 DHS.

Week Commencing 20th January

During this week on our cash flow forecast we have predicted to sell another 100 tickets which gives us a total cash in of 4,500 DHS. However we plan to spend 300 DHS on printing for the event, this will include the programmes for each customer which has brought a ticket and a customer feedback form so that we can see how well our customers enjoyed the event. we have also planned to spend 60 DHS on travel costs as we may have to visit DUCTAC in advance for advertising or finalising the event day. This leaves our total closing balance at 34,068 for this commencing week.

Week Commencing 27th January

This is the last week which we plan on selling our tickets, yet again we have predicted that the last hundred tickets will be sold. This means will have a total cash in of 4,500 DHS. Relating to our cash out on our cash flow forecast we have estimated that we will be sorting the final prizes for the contestants of the show. This will include 3rd place winning 250 DHS, second place winning 500 DHS and first place winning 1,000 DHS. This is a total of 1750 DHS in total, this then leaves us with 1,000 DHS to spend on the teachers which has helped us achieve the event and worked with us to make sure that it was successful. Another cash out for this week will be the final payment for the venue, this is 6,000 DHS which does mean our overall closing balance we be decrease slightly from the following week. Our closing balance for this week is 29,818 DHS.

Week Commencing 2nd February

This is the last week before the final talent show will be held. We do not plan on having any cash in for this week however we have planned to spend 60 DHS on travelling to the event on the final day of the show so that we are able to set up, sound check and get everything in order so that our event runs smoothly and efficiently. Due to this cost this means that our final closing balance for the whole entire show will be 28,758. This is our predicted profit which we will be giving to charity from doing this event.

As this is our predicted cash flow forecast every week we will fill in our final forecast and compare each one so that we are able to see how well it relates back to our estimate. If we are accurate from our predicted forecast this will result in us achieving more money than the previous year to give to charity, as this is one of our aims for the event we want to achieve this therefore we needed to think correctly about where the money is coming in and going out. By having a cash flow forecast it should ensure that the event will run more smoothly and efficiently as we have a basic idea of how much money we would like to spend and how much money we would like to make. From this we can base our fundraisers, marketing and promotion aspects from the timing on our Gantt chart and cash flow forecast. When making the cash flow forecast we related this to our Gantt chart and connected the dates around the same areas which we originally decided to achieve them by.

This is the cash flow forecast from the end of the event and the correct figures that we ended up with. Below I will evaluate the changes and the differences that has occurred due to the way which we thought the talent show would run.

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Final Cash Flowthis is a screenshot of our final cash flow from the event. As you can see this is a lot different to how we predicted our financial aspects of the event was going to be. Firstly when we predicted our money in and out of the business we didn’t think that we would need to spend our own money in the first few weeks in order to be able to visit different venues and businesses. We predicted that we would be in debt for the first week of the staging of the event which would be unrealistic as we would have had no money to pay for this. We also thought that we would be able to receive the loan from the school within the second week; this is not a dramatic difference as on our final cash flow it shows that we received and paid DUCTAC the deposit in the third week of the event.

ver the whole event we predicted that we would hold 5 fundraisers making an average of over 700 DHS per fundraiser, however we didn’t consider the costs of the fundraisers therefore we were making more money than we were spending out which is also unrealistic. On the final cash flow it shows that over the 5 months we held 6 fundraisers however 3 of these were just selling sponsorship products that we didn’t need and a tuck shop for the final night of the event which gave us extra money overall which was what our aim was. 3 of the fundraisers were organised by us as a team these included the ice pops sales, quiz night and the mufti day.

On the fourth week of our predicted chart we said that we would receive 4 sponsors that were going to give us an average of 5,000 AED each. As you can see from our final cash flow we did not receive any of our sponsorship money till the last weeks of the event. This was due to the accountants at the school and how lob got took for them to cash our cheques through. However this money came in time for us to be able to pay DUCTAC for the venue hire.

The ticket sales from our final cash flow here very different to our predicted sales. We predicted that we would be selling the tickets at the beginning of December which gave us just under 2 months to sell our tickets, however due to the organisation skills within this area they did not start selling till the 13th of January which was very late for the customers to get hold of their tickets. The ticket sales also differentiated throughout the weeks, for example one week it was 6510 where as the week of the event it was 3875.

The reason that our final closing balance for the cash flows was very different was the fact that as a team we didn’t consider all of the outflows that our business would be faced during the preparation of the event. This included extra charges from Ductac and DTCM as well as prizes and technical aspects where we needed to pay for SD cards. Also we didn’t consider the price it would cost to prepare and organise fundraisers. This meant that our inflows were not relevantly different however our outflows were much underestimated. Our final cash flow result was more realistic from the previous years and similar to how much they have raised.

Fund Raising

For this event it was important that we did fundraisers in order to cover costs and to raise more money than the previous years total. One of the biggest fund raising events will be the non-uniform day, which is where every student in the school is charged 10 AED to come into school for that day not in school uniform, this is a great way of fundraising, as many people

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take the opportunity to come into school not in uniform. However due to many constraints this year as a team we struggled to hold more than 3 fundraising events.

As a team we felt that our head of the sixth form was being biased against our class and helping us raise fund for the final event. We booked a mufti day with the head of sixth form which was the given away to the prom committee which left them with all 3 mufti days and our team with none. We decided this wasn’t acceptable and there was room for us to be allowed at least one of the fundraising days. After a meeting and a long discussion we were only entitled in half of the profits which when we counted our money it didn’t even seem to be that. This was a letdown and a huge disappointment to our event and team.

Therefore we decided to hold other events which would give us an increase in money for the night of the event. Therefore we achieved this by holding a Quiz Night, Ice Pop Sales and Barni Biscuits Sale. This in total raised over 2000 AED which was better than nothing. The ice pops was the first fundraiser that we did, this involved us buying bulk of ice pops and selling them to the students in the school at break and lunch times. This was a success and we sold all of the stock that we bought it. This left us with a grand total of 362 DHS.

Our second fundraiser which we held was the quiz night, this took a lot more preparation as we had to create quiz sheets, questions and answers, refreshments, booking space to hold and PTA for tea and coffee. However this was a success and we ended up 9 teams in total with a 50 DHS enter per team and made a grand total of 652 DHS. We also bought prizes for 1st, 2nd and last place which was a larger encouragement for more people to get involved and attend our fundraiser. We had to postpone the original night of the quiz due to not enough teams signed up however we encouraged more people to sign up and other turned up on the night.

Due to Kraft giving us a large amount of Barni Biscuits we had only one option and this was to sell them. The week before the event decided to sell a biscuit at 1DHS each every break time of a full box of 12 for 10DHS. These were a huge hit and all the students of the school loved them this lead us to selling and making an overall total of 591 DHS. Here is an image of us selling the biscuits within school time. This also promoted ticket sales and awareness of the event as every time we sold a product we made sure the customers were aware of what the cause was for and that tickets were running out, so they needed to purchase theirs now.

Physical resources

Location/venue As we have decided to hold a talent show we need a venue to stage the acts which will include a stage. Therefore this is why we have chosen DUCTAC, we made this decision earlier on in the planning of the event which you can see earlier on in this document. We know that DUCTAC hold 543 seats for the audience which is more than we will need for our event. The theatre which we have chosen is built inside a popular mall of Dubai. Which is called Mall of the Emirate. This means that it is easy to locate and most people will be able to find the venue without a problem. The theatre was 12,500 but was only 10,000 AED to hire after costing from DUCTAC.

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Equipment Through the preparation and stages of the event we will be using common equipment for example this will include; mobile phones, internet and computers for any type of communication. However we will need specific and particular equipment for the night of the event. by hiring an event with DUCTAC we will already have set up toilet and changing facilities, theatre seating and parking areas for the customer and acts during the performance. This will also include a surround sound system and lighting for the stage.

As this is a talent show and will be staging several different acts we will need a lot of large physical resources especially musical instruments for the bands that are playing. Also for some of the acts props will need to be included and bought along as well. Some of these will be our own and other we can borrow from DUCATC as this will be supplied in the hiring costs. The resources which are our own will be transported from the school to the theatre in the teachers and students cars. Equipment includes:

o Guitarso Microphone stands o Amps o Props for dancers: chair, smoke machineo Stoolso Cameraso Video recorders o Refreshments

There will also be equipment which the Dubai Autism Centre will supply for their donation stand which will include a donation box.

Materials Throughout all stages there will be many materials we will need especially in the planning stages these can include all of the printed documents that are needed, prizes for the acts and the teachers, money which needed to be paid to DUCTAC 7,000) Tickets to be swapped at the door and programmes for the audience which are watching the show.

Human Resources

This is related to the team and staff which are working in order to prepare and run the end in the aspects of making sure that they are correctly skilled for the job and work in an effective and appropriate position and manner with the other associates on their team. Within the section I will be indentifying the important of human resources; moreover this will involve the job roles, team work and staging of the event. Therefore it is crucial to include planning of human resources as it effects the organisation of a team and identifies how to motivate each other.

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When looking into this section there were several factors that needed to be considered before staging and selecting this type if event. As some of these factors could determine the effectiveness of the team:

How many people are in the team: 7 is enough for an event if it is quite complex and also teacher support will be more than plenty to make this successful

Team structure: it is important to structure a team so that all members are participating and using their skills. Which skills do each individual have and how can they use these to participate well in the event preparation.

Skills and abilities: within a team there should be diverse skills and abilities. Good verbal communication, organisers and leaders of the group. Someone with computer competence and the ability to notice weaknesses to your

plans.

What are the benefits of a well-structured team?

o Boosts moraleo Team accountabilityo Mutual supporto Personal developmento Reduced supervision

Motivation Team Theories

Hertzberg’s His motivation theory consisted of Two Factors the Theory is a "content theory" of motivation. Herzberg analysed the job attitudes of 200 accountants and engineers who were asked to recall when they had felt positive or negative at work and the reasons why and from this research, Herzberg suggested a two-step approach to understanding employee motivation and satisfaction. This included Hygiene and Motivation factors.

The Hygiene factors are based on the need for a business to avoid unpleasantness at work. If these factors are considered inadequate by employees, then they can cause dissatisfaction with work. Hygiene factors include:

Company policy and administration

Wages, salaries and other financial remuneration

Quality of supervision

Quality of inter-personal relations

Working conditions

Feelings of job security

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Whereas the motivation factors are based on an individual's need for personal growth. When they exist, motivator factors actively create job satisfaction. If they are effective, then they can motivate an individual to achieve above-average performance and effort. Motivator factors include:

Status

Opportunity for advancement

Gaining recognition

Responsibility

Challenging / stimulating work

Sense of personal achievement & personal growth in a job

There are several limitations of this theory for example the theory reliability is uncertain. Also it was discovered that there was no comprehensive measure of satisfaction was used. An employee may find his job acceptable despite the fact that he may hate/object part of his job. Another limitation of the theory was discovered that the two-factor theory overlooks situational variables. Hertzberg’s theory has non finical benefits this can be seen as a disadvantage as people may want to work for money and not enjoy their job therefore they would not be no see this as an motivator, however some people will find this as an advantage as if they enjoy their job they can gain benefits such as company cars and so on from this motivational theory. By using this theory in a business it will give the employees benefits and make them feel that the company care about them which will motivate them to come to work for example in Dubai most company give the employees a benefit of accommodation.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

This is a "content theory" of motivation" Maslow's theory consisted of two parts:

The classification of human needs, and Consideration of how the classes are related to each other

Every person starts at the bottom of the hierarchy and will initially seek to satisfy basic needs such as food and shelter.

Safety needs at work can include physical safety (e.g. protective clothing) as well as protection against unemployment, loss of income through sickness etc.

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Social needs recognise that most people want to belong to a group. These would include the need for love and belonging (e.g. working with colleague who support you at work, teamwork, communication)

Esteem needs are about being given recognition for a job well done. They reflect the fact that many people seek the esteem and respect of others. A promotion at work might achieve this

Self-actualisation is about how people think about themselves - this is often measured by the extent of success and/or challenge at work

This theory has got disadvantages to it for example individual behaviour will respond to several needs not just one need. There also may be a problem indicating when a need has been satisfied and fulfilled by the employee. Advantages of doing this for employees mean that they should be almost satisfied with all of their needs being taking into the businesses consideration, this will emphasise the employee to be happy and motivated to work. Knowing that they have basic pay, security and the social side of meeting and making new friends this will always motivate an employee to come to work and enjoy their job. However it may not motivate someone as they can’t reach the higher levels without reaching the first levels and this may seem a lengthy process to them.

McGregor His theory was designed to create two theories of human behaviour at work: Theory and X and Theory Y. He did not suggest that specific characters in the working environment were either one type or the other. Instead he saw both of the theories as two extremes.

Theory X works would be describes as the following:

Individuals who dislike work and avoid it where possible

Individuals who lack ambition, dislike responsibility and prefer to be led

Individuals who desire security

The implications that were involved for Theory X workers were that, to achieve organisational objectives, a business would need to impose a management system of discipline, control and punishment.

Theory Y workers were characterised by McGregor as:

Consider effort at work as just like rest or play Ordinary people who do not dislike work. Depending on the working conditions,

work could be considered a source of satisfaction or punishment Individuals who seek responsibility (if they are motivated)

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The implications that were involved for Theory X workers are, to achieve organisational objectives, rewards of varying kinds are likely to be the most popular motivator. The challenge for management with Theory Y workers is to create a working environment (or culture) where workers can show and develop their creativity.

Essentially theory X indicates that workers under this category are only working for money and security which is an advantage for those as they are receiving money however it means they do not like their job which is a disadvantage and can relate to having a large staff turnover for the business. Whereas theory Y workers have an advantage as they are enjoying their job which they receive other benefits from it which are financial and social. For example they go to work and meet new people whilst earning money and doing something they enjoy. However this is only possible if they are provided by the business with good basic needs and a working environment otherwise the employees will not be happy and motivated to work. Theory X employees are closely watched and observed by managers to be motivated to work and achieve their full potential this is called the hard approach. Whereas the soft approach is to be permissive and seek harmony with the hope that the employees will cooperate in return when asked to.

Blake and Moulton

This theory is placed into a managerial grid plots leadership style along two axes. The y axes states the concern of people in the team and the y axes states the concern for production in a team.

Concern for People – This is the degree to which a leader considers the needs of team members, their interests, and areas of personal development when deciding how best to accomplish a task.

Concern for Production – This is the degree to which a leader emphasizes concrete objectives, organizational efficiency and high productivity when deciding how best to accomplish a task.

By using the axis to plot the concern for production and the concern for the people this follows the five leadership styles.

The grid which you can see above can be shown in different ways. Most tasks are assessed on a scale from 0-9 on each axis. This then leads most of the leadership styles to be plotted around the two axes. The different types of leadership styles would be number from the scale above for example a team leader would receive 9,9 this means 9 on the concern of production and 9 on the concern to people.

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These are the types of leadership which people within the team can receive on the managerial gird:

Country Club Leadership – High People/Low ProductionThe styles of the employee are to be concerned about the needs and feelings of members within the team. The worker will operate under the assumption that the team is happy and secure that they are working hard. This means that the working environment tends to be more relaxed. However these employees lack a sense of direction and control.

Produce or Perish Leadership – High Production/Low PeopleThese workers can be known as or Compliance Leaders, people in this category who believe that employees are simply a means to an end. The Employee needs are always secondary to the need for efficient and productive workplaces. This type of leader is very autocratic, has strict work rules, policies, and procedures, and views punishment as the most effective means to motivate employees.

Impoverished Leadership – Low Production/Low PeopleThis leader is mostly ineffective. They employee usually has neither a high regard for creating systems for getting the job done, nor for creating a work environment that is satisfying and motivating. The result is a place of disorganization, dissatisfaction and disharmony.

Middle-of-the-Road Leadership – Medium Production/Medium PeopleThese employees within the team can come across as an ideal compromise. However when you compromise, you necessarily give away a bit of each concern so that neither production nor people needs are fully met. Leaders who use this style settle for average performance and often believe that this is the most anyone can expect.

Team Leadership – High Production/High PeopleLastly this role of leadership within a team is the pinnacle of managerial style. These leaders stress production needs and the needs of the people equally highly. The premise here is that employees are involved in understanding organizational purpose and determining production needs. These team workers are enthusiastic and committed to having a stake in the organisations success. This creates a team environment based on trust and respect, which leads to high satisfaction and motivation and, as a result, high production.

Blake and Moutons managerial grid is a motivation theory for team workers within a business. As a manager of a project this will be able to plot each team worker into a specific part of this managerial grid. This will show the business what level each employee is working at and how to position different work which will suit each team member, by having this is it will show who the most suitable employee to become team leader is and where other employees within the team will fit. This will improve business efficiency and performance and the team will have a good sense of direction with their team members and each employee which be positioned within the right plot for concern of people and production. By having this right it will balance team and the members will be able to motivate each others as their roles of being within a team which should improve the efficiency of work being completed and should run the team in a more smoothly direction to succeed their aims and objectives.

Belbin

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Belbin identified nine team roles and he categorized those roles into three groups: Action Oriented People Oriented, Thought Oriented.

Each team role is associated with typical behavioural and interpersonal strengths within the members of the team. He also identified characteristics weaknesses that tend to come with each team role. However the areas which are considered as allowable weaknesses are areas which can potentially be improved.

The nine team roles are the following:

Action Oriented Roles:Shaper (SH)Shapers are people within the team who challenge the others to improve. They are dynamic and usually extroverted people who enjoy motivating others, questioning team members, and finding the best approaches for solving problems. The Shaper is the employee in the team who makes sure that all possibilities are considered and that the team does not become weak. On the other hand shapers see obstacles in a team as a challenge which they tend to push on when others feel like giving up. However their potential weakness can be that they are argumentative and that they tend to offend other team members feelingsImplementer (IMP)Implementers are the team members who push on to get things done. They turn the team's ideas and concepts into practical actions and plans. They are usually conservative and well disciplined people who work systematically and efficiently, this results in the being very organised and you can count on to get the job finished. However on the downside, Implementers may be inflexible and can slow to adapt to change.Completer-Finisher (CF)Completer-Finishers are the people within a team who see that projects are completed correctly. They ensure that there cannot be any errors or omissions and they pay attention to the smallest of details. They are very concerned with deadlines and will push the team to make sure the job is completed on the correct deadline. Other team members can describe them as perfectionists who are orderly, conscientious, and anxious.However, a Completer-Finisher may worry unnecessarily, and may find it hard to delegate.

People Oriented Roles:Coordinator (CO)Coordinators are the ones who take on the traditional team-leader role within the business and or also can be referred to the chairman they guide the team to what they believe are the objectives. They are known as excellent listeners and they are naturally able to recognize the value that each team members brings to the business. They are calm and good-natured and tackle tasks very effectively. However their potential weaknesses are that they may delegate away too much personal responsibility, and may tend to be manipulative.Team Worker (TW)Team Workers are the people who provide support and make sure that people within the team are working together effectively. These people fill the role of negotiators within the team and they are flexible. These tend to be popular people who are very capable in their own self, and they prioritize the team with good organisation skills. However team workers can be indecisive and uncommitted during discussions and decision making.Resource Investigators (RI)

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Resource Investigators are innovative and curious. They explore available all the available options, develop contacts, and negotiate for resources on behalf of the team. These workers are usually extremely enthusiastic who identify work with their external stakeholders to help the rest of the team meet their objectives. These workers are outgoing. However these employees can lose interest within the team easily are usually optimistic.Thought Oriented Roles:Plant (PL)The Plant is the creative employee within the team who comes up with new ideas and approaches. They thrive on praise but criticism is especially hard for them to deal with. Plants often prefer to work apart from the team. Because their ideas are so novel, they can be impractical at times. They may also be poor communicators.Monitor-Evaluator (ME)Monitor-Evaluators are best at analyzing and evaluating ideas that other people (often Plants) come up with. These people are carefully with the pros and cons of all the options before coming to a decision.Monitor-Evaluators are usually critical thinkers and very strategic in their approach. They are often perceived as detached or unemotional. Sometimes they are poor motivators who react to events rather than instigating themSpecialist (SP)Specialists are people who have specialized knowledge that is needed to get the job done. They pride themselves on their skills and abilities, and they work to maintain their professional status. Their job within the team is to be an expert in the area, and they commit themselves fully to their field of expertise.This may limit their contribution, and lead to a preoccupation with technicalities at the expense of the bigger picture.

Some businesses set behaviour tests so that they can categorize their employees within the team’s o that they are motivated and work to their best standards as a group. These tests can be in a form of a questionnaire which measures the employee’s behaviour when they are put in certain situations. It’s always important that you remember these categorized groups are not job roles but that they are only personality and characteristics of each member in the team. It is unlikely that in a short period of time an employee can change categories to another. This motivation theory for a team will improve a business’s performance as each team member will be categorized for personality and characteristics which should result in the manager being able to know each team members strengths and weaknesses which are elements which can be solved and worked with before the team has even started to work on their project. By working with this theory it should make the teams work run much smoother and efficiently with less problems. Therefore this results in the business having a better business performance.

Managing a Team – Our Team Theory

A larger scale of evidence when working in a team would be, our applied class conducts an event for one of our units within the course. This happens every year within the school, by doing this it includes all of the members of the class working

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together as a team to achieve an annual event which is open to all of the customers internally and externally related with the school. By doing this is involves a wide load of work where individuals use their skills and qualities to make sure the event idea is successful. Over a period of years most applied teams have chosen an annual talent show for their event, as this includes other customers within the school and has a good impact on the customers who chose to attend the event. Therefore our team chose to continue this tradition and achieve an annual talent show which has been improved from the previous years. When working in a team there are several different elements which will have an impact on the team members and how well they achieve their aims and objectives.

For this example I am going to cover the following aspects of when businesses work in teams and relate this to our team work:

Team Morale Team Dynamics Skills and qualities Communication Structure Leadership

Team Morale

It is always important when working in a team that all members within the group have a good social factor or feel as part of a close circle. By achieving this it can meet social needs and esteem for the individuals which are within the business. Since we have started our event some members of the team may of not felt as close in the circle as they could of been, however over a period of time all of the individuals have a large social circle with all of the other individuals within the team more than they had from the beginning. This was achieved by having team activities which split up the groups that were already formed in the team and getting other members to work with different people than they usually would. This has lead to the group having a better organisational skills and communication skills throughout the group which has lead to a higher standard of efficiency. When we began the event the team leader decided to boost the morale of the team, this would be a good idea to have a praise to aim to at the end of the event if we achieved a certain amount of money raised for charity, this could be a trip to Wild Wadi or for a meal our for the group. Therefore when businesses do this it can individually motivate the team members which will result in an overall motivator for the group.

Team Dynamics

Team dynamics is related to the characteristics and skills of each individual within the team. This generally is something which the team leader needs to be aware of when making sure that the team works effectively and efficiently. This is so conflicts can be decreased. This relates to morale of the employees and the social factor which each individual has when working within a tight circle. As long as all of the employees feel close within the circle this

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will create a better team dynamics for the business, however there are some personality clashes within the group which have made decisions take longer than expected moreover this has been overcome which has made our overall business become stronger and find it easier to make decisions depending on people’s opinions. As stated in the previous section our group has good communication skills amongst most members of the team and all members seem content and happy about working within the team. Which has lead us to having an achievable and so far successful event which we plan to achieve by in February. If the team is not well structured or balance then the team’s performance will decrease and can lead to more limitations and conflicts therefore as a whole it is important that all projects are completed and the characteristic and skills of each individual are used so that the motivation of each member if always increasing.

Skills and Qualities

Skills and qualities of each individual member can increase the effectiveness of the team. This is because each individual will be able to bring different skills, qualities and experiences to the table which could help us become more efficient in certain aspects and areas of our event. For the event this has been useful due to different members of the team coming from different areas across the world and studying different topics previously in their past education. A good example of this would be Kirsty who has had previous experience in making movies or clips. This has been a large help to the group as she was able to create our opening video to advertise our event to the former participants that want to audition for the final show. Another skill which has been useful for our group was myself being able to create logos and use computers to create a good standard image which could be printed onto t-shirts and tickets etc.

Communication

This is vital in a team as it can clearly affect work ethic and performance of a group. Therefore always keeping communication levels to a high standard is important when working in a team. To achieve this for our event it was important that we could all access the email account where vital emails were being sent to companies businesses etc so that everyone could keep track of what was going on. This shows good communication as people can keep up with what is happening from accessing the businesses email account when needed. Moreover when the team was brought together I thought it would be a good decision to make a group on Facebook so that files, videos, ideas, opinions and photos etc could be posted whenever any individual wished. By doing this the communication levels are kept strongly across the weekends or when the team are not together. Most of the members of the team all have blackberry messenger this is an easy way to communicate for free whenever needed in a business this includes the individuals being able to send videos, pictures and message for the cost of nothing wherever they are in the world. However the other team members which do not have this we are able to contact them through social networking sites or mobile as we have made sure that it is important that at all times we have a good communication level with other members of the team so that the performance is never decreased or left to lack behind.

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Structure

This can affect the performance of a team if the stricter is incorrect, this is important that a business evaluates the structure so that they limit the amount of conflicts and limitations that could occur. Even though this is not particularly important for our team, as we did not have a choice of the stricter it is still important to keep this to a strong basis throughout the project so that the team stays strong and limits conflicts which could occur. Due to a disagreement which happened at the beginning of the project this lead to certain team members falling out. This will de motivate those within the group and can have an effect on the overall performance that the team is producing within this time. Therefore as a team leader I decided that it would be most important to draw those members together to evaluate the problem and overcome it so we could push on and achieve our aims and objectives to a high level. Therefore this could have affected the structure which shows that this is important to sustain the whole way through the project and just not at the beginning.

Leadership

For our event it is possible to suggest what type of leadership style that we have for our business. From my point of view I would suggest that our team has a Mc Gregor theory when it comes to working in a team. The reasoning behind this would be the fact that some team members are X workers however some team members are Y workers. Some of the members of the team dislike work and avoid whenever possible. They tend to lack in ambition, dislike responsibility and prefer to be lead. Whereas some of individuals within the team are Y workers this includes them with a work ethic that is work hard play hard therefore they go to work to achieve their work and go home to rest. These are ordinary people who do not dislike work, depending on the circumstances. These tend to be motivated people. Due to our event some of us who would consider ourselves as Y workers would feel that we try motivating the X workers who would rather be led so that they are more motivated to achieve work. As the class has nominated me to be team leader, I believe that it is my task to motivate those that I see as X workers, this includes praising them when they achieve good work so that they feel as if their work has been acknowledged and noticed by the people who they look to for tasks and motivation.

This also relates to the reward which I set the team when we finish the event as this will motivate X theory workers as they have something to aim towards, however not forgetting the theory y workers it is a task to create a good working environment for these individuals as this is one of the elements which they look for to motivate them and to come to work. For our case this will include making sure the team are getting along, jobs are being done and others are not stressed as this will lead to them feeling de motivated.

Overall How Has this Affected the Success of Our Event

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By having these factors correct within the team it will achieve a positive impact on the performance and effectiveness of our business and for us to achieve are overall aim. By acknowledging the type of leadership style within the team it has been easier to motivate each individual in a different way to their characteristics. Having the correct group dynamics and stricter in a team will ensure that all of the members are happy. When having a smaller amount of workers in a team it gives all individuals the chance to have their ideas put forward and happen. As our team is only 7 individuals this gives the opportunity to everyone on the team. By following all of the important factors when working in a team the motivation of the employees will improve the work produced and should improve the efficiency of the teams work overall which will improve the performance. Managing our team as an example of team work has involved a wide range of hard work however by following this I believe it has had a positive success to our event.

Job roles

Within a meeting we had chosen the job roles for each member of the team. Throughout the event we worked more as a team together than delegate specific areas of jobs to individual people, this was more due to the fact that certain members of the team were unreliable and either didn’t agree and want to do their job or had a lack of commitment to come into school. Each choice of job role relates to each team members strength within that particular role. But throughout the staging of the event all members will participate in supporting one another.

Finance - Cash Flow forecast, expenses, fundraising events, accounts, ticket sales Lauren

Marketing – advertising and tickets Whole team Staffing – organizing helpers – Harley and Emily Sponsorship – contacts and organization – Lauren and Kirsty Venue management – booking, planning recourses, liaison – Scott Auditions – advertising, equipment, time scale, short listing, judging – Lauren Recourses – auditions and venue – equipment, lighting, sound – Amina and Harley Presentation – DVD’s/photos Kirsty Legal aspects – insurance, health and safety, customers – documents, communicating

– Lauren, Scott and Amina Documents and other aspects - , prizes (sponsorship), certificated, timetable,

spreadsheet of performers and timing, organizing judging/judges – Whole Team Gant Chart - Ryan

Finance: This role was chosen to be completed by Lauren as the other members of the team said they wasn’t too sure on how to complete and create these finance sheets, also some of the members of the team said they struggled with maths and said this would be too confusing to do throughout the whole event. Aalso this involves being up to date and organised therefore this was a good job role for myself, as Financing a event and calculating the cash in and out can be difficult and needed to be properly organised.

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Marketing: As this is a very large aspect of the event and requires and lot of creativity and is very time consuming we has decided to make this a role for the whole team and work together on projects to market the event. For example as a class we made posters which showed when the tickets were on sale to the customers, as well about our fundraisers and acts that had got through to the final show. This was a better decision to do as a team as we all have different creative ideas and so we thought it would work best to work together with all ideas and take turns to make sure that everyone is happy with the final result.

Staffing: Emily and Harley had been given this role as they feel they are strong commanders when organising staff. They are always more than willing to go find and speak to different staff members about the event and what needs to be sorted or done, for example this included member of staff will be taking on which role; door man, backstage hair and make-up, seating guide’s ect.

Sponsorship – This role originally was given to everyone within the class due to the fact we had little sponsors within our class and it involved us talking and emailing different businesses. However due to the team some members were more motivated than others to email and call businesses to sponsor the event in total we contacted 9 businesses and as you can see below this shows what business and who contacted them:

o Premier Inn - Laureno Kraft / Mondelèz - Laureno Fun City - Laureno Radio 104.1 - Laureno Virgin Radio - Laureno Nandos - Laureno Taaleem - Harleyo Costa - Kirstyo Spinney’s – Lauren

Due to the fact we ended up with 6 businesses to sponsor our event we felt that we had strong skills in contacting and negotiating with companies to become our sponsors. This was one of our highlights of the whole event.

Venue management – This involved the booking, planning recourses and communicating. Originally this role was dedicated to Ryan as he was in contact with Layla who was the events manager of DUCTAC we felt that this was a good choice as Ryan in very confident and a good speaker which meant we could of been able to drop the prices and make the effectiveness of using the company easier than previous years, however due to Ryan’s attendance and commitment to the event, 2 months before the event was to be staged he only realised that she did not work there anymore and this job role had to be taken over by Scott as this was one of our most important issues at the time, this was more beneficial as Scott was able to drive to DUCTAC and speak to the manager as well as he conducted and finished all forms for booking within a short period of time.

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Auditions – This includes the advertising for auditions, equipment needed when auditioning, time scale, short listing and judging. Lauren was chosen for this due to the responsibility of organising and creating documents, however more to the fact that she was involved last year with the previous event and was keen to understand and knew how to organise and hold the auditions. This was beneficial as I was an auditionee last year therefore I was able to adapt from my experience last year and improve on the elements which were not as strong as they could been so that the auditions ran smoothly and efficiently for us as a team and the acts.

Recourses – This will involve the auditions and venue; equipment, lighting, sound. Harley has taken on this role as again she has shown initiative by contacting all the acts and the staff/students that are working within the team to understand what they want and what is needed for the final show to be successful and run smoothly.

Presentations – This job role was assigned to Kirsty due to the fact that she has past experience with films and cameras. Therefore we decided this would be the best fit for her as this is something she enjoys. As her skills were string in this area we ended up with 2 outstanding videos created for assemblies which were used to promote and include the students and staff of Dubai British School. On the night of the event she also was in charge of one of the camera to help her succeed and have new experience for her UNI course.

Legal aspects – The last role involves researching the legal aspects; insurance, health and safety, customers – documents, communicating. This role was given to Amina has she has strong skills in communicating and talking to people. A bonus to this was she spoke strong Arabic which is a huge advantage if you run a business in Dubai. Also with a sister that works the Dubai Government this was a given plus and helped us with DTCM charges at the end of the event.

Job roles were one of the topics that we tended to struggle with. Due to one of the members not being in the class that had the Gantt chart it made this harder to allocate proper job roles. Throughout the event there were several times where individuals were appointed small jobs to complete to make the event run smoother, this was one of the examples of the jobs that each member of the team were assigned at the beginning of the event

The list of jobs that had to be completed included,

Contacting DUCTAC, Finishing the booking request and visiting DUCTAC to see the events manager and give the forms which have been completed.

Advertising for the fundraiser Finance (Cash Flow Forecast) Sponsor Letters Proposal for loan to Mr Ford Collected requirements for Autism centre and booking a day to visit the centre. Speaking to Mrs Drew about fundraiser dates

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All of these jobs were then allocated to a specific member of the team however I don’t believe that this was done extremely in an organised way. As certain members of the team assigned people do certain jobs and they chose what they were doing. Harley and Emily planned to do the proposal for the loan however I said that you didn’t need two people writing one letter which lead them to writing 2 separate letters then trying to combine them together. Which in addition was less effective as one of the members could have been doing a separate job which could of helped others in the group.

Harley assigned Kirsty to do the advertising for the fundraiser so this included creating posters, flyers and notices for the tutors to read so that we could send the message to students in the school about our ice pops sale that week. However when I returned back to school the following day she had not completed her job and the posters were not done which lead to a lack of advertising and Myself and Emily taking over and having to create quick advertisements so that we were able to tell our customers about our sale to increase revenue. This job allocation was ineffective for this member of the team which potentially let us down and resulted in other members taking on more work.

Contacting DUCTAC, once filling in the booking request and visiting them to assure a date for the show was assigned to Scott as he chose to this job. This was more effective as he is the member of the class which can drive therefore he has easier access too attending DUCTAC when it is more suitable. However I need to recap and see how far he has got by filling out the sheet, so that we can fix a proper date for our event, however this cannot be achieved until we are given the loan from the school which we are waiting for from Mr Ford as the proposal has already been sent. Scott has created the proposal which has been sent to DUCTAC and he has contacted them by sending an email. (See appendix)Therefore his job allocation was effective and complete to a high standard.

This then lead to Amina asking Mrs Drew for permission to hold a fundraiser on Tuesday which she selected herself to do, however she completed this task within a small period of time and came back with a positive note for the class which was for us to be able to carry out a fundraiser for the school as long as it wasn’t to unhealthy due to the PE Staff, not agreeing with previous people fundraising and selling, sweets, chocolate and sugar items. Therefore we came to the decision about selling ice pops, as this is not too unhealthy. Amina also offered to attend the Autism Centre which is our chosen charity for the event later in the week, therefore she was told to research about the charity, contact the manager and organise a meeting for her to see the charity and the manager. This will help us broaden are knowledge about where our money is going to and why we have decided to select this charity for our event.

Ryan was allocated to complete a high standard Gantt chart for the class to follow whilst we create our event. This was done successfully and up to standards, however Ryan’s organisation skills of sending the Gantt chart to other members of the team was lacking therefore another member of the team decided it was best to send this information instead so that we could continue our work and move on. Ryan also offered to visit the charity with Amina on Wednesday so that he could meet the manager and to see where our money was

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going to. Therefore before going to the autism centre Ryan decided to help the class gain more sponsors by writing a business plan and explaining what are event is about which he is giving to his farther to send out to businesses. This is so we can receive more recognition from other businesses and gain more sponsors. This is extremely helpful to us as we needed to gain more sponsors in case one of our three predicted sponsors decide that they couldn’t sponsor us. Ryan has therefore done a proposal which can be sent to other businesses about our event and why they should sponsor us.

The job role which I was allocated to complete was the finance, so this included a predicted cash flow forecast, the overall cash flow forecast, expenses and the fundraiser success. Every week I have continued to update this by going through all of the expenses we have made and by putting our cash in and cash out so we can control our money balance and how well we are doing. Whilst doing this for the team I have been trying to organise the others by making sure that they do not forget important elements of their jobs and suggesting topics that could be achieved when others have finished their job roles. Due to Kirsty not doing her job I made small cards which promoted the fundraiser which we achieved this week so that they could be placed amongst peoples lockers in the school so that more students were aware of our ice pop sale and so that we could generate more sales. After the fundraiser I was left in charge of dealing with the money and counting how much we made in total and if we achieved what we were expecting to make. This was then noted in the cash flow so that we can keep up to date with our costs. Later on in the week I was asked by both members of the group who are visiting the autism centre if I could attend this with them as well, which means I have undertaken another job to benefit the others of the class however I was more than willing to go and to help them out.

Team Leader

This was one of the first decisions that the class decided to make when we were planning on our event , my team members voted for me to be the team leader of the group. Therefore I needed to try fulfil this role so that the members felt that they had made the correct decision and so that jobs and tasks are done correctly and smoothly so that others are not stressed. However I do feel that this job sometimes can be hard work due to members of the team. As team leader I have realised that if anything goes wrong then some people within the team tend to blame me for this. This has leaded me to trying extremely hard in making sure everything goes right and for fewer problems to occur. Also by being team leader many of the members feel as if, if a job is given to them which they do not want to do or have low interest in doing they would either not do this or moan about the situation. I don’t find this as a problem however I have tried to explain that I can’t pull everyone’s weight at all times as I need to compete my tasks as well as others.

Overall I believe that so far it has gone well and smoothly, we have proved to be ahead of our Gantt chart and achieving all tasks to a high standard before planned which is excellent as we have more time for planning other jobs and undertaking them correctly. I believe that sometimes I should be more forward with members of the team however I have to consider

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everyone’s feelings therefore I struggle to do this as some people in the team are more sensitive than others, this can be a hard job at times but when people have problems or are upset about something then they always come talk to me personally about it which has kept the group together and working hard which is what we all would like to achieve.

Additional Staffing to Support the Event

DBS applied Year 12 classThis class has been chosen as it will give then a larger insight to the experience they will need and expect to complete next year in their course when they start their event unit in year 13. Before the event night we had a meeting with all 6 students in the class to discuss job roles, uniform and how they will benefit for arriving and help participate in this event. We selected the best candidates for each job role that was available for them and which candidates would be more reliable than others to avoid any occurring problems. Once the students were told their job roles for the night we explained that they would be trained and shown how to provide good customer service to our customers.The job roles included:Door person/ticket greeter, seating guide, backstage crew, equipment on stage crew, changing rooms and lighting. Each student on the night will be wearing Black T-shirts so that if they are backstage they will not been seen by the audience.

VolunteersWe have also had 3 members of staff that helped out on the night of the event these included Mrs Hitchings, Mrs Rostek and Sabena.

Specialist help Included in the price of hiring the Centrepoint at the DUCTAC we have specialist help from:

1 Duty Manager 1 Front of house Manager 4 Ushers

Team Management – Hierarchy

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TeachersMr. Bentley & Mrs. Pugh Admin supportDubai British School

Administrative Systems and Event Time Scales

These are the systems and strategies put in place to allow the event to run smoothly and organised. It is where all the documents are kept; minutes, agendas, research, emails etc.

Through the planning and preparation of the event we needed to keep records of all communication and documents. This was important as the records taken down could be accessible to be looked at later on throughout the event, this was crucial for when we needed to evaluate. All / result in all of these important documents being placed into the appendix of our report Examples of work on the shared area includes:

o Minutes and Meeting Agendaso Diary o Reports on researcho Costs of resourceso Emailso Financial transactions o Leaflets or additional researcho Communication between sponsors or contacts

Email account

At the beginning of the event we decided as a team it would look more professional if we had a joint email account that we could all use to send emails or contact any sponsors or businesses to help with the event throughout the process. Another advantage of making this account was that all of the team members were able to access the information that was being sent and received and it would be easy to access when evaluating our project. The account name was called: DubaiBritish.Productions@Gmail.com

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This account is used to contact all other companies that are in relation to the Talent Show; Sponsors, Charity, Venue etc. By creating an email account the whole class can easily access within school or at home and will new modern technology from their phones and Ipads.

7.2 Gantt Chart

For our event we decided that it was vital to have a Gantt chart so that we could plan when specific tasks needed to be completed and when we completed these therefore so see if we were on schedule.

What is a Gantt Chart?

A Gantt chart is a visual representation of a project schedule. This is a type of bar chart. All Gantt charts show the start and finish dates of required elements when running a project. These are usually used by businesses as they are useful when planning how long a project should take and when specific tasks should be sequenced. This will take place by laying out the task in the order of when they are predicted to be completed and then when they were completed. More than likely the tasks are shown on a vertical axis, and the project time span is represented on a horizontal axis. Every task that is placed onto the Gantt chart has a corresponding bar which shows the time span that is required for that task to be completed. This bar is then filled in to show the percentage of the task completed. Some businesses also use Gantt charts to indicate dependencies. This is where certain tasks are dependent upon others. Many businesses tend to use computer software such as Microsoft excel to create a Gantt chart. This is what are businesses use to create our Gantt chart for our event. One of the male members of the team created our Gantt chart for our event. We created this by conducting secondary research. This was by looking at previous years Gantt charts that have been conducted for the same event amongst the applied teams. This then gave us a broader idea of what we needed to include within our Gantt chart for us to achieve a successful and smoothly run event. this then lead us to formatting our Gantt chart on excel and filling in where we predicted certain topics should be completed by.

This is a print screen of our current Gantt chart and where we have completed specific tasks and what tasks we have to complete.

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As you can see from this print screen this is our Gantt chart so far, the main topics which we have placed as headings are:

Find Venue Funding Charity Auditions Sponsors Marketing The Event

We then split each of these topics into smaller tasks so that we could complete each stage of the event in an effective and organised way. In terms of the Gantt chart this has helped allocating specific job roles for each individual within the group for certain weeks where there are a variety of jobs needed to be completed. For example within one of our recent meetings we allocated job roles by using the Gantt chart, this was discussed above in the job allocation section and also noted in our minutes of the meeting (See Appendix)

We have decided to continue using this stricter to allocate job roles as it shows us what the most important jobs are needed to be completed and when they need to be done by so that we are not falling behind in schedule. A good example of this would be our first task to shortlist venue options as you can see from our example we started this task on the 5th of September and we allocated this to be complete in 20 days which would be the 25th September. This took 20 days to complete this task and is now 100% completed in terms of the Gantt chart. Using a Gantt chart this makes the team more organised and up to date when our tasks need to be completed and what needs to be achieved next in the order of achieving an efficient and memorable talent show.

The Gantt chart throughout the event was not completed due to the team member which was under this job role; therefore we did not follow this as a management for our timescale. We should have followed this as we would have been able to manage the job roles which needed to be done. This would of improved our marketing aspects of the event as we forgot to do this to a high standard which we planned. From the beginning of the event we followed the Gantt chart as you can see on the previous page. Most of our predicted times to finish our jobs were correct or just under a week late which wasn’t a problem as we were ahead of ourselves at the beginning stages of organising the event.

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Individual timescale planners

As a team we also all individually created a diary of each month of the event. this all helped and kept us reminded of the problems we faced each month and what we all individually did to participate and help the event run smoothly. By having diaries this will show the team

member what they have personally achieved and if they feel they haven’t contributed more it will be more motivational for them to join is so they will have more to talk about in each month of their records. All of the team members including myself held our diaries electronically on a word document which will be added into my appendix after the event. I also keep a planner with me at all times to constantly remind myself of targets that needs to be met and important things that need to be done. Below shows an image of my electronic diary.

By creating these each month it has been extremely effective as we all can remind ourselves of what we have achieved and what needs to be improved on or done next. This has been a small motivator for some of the team members and shows each individual what they have done this month of the event.

Ticket Sales Chart

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As shown previously in the report we kept a tally of how many tickets were being sold and who was buying these tickets. When a student or a teacher purchases their ticket they have to address their name, tutor, how many tickets purchased, how much they cost and if they paid. Due to the fact of having over 600 tickets we were replacing ones that had been lost if their name was on the sheet and they had paid for this. However this could only be replaced on the door on the night so we know they are not lending any spare tickets to friends. We will also have the list with the purchaser’s names on the night of the event so we can insure that tickets are not being swapped or traded so others can come in for free. This is an image of the electronic chart that we created due to the list in the library of how many tickets have been sold throughout the event.

This was effective as we could keep count on how fast the tickets were selling and how were buying the tickets due to form classes which will show us the average ages of the students. We needed to keep up to date with this as if we were close to 490 tickets this would mean that we could only sell 20 more than they would all be sold out. This meant by doing this it kept us organised. Also it would tally up with the amount of money received to the amount of tickets sold.

Receipts

As a team when any money was being transacted in or out of our business every individual had to keep a copy of the receipt which was given to me to access and write into out finance sheets. This was important that all of the members did this so that it could prove the money which had gone toward prizes, fundraising or venues for example. This was effective as it us organised and eliminated more mistakes happening in the long term. This also made the fiancé section easier to collaborate and understand if all receipts were given. The most important

receipts for us were sponsorship and venue. These were all kept with Mr Bentley or the accountants within the school as it was vital that these were not lost.

Target Customers

What is customer service and why is it important?Customer service is an element which organisation/businesses offer to its internal and external customers. Without customer service a business wouldn’t be run correctly and would have little interest from the customers due to poor co-operation and communication. To keep the customers happy in a business most organisations will do this by being well presented, polite, welcoming etc. By offering this it will also attract new customers into their business as previous customers will tell others about the good service which has been offered to them. When the attitude and behaviour of the staff is excellent then this creates good customer service towards the external customers because they are being satisfied with a good quality service/product. All businesses will know that providing customer service is extremely important as it will mean the customers will be satisfied, this can lead to a good reputation of the business. It can create customer loyalty and customers can last a long time if they

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appreciate the organisation. For the business it means the profit will rise with satisfied customers, it can also mean expansion due to more profit. The internal customers are a part of this as if they offer good customer service and get praised then they become more motivated and their skills increase.

What/Who are the Customers for our Event?For all business offering a product or a service there will always be two types of customers. These will be:

External customers; companies, families, customers, states and society i.e. the buyer Internal customer; colleges, management, supervisors, employees, staff, suppliers.

Any business will need to have customers in order to become successful, for our event it was important that we investigated the two different types of customers and what their needs and want will be so that we portray a good customer service. External Customers For our event ‘DBS Has Talent’ the external customers of our event will be the participants and spectators. There are two different ways which you can identify the external customers and this is either demographically or geographically.

Demographically – This will give you the age range as a target group. It may also relate to the lifestyle of the customer

Geographically – this would relate to the customers in your local area ‘neighbourhood’ ‘campus’

For ‘DBS Has Talent’ we have 2 types of external customers;Participating Attending

Students 12 + (Secondary)Younger Children (Primary ECA groups)

TeachersPrimary Acts

Students 12+ (Secondary)TeachersParents

Smaller children (brothers and sisters)Grandparents

Foreign langue speakersPeople with disability

Sponsors

We can also relate our target market geographically because it will be students and their families of the Taleem School, Dubai British School.

All customers will have different and specific needs therefore we needed to evaluate this and apply the general needs of the customers to our event so that we could increase the customer satisfaction levels. These included:

Groups of people may need to be seated together for the final show VIP’s – Sponsors, Class team parents & Dubai Autism Centre (Charity) Disabled Visitors Parents with young children

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Older visitors People with different cultural needs

We have decided that we will not allocate specific seats for each of the ticket buyers as this would be a long process and include putting people where they may not have wanted to be sat. Therefore the audience will be seated on a first come first serve basis which will mean that they will be able to choose where they are seated. However for sponsors and the charity we have reserved a specific row of seat where only them will be able to sit which shows appreciation from us as a team for helping us with our event. Also we have noted to the primary acts that if they need types of seats reserved this is available and we are willing to do this as it is only 2 people and they have young children. There are also seating for customers which are disabled or are in a wheelchair, this has been stated to the customers. therefore for less inconvenience they do need to note this beforehand so that we can reserve these seats in the long term. The lights and sound will be very mild but as it is as theatre show the audience will expect loud music and some effective lighting.

We also considered other factors that could be wants or needs for our external customers these would include:

Audience – Parents & children Value for money Easy access to staff that deal with their specific needs Facilities – toilets, smoking area, refreshment’s Baby changing facilities for women with children Disabled facilities Enjoyment of the overall performance Friendly and polite well-presented staff Foreign speaking staff Access for people with disabilities (e.g. ramps)

Internal CustomersFor the DBS Has talent the internal customers of our business will include the team, colleges, management, supervisors, employees, staff, and suppliers. We need to ensure that we build good relationships between each other. Specific internal customers include:

Staff – Year 12 applied AS-Level class Teachers – Mr Bentley (Business) Mrs Pugh & Mrs Wade(Leisure) School administrators: Accounts and Library Event committee members –Lauren, Amina, Harley, Scott, Ryan, Kirsty and Emily Outside organisations, sponsors and companies; Dubai Autism Centre, DUCTAC,

Turning Pointe, Art Marine, PFA etc.

The most appropriate needs from these customers will include good communication and relationships between the internal customers, without this we would struggle to agree and get

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along which would make the process slower and hard to complete. These are the aspects of good customer service which would need to be included for our event:

Communication skills Complaint handling Making positive first impressions Proving customer information

These are the wants and needs which we will need to consider throughout the event of our internal customers:

Staff wants: Good working conditions for example, toilets, facilities Free entry to the event Someone to talk to if needed Clear information given and received Good customer service skills advise Respect from other customers within the group.

Teacher/ School administrator wants: Clear knowledge of plans and organisation of the event Respect from other internal customers Always be polite Good communication channels

Event committee members Ensure that as a team we work well together, respecting everyone’s ideas and

thoughts Good communication between one another Listen to one another’s opinions and ideas Being organised Positive relationships between the members Good working environment Involve one another with major decision making

Outside organisations, Sponsors and CompaniesFor our event we are using several outside organisation to help us complete and achieve our event in a successful way. Therefore it is extremely important that we have good customer service to these businesses to keep them keen and interested in our event. need to ensure that we have positive and strong communication with each of these organisations as these will be supporting our event the most; sponsors, charity, and venue management. This includes when communicating on the phone and through emails as the outside organisations will access politeness through aspects of the following:

Use of surnames with adults or full names through emails

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Never chew gum when dealing with customers Do not use ‘slang’ language Maintain eye contact at all times Keep clam with customers especially in frustrating situations Have confidence when speaking with people Use good body language Always be polite and helpful when needed.

Going the Extra Mile

What is going the extra mile?

When an organisation is ‘going the extra mile’ it means they are providing excellent customer service to their customers, this can involve the business thinking ahead or around an issue. This then involves the employees using their initiative to correct these to the highest level of customer service that the business can offer for example this could involved offering a discount on a ticket, a free ticket or a prize as compensation of a fault made by the business.

Procedures document and meeting

For all the staff that is working on the night of the event we arranged a meeting where we discussed the level of customers that is expected from each individual to our internal and external customers on the night. From this meeting we also discussed job roles and how they would be trained and completed without the staff worrying that they are unsure or not skilled to do this job. All these documents can be found in the appendix.

This is a list of the main elements which we agreed as a team was the most important for all individuals to comply with for good customer service in the night.

1. Welcoming to the audience by being polite and addressing, for sponsors shake their hands and address them to their assigned seats.

2. Personally being presentable: ensure that staff which are seen by the customers are dressed appropriately and are polite but yet presentable to the customers they are greeting.

3. Informative (If customers as a specific question then staff should be aware of what to answer)

4. Organised – All staff should stay at their allocated job roles on the night and not confuse others when on rehearsals

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5. Supportive – If there are specific problems; if a customer needs access using a wheel chair staff should be of assistance for access. Or if a customer has a complaint this should be immediately recorded.

To ensure that we have gone the extra mile or have a presented a good experience for the customers most business supply and customer survey so that they can improve their weaknesses but ensure their strengths.

Customer Feedback Forms

This is one of our main ways which we can evaluate the customers experience of our event. Each year the teams struggle to have a lot of the forms back therefore this year to persuade the customers to participate and complete these forms we have offered 300 DHS of Nandos vouchers which can be won in a draw if they complete our form. This will help us evaluate the customers experience of the event, what they liked the most and how we could improve or any further notes. As you can see here, this is a print screen of the electronic copy of the customer feedback form which was given to every other customer who was part of the audience on the night of the event.

This is an extremely good document for us to receive back as it will show us how well the event went from customers perspective and what was a weaker point in the show so that we could evaluate how to improve.

Legal Aspects

The legal aspects of the event are greatly important when it come to planning and running an event. If the legal forms and laws are not followed this can lead to fines and the running of the event being cancelled or postponed. However this also depends on the region or country that the event is being taken place in therefore this needs some consideration and proper planning in order for the event to run smoothly. By following these laws it is important that we ensure nobody is put at risk during the event. During the preparations and running of the event we only had to legal issues which we had to deal with, the following issues was:

Dubai Islamic Form

Islamic AffairsThe Islamic affairs documents was one of the main factors of holding our event ‘DBS Has Talent’ this is because it needed to

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be signed by MR Bentley in order for the event to go ahead and be held. Without this form of permission it was be impossible to hold an event in a public location. Due to having this legal problem from the previous years the charity which we used is also the same that the previous years have used before. Which made this easier for us in the long run as Dubai Autism centre dealt with this form as was able to use the previous forms they have from other years as long as any of the information provided did not change. Therefore this was a bonus for our team and did not lead this legal issue into to a huge problem for our event. Even though this was signed and accepted by the Islamic Affairs this did not prevent or stop DTCM from charging us and causing our second legal issue for the event. even though that we clarified on the form above that we were holding a charity event with sales private and not to the public this could not stop us from DTCM charging us money from our event.

DTCM

DTCM is the principal authority for the planning, supervision and development of the tourism sector in Dubai. In addition, it is charged with the responsibility of licensing and classification of hotels, hotel apartments, tour operators, travel agents and all other tourism services.Source - http://www.dubaitourism.ae/about/background

This year this was one of the largest constraints which we had on the running of the event. DTCM had major influences on the running on the show and had specific requirements which needed to be met in order of the show going forward. One of the first issues which we came across with DTCM was that they wanted 10% of all profit made from tickets sales, they also required an 810 performance charge along with a 520 permission charge for holding an event. Even though the charity that we are running the event for owns the government as well this was given a blind eye and not considered. Therefore the government was taking our sales and profit from our charity event which we did not agree with. On top if this issue they also wanted passport copies of each performer along with a picture of their face, tickets on a sale that had to be stamped with the DTCM approval stamp along with many other requirements.

Due to DUCTAC or DTCM not contacting us in enough tome of the show this meant we had a lot of issues and problems to sort out in a same space of time. We did achieve this by working extremely hard making sure that everyone was participating and jobs were being done in order to not postpone the event. This led us travelling to DTCM 2 times in order for a despot of 7,000 AED and the tickets being individually stamped by 2 of the members of our team. However this was one of the biggest downfalls that we experienced at the last few weeks of our event. We also blame some of this to DUCTAC in not giving us a long period of time to notify us about these laws. This then left us feeling that we experienced extremely bad customer service throughout the whole event with their manager Beth Crowder.

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Pre Carrying Out the Talent Show Event

Auditions

During the week which we opened the auditions for people being able to come and sign up I also decided to go around the school and asking students if they had a talent or wanted to sign up for our event. Having done this I gained some acts which boosted up our numbers. It is better to have a larger number of varieties for auditions as this will encourage the acts to try their hardest as they are competing against so many more people in the school. A larger number of auditions also helped us decide which acts were to go through to the final show, as we had to pick the best possible acts which had a variety of age groups and talent.

The total number of acts that auditions was 36. The problems we faced with this were after a certain amount of time we needed to make audition dates and times. Once we had made these it was then trying to fix it into a small time gap so they weren’t going on for too long. After we made a time sheet we would have more people signing up late or forgetting their times and changing. This made the process a lot slower and lead to us extended the auditions a week longer than we expected. Other problem which we faced would be the variety of acts that signed up. We trying to push our event away from being a signing contest however the majority of the acts that preformed were signers which lead us to having a limited amount of variety with other acts. Some of the people that we asked if they wanted to sign up were very shy inform of their friends or large audiences therefore we overcome this by encouraging them by telling them that each of the acts that got through to perform in the show would receive a Nando’s voucher entitling them to a free meal. This turned out be very effective as it encouraged a lot of people to sign up for auditions more for the older students that the younger ones.

As this is a talent show event it involved a lot of planning before the event as well as meetings and auditions held for the students to take part. Moreover at the beginning of planning this event, in our first assemble we used a presentation that would attract students to sign up. For this assembly Kirsty made a video which we aimed on attracted and getting more of the audience in the mood and excited to sign up therefore we decided to make two small videos one containing information about the event and what it is, and another one which had small clips of all of the team performing a talent to give people idea of what we were looking for this year.

Everyone in the team spoke in the assembly. Some of the team members struggled with this however for others this was a skill. After the

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assemblies were presented to the students within the school, this was their chance to sign up for the final show and auditions. Over all we had over 42 auditions sign up on the sheet but some of the people decided that they didn’t want to take part anymore or didn’t arrive for their audition. Below is a copy of the auditions times and dates.

Over all we had over 42 auditions sign up on the sheet but some of the people decided that they didn’t want to take part anymore or didn’t arrive for their audition. Below is a copy of the auditions times and dates.

All of the auditions were held in the drama rooms or gym for 2 weeks in November. After the assembly we gave the people who signed up at least 2 weeks to come with a short performance of their talent. The way we tried to accomplish the audition times and dates was by creating slips which held all the information they needed on to the correct participant. Here is an example of what was given to each of the students:

The judges for all of the auditions were our applied team. (Scott, Myself, Harley, Emily, Kirsty, Ryan and Amina) the reasoning for this is because it’s quick and organised all we believed that were able to choose what would be most suitable for the final show.

As 3 of the members in the team were auditioning it was hard to evaluate and talk about each of the performances with that person in the room therefore for the judging of the auditions. Each judge were given judging criteria and had to grade the person which auditioned out of 50 in their own opinion. This would then be fair for the people who are auditioning in the team. After all the auditions had finished the sheet were given to me. I then average them by the amount of people they were judged by and in a list with the top scores.

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As the auditions were carried out over a long period of time this involved us having no lunch times. This seemed to be a problem for some of the members in the group. Ryan missed 3 of the audition days due to not coming of or forgetting. As well as Scott, Emily and Kirsty missing one. Here is the example for of the judging criteria which each of the members of the team used.

On the following page is a copy of the table which shows who we decided would be the best suitable selection for the final show. We also tried to select a wide variety of acts covering a wide range of year groups so they would be able to attract the whole of the secondary to attend as an audience.

Singers

Maariyah 8D Singer

Robyn Hunter 11 Singer Sam S 8D Rapping

Kirsty - Rapper Effie VI6 Singer Iona Grey 8S Solo Becky Cox VI2 Singing

Sabrina VI1 Singer Lydia, Ellie and Yaz 11 Trio

Morae William 9 Singer

Holly Smiles 10 Singer

Dancers

Lauren Carson VI5 Dancing Aiden Jack and Jerome 10D Dancing

Amina VI5 Dance Emily Knight and Sofia

- Dance

Jummanah 7S Dance Freya and Blanca 9 Dance

Musicians/Acts/other

Dario Van Der Linder 9D Guitar

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Kier and Adam - Singing and Guitar Emily VI4 Sign Language Zoya , Nimah 11B Band Will F 7S Drumming

Some of the students that we saw were very talented and there was a hard final decision about the acts to put through. However we could only have 12 which we pushed to 13. After discussing as a group and deciding on the final acts we struggled to announce the results due to Christmas holidays and not having regular assemblies so we posted up lists round the school showing which acts had got through to the final show. We also went to all the class rooms which had the students in and told them so we knew that that they were aware. Our last issue was deciding on our final act however to make it a large variety we chose Dario and Freya and this was dancing and guitar which pushed us to 13 acts in total; but a wide variety and a good mix of ages. We have then decided to announce these again in our first assembly back in January 2012.

Rehearsalsthis was extremely important that we held out rehearsals so see how well the act had progressed since their first audition and if they were ready for the final show on the night. The reasoning we did this is so we can make the best out of our acts that we have chosen and to ensure that they are using all the stage which is given to them to complete a better stage presence. This was also an opportunity for the acts to ask us what they believe they could improve or if they had any questions to ask us. Over 4 of the acts asked for our advice on their rehearsal and for us to give them some tips so that they could make the best out of the performance on the night. This was extremely effective for us as a team and the acts. There were 3 acts that showed up with nothing to perform and this was a week before the show we did have to warn the acts that they would be cut if they had a poor or no performance at all as it would give a bad reputation to our team for putting them through. However on the whole all of the acts surprised us and we were also able to ask them about their props or music/ equipment needed to the night of the show.

Judgesthe judges was another important decision that had to be made for the final night of the show. Each year the students all wait for the release on who the judges are going to be. However due to many school trips this year we were tied down to a limited amount of staff that were able to be a judge on the show. We were very impressed by the previous years judges and wanted to use these however this was not possible. Therefore once the judges were decided they were all approached by 2 members of our team and given the judging criteria, this is so they were given a head start and have some more knowledge on what they would be judging the acts on as it will give them some more time to prepare. We also asked the judges if they wanted any aid on the night i.e. a script of some phrases or sayings

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that they could use in case they were stuck for words when it came to speaking to the acts after their performance. This year they did not need one therefore it was better as they spoke fluently and from their opinions without a script which was obviously written from the team. The final judges for the event night were:

Mrs RolfMr VagamaMr OatesMr Pennock

the previous page shows an electronic screen print of the judging criteria that they were given this year for the event.

Sound and Lightingbefore the show is going to take place it was important that some of the team members were operating the sound and lighting for the night. However some of the team have not been trained nor done this before therefore they would need more knowledge as to how to go about operating the sound and light boards. Luckily enough one of the members of the team had this job from the previous year therefore they were already trained and knew how to operate the lights with was a strength for our team. However all the other staff members on the day of the show all will be taken down to DUCTAC early and made sure to rehearse, learn and organise what they are doing in terms of lighting and sound so that they feel comfortable enough to go ahead with the job. This is so the show runs smoothly and looks as professional as possible.

Transportfor the night of the event as stated earlier in this report there are different types of equipment which needs to be taken to the venue. Therefore as 2 members of the team could drive Scott and Danny were able to take some of the equipment along with Mrs Wade and Mr Bentley taking other equipment. This was a way to cut costs for the business instead if hiring a van or any plan of transportation to make this accessible. We discussed different ways of transport for the acts and the other staff helping however this would have involved the team hiring 2 school buses, one which will take all of the acts down and the other which will take the equipment and remaining acts down to the venue.

This comes at a price though, which is 300 AED each way, so the team is looking at spending around 600 AED on transport spending. Therefore we decided that we would follow what the previous year decided to do and this involved all the acts having to make their own way down to venue which wasn’t a massive issue as they were only allowed to leave school around 3pm. This is close to the usual time of the school day finishing. This then saves our business a lot of money which didn’t need to be spent. All the acts were able to make it to the venue ad there were no complaints made.

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Section C

Staging of the Event

Staging of the eventPhotographic Evidence

Team roles and responsibilitiesCommunication

Evidence of problemsPersonal Contribution

Conclusion

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Staging the Event

The day of the show had finally arrived and all the months of our planning and organising of the event were finally going to be put into action. The show date was the 5th February 2013 and was held at DUCTAC Theatre Dubai. We sold over 350 tickets to the students, staff and parent o the school community. With additional sales on the night of the event, these were at the door. We feel that the show was a huge success and we feel our efforts as a team had all pulled off and created a great and memorable leisure event.

The day consisted of:

Morning: 8:00am – 12:30pm – Organising and finalising check-list making sure that all of the final jobs were completed and everything was prepared to be taken to the event.

Afternoon: 2:30pm – 6:00pm – Rehearsal at the theatre and preparing for the show Night: 7pm – 9:30pm – ‘The DBS Factor’ Performance

After months of indentifying and planning all the different aspects of the show we then needed to relate some of the final aspects to the areas of performance that were carried out on the night of the show.

Throughout the morning of the event this was the time that we had to prepare for the event to make sure that all files and jobs were finalised and ready to go for when we arrived at DUCTAC. Due to myself writing a list of all the jobs that needed to be complete and dedicated these jobs to specific people. This improved our time management and ensured that all jobs were done with less stress than the previous years.

For the night of the show we created one folder which held the main full checklist and every document needed inside this included:

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Act contact details Staff job roles for year 12 and year 13Contract (collect on the night) Light and sound plan for all members of the teamUSB of act music Running order Final for all members of the team and changing roomsProgramme for audience X 300Ticket purchasing form and new tickets that will be swapped at the door.Dubai Islamic Form – Email Farhan Customer feedback form X300Prizes for all the acts and teachersCertificates / Premier Inn PrizeReserved seating Judging Criteria, final sheet & envelope Fundraising and spare money for SD Cards7000 AED final payment for DUCTAC

As a team of 7 we needed to ensure that we had enough documents for ourselves but copies for spare if they were needed. This is so everyone was aware of what was going on and what order everything was working. We also had checklists for other resources that we needed and we ensured that everything was loaded into the cars before going to DUCTAC so that we didn’t forget anything vital that could have affected the performance on the night of the show.

Staff Evaluation

For the talent show we decided that we would need more members of staff to help out with the event. therefore to do this we decided that it would most appropriate to ask the year 12 Applied class to help put with the event as this will be a good experience and will in sight them for their project they will holding next year. As stated earlier we met with all of the class and discussed important factors of what they needed to follow and how we expect our customer service levels to be. We arrange with the staff that they could leave the school premises at 1.15 and needed to be at Ductac by 2pm latest this is so we could train all the students and show them what types of jobs they would be doing on the night. This was a good decision made by the team as it allowed them enough time to eat without any rushing or stress related problems from not having enough time. Overall the year 12 team preformed very well with little problems. The criteria we gave them was followed and covered to high expectations and we did not need to worry about what they were doing whilst the show was live as they all completed their job roles without any issues. Below is a table of a review of each member of our student/teacher staff support.

Person being rated

Role being assessed

Grading and comments (1 =

poor; 5 = excellent)

Comments

Danny Mackie Backstage and Stage Props

5 Danny was extremely impressive out of all of the team members that were involved in the event. Danny managed to handle a wide range of job roles across the night as was available and willing to help where there were other people needed. He sorted all backstage issues that arise and was able to know which mics where needed for certain people. He was a credit to our team this year and ensured that all acts were backstage and ready when they needed to be. He managed the microphones which spoke to the other members in different rooms and ensured them of any important information that they needed. As well as sorting props and making sure everything was on stage when it needed to be.

Pauline Changing Rooms 3 Pauline was helpful at the event she ensured that the changing rooms were under control and all acts were ready when needed by the back stage team, however she was sat around for a long period of time and let the others do more of her job, but if there were any issues then she always came to find one of our team members which was extremely helpful.

Courtney Organising acts Tickets and

4 Courtney was also a credit to our team this year she handled a wide range of jobs, including tickets at the

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Lighting beginning, changing rooms throughout the night and lights at the end when our team needed to be on stage. She was one of the most helpful girls that were part of our team.

Megan Girls changing Rooms and Lights

3 Megan did a good job of the lights at the end of the show, she wasn’t as involved backstage as Pauline and Courtney. This could be due to the fact that she is very quiet and shy however she still fulfilled her job role and cleaned all the changing rooms at the end of the night which saved us a job.

Connor Boys changing room – backstage

2 Connor was one of the least helpful team members from the year 12 team. He seemed to be sat around of the whole night and made little contribution. He was instructed to look after our refreshments stall however when I went to the front of the house the stall was left unattended with children taking some of our snacks.

Joe Beresford Camera 3 Joe Beresford covered a job that we were not able to do due to the little amount of member’s part of our team. Due to him moaning about every job role we gave him he had little effort to complete this job to the standard which he could of. However after looking through the recording which he made this was a good job due to the fact he had never used this time of camera before therefore he was also a credit to our team and helped us out a lot.

Mrs Hitchings Photography 5 The photos she took where fantastic Mrs Hitchings is the school photographer for all events so we Mr Bentley her if she could photograph the show. She was great as she was there throughout all rehearsals and the show.

Other Elements

DUCTAC Management when we arrived to pay the final payment of the hiring for DUCTAC we met with the general manager which is Craig. As we paid for the venue this included DUCTAC staff being involved to help set up any of the technical and areas which would be covered that they were professional about. The events manager Beth was extremely unfriendly and just an inconvenience to our event. She was rude to our customers that have bought tickets therefore Amina one of our team members had to step in and take over from the DUCTAC management, therefore this lead u to using our staffing for the front of house entrance and seating arrangements.

Technical support Throughout the whole event even during rehearsals we had a great load of technical support from the DUCTAC theatre this was one of the high points for the venue higher. We were able to have people helping on the stage set up and test all the microphones, we had staff from DUCTAC training our team to use the lighting effects as well as staff in the sound box ensuring that all the speakers were working to their best effects. This was also run well due to our running order and time management which we had enough copies of to provide the DUCTAC staff with.

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Running Order

For the show we needed to create a running order, this is show how the show is planned to be structured and how we want it to be run. This is a typical document that all theatres and business that run shows or events will use. This is so they can review their position and order of the events which are going to be held within a show. By creating this document it helped all of the members amongst our team as well as teacher, Ductac management and the year 12 applied team. Simpler running orders were also created and placed in the changing rooms so that the acts were able t see where their place in show would be. Mr Bentley our host for the evening remembered titles of acts. The technical crew knew what order music and lighting should be from having this crucial piece of information.

Here is a print screen of the different running orders which were used:

Programme

As we are holding a theatre event we thought that it would be important to create a programme for all the customers which are watching the performance. This is so that all the guests are informed about what the running order of events and when the interval is. The programme also included information about the charity which we were holding the event for, as well as all the sponsors and contributors which have helped our event be put forward. Within the programme we also included a page about our class and why we hold this event as part of our coursework for our Alevel. This also relates to offering good customer service as its offering information to the customers.

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Below shows a copy of the programme we produced, this was created using Microsoft word and we printed the programmes in school to cut the costs of industrial printing, and then folded them to be taken to the theatre on the night of the show.

Photographic Evidence

Throughout the show and the rehearsals which were carried out in the day Mrs Hitchings our photographer. She was there to make sure that she took quality photos of the acts and the show throughout the night as requested by Mr Bentley. These photos will be used after the show for marketing, press releases, and they may be for sale if the parents of the acts are interested in buying them but moreover will be accessible on the Facebook fan page for the students of the school to see them. Here is some example of the photos which were taken on the night.

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Team Roles and Responsibility

Throughout the event all the members of the team had different roles and responsibilities to fulfil. Some of these members have more committed roles than others; however this was due to the commitment that had been put in earlier in the preparation of the event. For the night of the show it was important that all of the members of our team had a job role which they could evaluate and write up once the event had finished. However during the stages of the event some of the members like me, Ryan and Amina had responsibilities that needed to be carried out the whole way through. These include the Gantt chart, finance sheets and any legal issues that arise. I and Amina made sure that we were up to date with these job roles the whole time we were preparing for the event. However Ryan on the other hand rarely came into school for the whole event and didn’t bother to follow up his job role which he volunteered to do from the beginning. Therefore we are still waiting for this document to be given to us when he returns to school. (What issues arose from this?)

These were the team roles that were carried out on the night and the responsibilities which each of the members had to fulfil in order to achieve their job role successfully.

Camera (Video Recording) – Kirstya week before the event was going to be staged we met up with a man called David Grey that works at DUCTAC with lights, he was intrigued about our course and what we wanted to do for evidence and evaluation of the night. Therefore he got in contact with JVC and he was able to lend us 3 high tech cameras that are used for BBC and Sky for the filming of our show. This was then a meeting after school which all the members of the team were meant to arrive to however Myself, Scott, Kirsty and Emily where the only team members that attended. However this was useful for all of us as we learnt how to use the cameras and different facts about each camera and how they would work on the night of the event.

As Kirsty is looking to attend university in America doing a media course, we thought that she would best benefit from filming the show on the evening as this is what she is interested in and something she likes doing. Also we had to consider the fact that only 4 members of the group went to the meeting so there was limited choice on who could do this. Kirsty’s responsibilities were to programme and set the camera so that the white balance shutters and focus where correct for when filming the night and also making sure that she used the camera appropriately and was able to film everything so that we can use this for either DVD purpose or evaluation later.

Kirsty did a good job of this and was able to find other team members when she needed help or talk to David Grey who was at the venue on the night of the show to help set up the lights and any problems with the cameras. However she was told to name all the SD cards which we used in different cameras to cause less confusion which she did not do. Therefore when we tried to watch back the video evidence we didn’t know which camera was what and what video records for what part of the sow which then made this a lengthier process.

Sound – Scottdue to a member of the team telling us that sound was covered by the people in DUCTAC we

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didn’t place anyone to do sound for the night of the show, however with little time in preparation on the day Scott volunteered to do this so that we could illuminate problems which could of occurred. It was important that we had someone who was part of the year 13 class doing sound so they knew when to play and volume in and out intros that were needed for our presenter Mr Bentley. Scott as a large responsibility for the night of the show and this was to ensure that all songs were working and in order of the performers which were on stage as well as making sure that he had the right timings for the music to when the presenter needed them. There was a error with the iTunes at DUCTAC as some of the songs were playing but said they had a longer time expectancy left than there was which meant that 2 songs were cut off and the beginning of one was played again. However this was a technical fault with the iTunes and not Scott. But with little training he did an excellent job and made sure that everything was in order and correct.

Backstage – Lauren and Ryanbackstage was assigned to myself and Ryan. This job has responsibilities of making sure that every act was ready from the dressing rooms and was backstage the act before their own so that they were ready and on time to go on the stage. This was a job for one girl and boy as of the different genders and changing rooms. Ryan at the beginning of the event when we were practicing rehearsals seemed to be taking over Amina's job role which she was assigned due to her hard work that she had done in the past few weeks of the upcoming of the event. He took over her job leaving her clueless on what to do for the night after being told twice that this wasn’t his job role he still didn’t seem to listen. However once he realised that he done all the microphone numbers wrong he backed off and just stopped doing that job which left Danny and Amina and me figuring out the correct numbers and having to re write a list and also giving it to Scott.

Ryan then also upset another one of the team members which was Kirsty as he decided to tell her that she was changing job roles with one of the year 12’s. Due to being team leader and Kirsty being a quieter member of the team she thought that it would be appropriate to come and find me and talk to me about this situation. Ryan’s attitude towards his team members was becoming unacceptable and was making this stressful for others therefore I decided to step in and have words with him about peoples job roles. This then lead Amina being able to understand and learn her responsibilities. Kirsty was able to return to her job role as given from the beginning of the night and Ryan decided to do his proper job role that he was given originally.

As I was participating in the show this left me very limited to the type of jobs that I could carried out. Therefore backstage was one of the only options that I could do. However making sure that I performed well I printed and created sheets for all the backstage members which were taped around of the acts name and instructions of when to have each act back stage. I then also took the responsibility into showing the acts where they could sit of they were taking part in the opposite half of the show to what they were performing in. Ryan was available back stage for his job and did also help with lifting or removing props on and off stage. However he does not seem to be a team player which was a disadvantage to his overall

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performance on the night.

Lights – Emily and Harleythis was Emily and Harleys role for the night of the event. Doing this lights was a big responsibility as it is important that the lights are always n the performers which is on stag so that the audience can see them. This includes two follow lights which are spotlights that need to follow the act or presenter at all times. This year the lights were more organised than the last as we sorted out with all the acts which lights they would prefer (colours) this was done by Harley and Emily therefore the lights which the acts chosen were also selected in the background as well as their follow spot. Emily was not keen on the idea of the job role at the beginning, as she said she wasn’t going t does it. This made a few disagreements with the team members as there were not many other jobs that were possible to be done. However after thinking over she comes to terms with the job and she accepted that it wasn’t so bad after all. This job was done also very well by both of the members in the team and with help from David Grey the lights were probably the best which they have had from all years. It was also an advantage that Harley had done the lights before therefore she already had skills and knowledge in what she was doing.

Stage Manager – Aminathis is one of the main jobs when holding an event, the stage manager is seen as a god of the production. Amina had the largest responsibility out of the whole group when it came to job roles on the night. This involved her talking to Scott, David, Harley and Emily on the mics for when music needed to be played. What microphone sounds needed to be switched on and what colour lights needed to be shown where and when. Amina did a good job of this including that she did not get the longest practice of her job roles through the rehearsal.

Also when she needed to do another job or be somewhere else she instructed me to take over and talk to the others which was not a problem. I stayed backstage with Amina and ensured that she was doing the right thing when she needed to be and if she had any questions she always could ask me or Danny to help her which was an overall help for the whole team. Amina did have one mistake which was that she forgot to turn of the microphone once speaking into it backstage, however not many rows in the audience herd this therefore it wasn’t a huge disaster. Amina did a good job or organising everyone and making sure that the running of the event was smooth.

Communication

Communication that we used throughout the event would include:

Email Facebook Text Phone

All of these were useful to talk to each other; however the strongest point of communication for the whole team throughout the event would be our private Facebook group. This group is

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only for the members of the team and this is where you can share thoughts pictures, files or videos to one another over the internet. This was used by all members of the team on a daily basis which was extremely good and is a quick and fast way where we could post our files or share the documents that we had been producing on our own individual computers. Throughout the whole event I would say that the communication has been extremely strong and some points however at other extremely weak. This depended on the team member which was working o that specific job role at the time some of the members of the team were extremely open to share their work and what they have been doing where as other would not want to share or communicate with the others about what information they have received back. Therefore this made the communication hard at certain times.

The one lack of communication that most members had with two individuals was Kirsty and Ryan. This was because Kirsty never liked to share her work which she had done for example we had a joint email account to email and talk to sponsors which she decided that she didn’t want to use when she contacted Costa therefore none of us were able to see the conversations she had with these businesses. Whereas Ryan never bothered to attend school and would ask what he had missed every week at first I would inform him and let home know however once it become a regular occurrence that he never wanted to come in we stopped bothering to contact him as we were all busy with our own jobs and trying to make the event successful therefore he said the communication was bad on his department.

Between 4 of the members if the team one of our main sources of communication was Blackberry Messenger, this a service which can be bought monthly which enables people to communication like a chat for free. The benefit of using this is that you can see if the message is delivered and when it has been read. This is extremely quick and also enables the choice of sending photos or files therefore this was extremely helpful throughout the whole event. I feel as a team we were extremely organised before the show and was following time-scales effectively as we had planned and ensured we kept to check-lists. This can be found in the appendix.

Problems that Occurred During the Staging of the Event

Logothe logo was one of the first problems that occurred when staging the event; this was a much undecided aspect that we could not agree as a team. This was a small issue that needed to be resolves however caused may agreements and disagreements. Most of the individuals had their own ideas for the logo however there were others that did not like the idea of the logo therefore this lead us to not being able to decide what to have as our logo. The other aspect is the person who was going to design the logo was in England which meant that this would have taken longer than we expected to receive the end result back. After 2 weeks we were still undecided as a team however I made a logo option throughout this time which we all agreed as a team in the end it was an easier option to use as it was already computerised and didn’t mean we would have to send it to England. This problem was solved and in the end all of the team members liked the idea of the logo. We all agreed that the logo was a lot better

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than the previous years as it was related to the school colours and the UAE colours but also related to Britain’s Got Talent.

Ticketsthe problem we faced with tickets was finding a company which could print the design of our ticket. This job role was assigned to Harley and Emily. They failed to look for quotes of prices that it would cost for us to print 560 tickets. However Ryan said that we would be able to get the tickets printed by his dads company Aggreko. After Ryan’s lack of effort throughout the whole event we trusted him as a team to deliver the tickets. With enough time to sell them once we had returned from the January break. However this was another problem which arrived Ryan had left the job to late and didn’t bother contacting Aggreko. This meant that we had the tickets a week and a half late which gave us less time to market and promote the fact that tickets were on sale.

After having these tickets completed , a week before the event DUCTAC contacted us and told us that we could not sell thee tickets as they did not fit the requirements therefore I had to redesign tickets which were fit for purpose. This was then given to Ken a member of staff within the school community who contracted a ticket company that he had previously used who got the tickets produced and printed within the space of 3 days.

DTCMthis perhaps was of the largest problems which we faced as a team. the reason for this was the fact that DTCM never contacted us or DTCM in advance to make us aware of their requirements that needed to be fitted in order for the show to go ahead. Due to us not knowing we planned and done everything that we could which then needed to be changed in the last week in order for the event to carry on. As a result of this we nearly had to postpone the event. But due to high commitment from certain team members (Scott, Amina, Harley and I) we were able to overcome this and fit the requirements in the time which we had left. We felt that this was a huge disadvantage to our event and we felt that DUCTAC gave us extremely bad customer service.

Acts Dropped Out two of the acts this year had gotten through to the final show from their auditions and were scheduled to perform on the final night of the show however both dropped out. One of the acts which were from the previous year dropped out due to a school trip that was taking place, and the other act decided that they didn’t want to do it 2 weeks before the performance. However this wasn’t a huge problem as we already had a large amount of acts and none of the marketing or programmes had been printed yet therefore we were able to adapt our documents.

Commitment of Team Membersanother of the biggest problems we suffered this year was the commitment from certain members of the group. Some of the team members were more committed into helping others and being involved than others. This started to become a problem as people’s assigned jobs were not being completed and I or Harley had to do these jobs on top of our own. This led me

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into having a lot of work to do, whereas others were not doing anything at all. Peoples excuses for this was that the job was boring or they didn’t want to do it and after suggesting many times that we shall have to do jobs that we didn’t want to do but do them to help the team out this still didn’t work. Therefore the result of this was to not give jobs to these certain members of the team and others working together as a team to complete these jobs. Ryan was one of the biggest team members that people struggled to work with. He had the smallest amount of commitment to the event for example he didn’t turn up to the auditions, the fundraisers and hardly ever came to school. Especially the day before the event he didn’t come in. This made the event hard to do as he had job roles which he needed to be doing amongst the whole event which were never completed. Most of the team started to give up with him as a team member and we continued the vent without his efforts of contribution on most times when he was not available

Personal Evaluation

(Before the event)

Contacted 6 Sponsors

Before the event this was one of the jobs as a team that we could all contribute to. This involved searching for businesses contact details online and sending a proposal to sponsor our event. At the beginning of the event we were struggling to have any sponsors as our class wasn’t as fortunate as the years before. Due to this I decided to think of businesses that I throughout would be interested in helping children amongst Dubai and supporting a school event. Therefore I contacted 7 different businesses these were: Premier Inn, Nandos, Mondelèz, Kraft, Fun City, Virgin Radio and Spinney’s.

Out of all the businesses that I contacted we received responses from 5 which were all interested in sponsoring the event. Some of the offers that we received where prizes or vouchers where as others were money. Due to contacting all of these sponsors it was my responsibility to keep in contact with them and collect the sponsorship when needed. This led me and Scott to collecting fun city, Kraft, Mondelèz, Nandos and premier inns sponsorship gifts. In school and our own time.

By contacting all the sponsors this also meant that I had to produce invoices, receipts and making sure that I sent them all marketing material or information that they needed to know when was applicable.

Acts Music

During the preparation of the event we needed all of the acts music in a sort about of time. Therefore it was vital that acts remembered to bring in their music otherwise we

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would lose more acts for the final night of the show. Moreover I decided to send a joint message on Facebook to all the acts the night before reminding them to bring in their music for the event. This was also useful as I can see who had read and seen the message. On the message I sent I included our team email which meant the acts were able to email the music from the space of their own home which may have been more convenient. (See appendix)

Judging Criteria

One very important job role which was forgotten to be completed by the other team members was the judging criteria. I was not meant to take this take on by myself however the other had jobs to do therefore I did this as the team member which was meant to do this forgot. This was an extremely important job that needed to be done as it would not have been possible for the judges to rate and judge the acts on the night of the show if they did not have the criteria in which to judge the acts on. After having made the judging criteria Emily and Harley went around to each of the 4 judges and asked for their opinion on what they felt was good and was not good with it, and what aspects of it they felt they would like to change to make it easier on them and make the judging more efficient.

This year we decided that judging criteria needed to be on the talent of the act. This was suggesting that acts which were singing to a backing track would start with a lower mark than the others as it is simply easier to sing with a backing track rather than playing an instrument or dancing. All of the judges agreed with our changes and this was a successful piece of information for the event.

Organised Auditions

During the event we needed to organise the auditions for the acts that had signed up to participate in the event. At this point of the preparation of the event there was less commitment from some team members than others therefore myself, Harley and Emily decided to organise these. However I created all of the files which each team member needed, for example this included the judging criteria, the acts which were performing on which dates and the dates and times of when their audition was. I also created information that the acts needed for example this included their audition times and details of what they needed and where to go. I will admit I think at times the auditions wasn’t as organised as they could be but this was sue to acts not remembering their times and not arriving to their auditions which made the process longer than we expected it to be.

Act Line Up

For the night of the event we needed a running order or which acts were going to perform where. A large number of acts also helped us decide which acts were to go through to perform in the show, picking the best possible acts with a variety of age groups and talents. The total amount of acts which we had for the final night of the show was 15; therefore we needed to make sure that the acts were put in a place which would be more suitable and exciting for the audience. We agreed that the primary acts needed to be in the

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first half and we needed a strong act to open and close the event. After I created the chart on excel this was adapted and sent to Mr Bentley which made a few alterations. On the other hand the acts were all divided into their talents so that it was equal and different for the audience to watch.

Assemblies

As a whole team we had to hold 2 assemblies which included a variety of information which has been stated earlier in the report. Myself just like the whole team had to participate in this with our own lines to talk and a small video about the class and our talents which we have. Therefore for this I made up a small dance routine which was filmed and recorded and then placed into the assembly. For the second assembly we went into 2 separate groups. This didn’t work as well as the first assembly I feel that this was very rushed and unorganised. However the time that the group were meant to be planning this myself and Scott was not in the country and this was their job role. As they did not organise anything we had to do this assembly off the top of our head. Ryan as usual turned up late and missed the assembly for our group some Amina and Scott had to improvise for his absence.

Posters

Throughout the whole event I made a lot of contribution to posters and advertising of the event across the school. This is so that all the customers and participants were aware of what was going on at that point of time and what fundraisers or events we were holding in order to make money and progress for our event and our chosen charity.

Quiz Night

In December we had a hard time organising the quiz night, due to not enough people signing up we postponed the quiz night and placed it a week later, this involved us doing a lot of advertising and getting people to sign up for the fundraiser. Therefore I changed and re created posters and tickets for the night which were then cut and used around the school to advertisements. We also shrunk the posters and gave them to parents as flyers to promote this to more people. Another task that needed to be done for the quiz night was to create team sheets for the groups who were participating. Therefore I completed this and photocopied enough sheets so the teams had enough for their quiz rounds.

The build up to the quiz night was important that we all had job roles and completed the tasks which needed to be done before the evening. Therefore I handed out job roles and make sure all paper work and jobs were covered and finished. This involved Ryan and Scott creating questions and Harley and Emily sorting out the PFA drinks coffees and tables being prepared before we arrived on the quiz night. After all these jobs were done, on the day I called a meeting at school to discuss the job roles for the evening of the quiz. Harley Emily and Kirsty were selling refreshments, Amina and Kirsty were organising tickets on the door, and I was sorting the sheets and team points as well as sharing quiz master with Scott. As Ryan decided that he wasn’t able to make it as he didn’t want to

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wait around after school till 7 o’clock. Later in the week I attended the shopping mall to purchase some prizes for the quiz night. I decided to buy a large collection of quality sheets for second place and wooden spoons for last place as usually this is a tradition in pub quizzes in the UK.

Programme and Ticket Design

For the event it was important that we designed the programmes and the tickets. As I designed the logo for the event the other team members suggested that I designed both of these pieces of marketing material as well. This included me having to contact all the sponsors asking for HD images of their logo to be placed and designed in an appropriate way for marketing products. After doing a few drafts and sending them to the sponsors we had a final ticket designed made to size and posters which have all been sent to the sponsors and approved to be used for our final marketing products.

The programme needed to be different to the previous year’s which had staged this show therefore we continued to use our layout f the logo, which included the colours black, green, red and white. I also included all the sponsor logos and names on the front and back of the programme to make sure that it showed our appreciation of the sponsors supporting out event. The programme also included the order of the acts on the nights and the contributors which had helped us stage the event.

Website Page

After our first meeting I decided that it would be important and useful to create a webpage which was connected to Facebook so that all the team members within the group could share files, ideas and their opinions on the webpage so that they could keep up with all of the data and ideas were being discussed in our lessons. This was also beneficial as the work is backed up onto a site which is private and only for our class. This turned out to be a really useful site as it opened up the class to others as they were felt that they could express their opinions more honestly and it keeps all of us in better contact throughout the event. After this we then decided on the venues which needed to be researched and looked into so we could visit and gather more primary research.

Charity Visit

One of the most vital factors which were then needed to be completed within the staging of the event was the visit to the autism centre. I originally was not supposed to be attending this venue however due to personal reasons within the team I was chosen to go by the other two members that were already attending. The team agreed that the two people which were needed to visit the autism centre was Amina and Ryan however the day before the visit both of these team members were persuading me to come along as either of them wanted to go with the other. I stated that this wasn’t my place to go as they had agreed to do this. Ryan then decided that Amina shouldn’t go and he would go on his own which is also not fair therefore due to this I decided to go. Moreover I shouldn’t have done this as they both should

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need to learn how to work together in a business and corporate if they chose to go together on a task in the first place. Even though that I did agree to going both of the members joined me with this trip and overall Ryan was impressed with Amina and how she dealt with meeting the manager and children at the centre, and we all came away from the business with a good idea of the business and where I money was going to.

This was a very hard hitting experience and I would have liked all of the other members to visit the centre and the children that are within this. We all learn a lot about the business and how they strive to help children with autism across Dubai. I personally believe that I walked away from this with a good experience and happy to put all money which is raised from this event to this chosen charity. I was extremely surprised by Amina’s efforts when visiting the centre she asked a wide range of questions and interacted with all of the children within the centre. I asked several questions and discussed about the payment and how we can speak to DUCTAC about our event which could technically reduce overall costs for the venue.

T-shirts

During the staging of the event another job which I participated in was printing the logos and names onto the t-shirts, during this we come across many limitations of achieving this to our best standards. Our first choice of printing was within DBS School as it was cheaper and more efficient however this did not turn out to be our final choice. Due to the fact that the school could not print logos onto black or colour fabrics. This then lead us going to IBN where I already knew a company which has printed several different items for me personally. This led us to getting high standard printing at a reduced price. The printing only took an hour for 7 t-shirts double sided which was extremely good and once the t-shirts were finished all of the members of the team were extremely pleased with the result and we felt like this gave us a high sense of achievement due to the problems which we faced with this from the beginning.

Finance

During the staging and after the event all of the financial aspects were assigned for me to complete, by doing this we needed a cash flow forecast, therefore I created a predicted forecast with the team so that we would have a basic idea on how we would be able to compare this to our real cash flow and how this would relate to how well we predicted our money to come in and out. After creating this cash flow I decided that it would be useful to create our real cash flow at the same time, this is then down to me to fill this in each week as I am in charge of finance for the group. All money that is spent is recorded into our cash flow as well as all money which comes in. This then lead us being able to collect the loan which we needed from the school to pay for the deposit of hiring DUCTAC for our final event. Once the loan was collected this was placed with all the money which we had made so that it was kept in a safe place.

Other finical aspect which I dealt with throughout the event was expenses which each individual member of the team was owed, fundraiser success that we experience and the ticket sales. This was a large responsibility to take on as if the money was incorrect to the

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amount that I had recorded this would look like my error therefore all the money which was recorded or taken from different places needed to be recorded and reported to me so that I could record what was being changed.

Prizes

The last job that I did before the event was purchase a buy the primary prizes for the younger contestants that had participated in the show. Therefore in order of completing this I took time into my weekend to visit the shopping malls and buy prizes for the two primary acts. This also included goody bags. Another element of the prizes which I sorted out was Mr Bentleys and Sabena’s. These were done with other members of the team however we believe that the prizes that we bought were appropriate and useful toward the receiver.

(During the event)

Printed all files to be taken

During the event it was important that all files which we may have needed for the night of the event were printed off and taken along with us. This job I decided to take on and make sure that we had everything kept in two files for the night of the event. This was extremely helpful and kept all files neat and not damaged for the use of the event for example: reserved seating signs, running order and premier inn prize.

Reserved Seats &Programmes on Chairs

Once we arrived at DUCTAC I decided the find the row which would be most appropriate for the sponsors to sit at and for the acts therefore I used the reserved signs which we created at school and placed them amongst the seats which were relevant for the sponsors which has taken part in our event and helped us put the event together.

This also included the programmes and customer feedback forms. I placed these with the other team members on ever other seat which was being used within the auditiorm so that the acts and The customers were are of the running order of the night and could understand more about the people and businesses which had helped us throughout the staging of our event as well as our team and why we hold this event for our coursework.

Set up Dressing Rooms

When arriving at DUCTAC I went into each of the dressing rooms to make sure that they were all prepared and ready for the acts when they arrived, this included selected which would be the girls and which would be the boys changing rooms. Once doing this I put up running orders in both of the dressing rooms so that the acts were able to know when they would be performing on the night, I also spoke to all the acts and make sure that if they

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were going to eat in The changing rooms not to make a mess and to leave all rubbish into one bin so at the end of the night we could empty the bins and take the rubbish with us.

Organised Prizes

When arriving and going into our dressing room I thought it would be important to organise al off the prizes which were needed for what half of the show, I also organised who would be holding what prizes and which ones for the specific teacher so that there was no confusion when we were on stage in front of The whole audience.

Backstage and Organising Acts

Backstage was assigned to myself and Ryan. This job as states earlier in the report had different responsibilities, these included making sure that every act was ready from the dressing rooms and was backstage the act before their own so that they were ready and on time to go on the stage, ensuring that the acts were being sensible backstage and in the changing rooms, making sure that all acts were at the location of the venue and ensuring that they were okay and seated when needed to be.

A disadvantage to my role was the fact that I was participating within the show as this left me very limited to the amount of work I could do and how much I could help with the team. If I was not participating in the event I feel I could have contributed myself and my skills more than I was able to which was a small let down to my personal perspective of the event. however even though this was a drawback I still got involved as much as I could ensuring that I was there to solve any problems or help the other team members and acts when possible. I personally feel that I did more work with the acts than Ryan as at times I had to knock on the boy’s dressing room to talk to the male acts because Ryan was nowhere to be found. As stated earlier I also took the responsibility into showing the acts where they could sit of they were taking part in the opposite half of the show to what they were performing in.

The younger acts I tried to encourage backstage ensuring that they were okay and made sure that they were motivated at all times as well as accompanied by due to their age difference. I also supplied all the acts and the team with water backstage if needed.

Conclusion of my Contribution

I personally believe that I was one of the members which made the most contribution into making sure the event was going to run smoothly and be successful. As being voted team leader at times I believe this was a lot of pressure, as some of the embers beloved that if something didn’t go right this was my fault. Therefore I made as much contribution as possible to ensure that everything was going right and there were little limitations or errors that could have occurred. At times I felt being a team leader was harder than expected as people didn’t listen to what you asked them to do therefore when they didn’t finish or do a job role which they were allocated it was my responsibility to do this.

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At times I felt people took advantage of this and didn’t bother to do their jobs as they knew that other people would do it if they didn’t therefore I had to take a different approach by not doing this and leaving the job to be done by that personal who was not contribution as a team member as much as others. Throughout the event I have learnt how to work with different people, and I have interoperated the working techniques of different members in a team as everyone has a different approach on how their work ethic is completed or taken to the table. As there were weaker members of the team in our group I realised that you have to encourage and work personally with these people to boost their confidence in order for them to put their ideas across. At times this did seem like a challenge however overall I believe that as a team we all become a lot closer during the event than we were at the beginning of the event which was a huge success to the team and the personal relationships within in.

Overall I believe that all the team members some more than others started to enjoy the event more than before and started to contribute more when problems arise so that it was less stressful for the members which were trying to deal with these problems. My contribution I believe was useful most of the times and sometimes were more laid back due to the feeling of being overworked however I had great determination into the event and I didn’t want to postpone when we were faced with a large amount of issues a weak before. Therefore I pushed myself in order to make sure that the team and I were able to pull off a successful event for our school community and chosen charity.

Section DEvaluation

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IntroductionWhy evaluation is important - theory

Successful Aspects of the Event & JustificationUnsuccessful Aspects of the Event

RecommendationsKey Deadlines

Proposal for PromotionStrengths and Weaknesses of the Team

Evaluation summationRealistic proposals for improvements

Team Evaluation

Importance of Evaluation

The main reason why the importance of evaluation is a key aspect of our event is because it helps us learn lesson that we can then use for future life situations or in future reference. This is also a key aspect as it can be used so that we can evaluate how to improve or ways which

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we could of have made the event even more successful than it was. Evaluation covers both positive and negative factors of the event, team performance and the audience’s reactions and perspective on what they saw. By doing this it will also help for future reference as the team members will know what aspects were weak and where they could improve on.

Evaluation does not only take place at the end of an event, it can also take place throughout the build up and staging of an event. Some businesses will evaluation when they have completed certain tasks or how the team is working to a certain date. This is so that they can ensure that they are on task and the team efforts which are being put into the making of an event are to high standards. Evaluation is important throughout an event as it can remind the team what they need to do and the ability that they should be portraying when doing these tasks. This can also help the team improve on the factors where their skills are not as well developed, therefore this is also helps businesses improve their overall team performance.

Ongoing evaluation will also help identify any problems which could occur or are occurring. This can help the business see in advance of problems which could occur and will give them time to figure out way to limit or if not avoid these problems. This will also give team members the opportunity to analyse their personal contribution and efforts towards the team and the event. This will result in them being able to see their strengths and weaknesses throughout the staging of the event.

Successful Aspects of the event

Successful JustificationDanny Mackie Danny Mackie was a successful aspect to our event this year. As

him being a year 12 applied student he was asked to help participate in the event. He was one of the students which all of our team as well as Mr Bentley was extremely impressed with. Danny put himself all out to help with every job and problem that occurred on the night of the event. His job role was to help backstage with the props. However he managed several jobs across the night these included tickets, stage manager, backstage with acts, props and he managed the other members of his applied class when they were not doing anything.

Acts This year we had plenty of acts for the show, all with different talents. This was a successful aspect of the show as from the beginning we wanted a different twist to the show this year. This was to achieve a mix of acts that were not all singing and we were able to achieve this. The acts were all easy to contact and they listened to the team when we needed their co operation which was a successful aspect of the show.

Calm On the night of the show we were extremely calm and controlled when dealing with issues and jobs that needed to be done for the event. This was also picked up by the DUCTAC management who has seen the previous year’s shows. This was a successful aspect of the show as we wanted the night to be less stressful than the previous years and for the team to co operate

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professionally so that jobs could be done faster and without any more mistakes.

Organisation This year we feel like our organisation had been the strongest from the previous years. We feel that we were more organised in the aspects of auditions, the day of the event, sponsorship and files. This was a successful aspect as some of the comments from the previous years event were that they were unorganised with the acts on the day of the show. Therefore this year we wanted to ensure that everything was organised and in order therefore this can cause less problems to occur. Which we believe was a key element to solving and decreasing the chances of issues arising.

Lighting Just like the previous year we had a successful aspect of the show which was the lighting. This was credit to our event thanks to David Grey. He organised the lighting for our event and bought in his own lights to give the back of the stage some colour instead of just plain spot lights. However we increased the use of the lights this year than to the previous years by asking all the acts which colour they would specifically like and editing the colours and effects into the music of their performance.

Video Another successful aspect to our event this year was the video recording which we organised through David Grey. As stated earlier David was able to borrow 3 cameras from JVC which were high quality cameras that are not yet realised in the UAE. This was because we stated that we wanted to record the show and use this as evaluation and evidence of our final project. Therefore we were able to shoot the show from 3 different angles with extremely high quality cameras. Which we are then going to cut and edit into a DVD recording of the event.

Facebook Team Page Another successful aspect of the event this year was the Facebook team page which I created. This was because we had people within our team that were less confrontational. However this way everyone’s views and opinions were able to be discussed. By doing this we were also able to keep organised and hare files and images when needed so the other team members were able to share our team work. This kept everyone updated and notified of what was happening.

Sponsorship Sponsorship was one of our strongest aspects of the event this year due to the previous years this was the first year that had achieved a numerous amount of sponsors. This was a successful aspect as these covered costs of the venue and prizes that were needed throughout the event. Without the sponsorship vouchers and money we would have to use all of our sales of the tickets in order to pay for the event which would lead to little money raised for the charity.

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Audience Reaction The audiences reaction after the event was very positive. Mr Bentley was approached by some of the parents and was told that the event was amazing and they really enjoyed it. Therefore this was a good point of the event.

Unsuccessful Aspects of the Event

Unsuccessful JustificationCommunication The communication amongst the team was

not very sound at certain points of the staging of the event; this is due to the fact that most of the team members had very strong personalities whereas somewhere very shy and didn’t want to share their ideas which would then lead to disagreements. At some times the lack of communication amongst some of the team members causes certain tasks to not be completed to the best of the team’s ability.

Tickets / Marketing Tickets sales was also another unsuccessful aspect of the event, due to the previous year being able to sell out this gave us high expectations to live up to but due to the tickets being delivered late this gave us a limited time to sell the tickets, also the marketing we used to sell the tickets were not as focused as they could of been which lead some people not knowing about the event of not that interesting in buying a ticket.

Gantt Chart The Gantt chart was also another disadvantage to the event. as the team member which volunteered to do this had little communication and contribution to the event therefore had not been into school for 3 weeks after the event and has not sent us the file which we needed as he did not follow up the chart or complete it for our event which was a huge drawback and this could of helped our organising or time scale of the event.

Ductac and DTCM DUCTAC was another huge disadvantage to our event this year; we felt that we were given an extremely poor customer service from the previous years. Due to a new manager that was front of house she had lacked in communication to inform us of any important files or information that we needed

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to know. The way that DUCTAC dealt with us was also extremely unprofessional this included the payments of DUCTAC and the customer service which they gave our customers when they entered the lobby for the night of the event. This then also included DTCM charges which we were not informed of. DUCTAC was meant to inform us of these charges and requirements which needed to be fulfilled for our event to go forward. Therefore this made complications and stress on our team members. But we overcome this from string communication and team work.

Realistic Proposals for Improvement and Further Recommendations

CommunicationThe communication between the team was some times stronger than others. This depended on the people within the team. some of the team members were able to communicate with all of the team members whereas some of the members did not socialise with other members which made working as a team sometimes harder than other which also meant that the communication levels also changed depending on who was dealing with who within the team. Recommendations that I would suggest for this would be to have a clear team leader which is able to talk to all of the members of the team, which we did have. However have a leadership style and system which is put in place and followed.

Communication started to improve closer to when the event was about to be staged as this was when everyone needed other team members in order to complete their job roles and they needed others to listen so that people would follow their job roles or work that needed to be produced. Communication was also lacking in our group due to the fact that 4 of the members had blackberry messenger whereas the other 3 did not therefore this was harder to communicate with these members as they never had credit on their phones. Therefore another recommendation would be to expense credit and make sure that two people always have credit on their phones to contact others within the group when needed.

This recommendation will greatly help improve the teams communication as it will give the team a lot more structure as they will have someone that makes decisions on behalf of the team for the best of the team.

Allocated job roles

During the course of staging an event I would recommend that a business allocates specific roles to team members to continue throughout the whole event. For example have one person on finance, one on marketing etc. As this will ensure that the members are specifically focused and aware of their role and what is happening within their role. The reasoning to this is because we did not have specific job roles like this and this can create confusions or people

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forgetting to do certain jobs which were what happened with marketing of the tickets. By doing this the team members will be more motivated to make sure that their job role of the event is working correctly otherwise this would be their downfall. As we didn’t have this some people didn’t care as much as others about certain aspects and when problem occurred.

Commitment Agreement

The commitment of a certain team member in our team was very low and poor. As we already had a team of 7 this was basically leaving us to a team of 6 people which is a small out of people to hold an event. Therefore we needed as much team commitment as possible. Ryan was the weakest member of the team which failed to participate in most fundraisers, afterschool or in school events, auditions and attending to school with job roles complete. Recommendation or areas of improvement for this would to create a contract of improvement and contribution for this member of the team. This would then encourage him to come into school and participate like the other members. If he continued to have a lack in effort this would then lead him to breaking the contract which would result in having no more input into this section of work which would be a loss on his behalf. However this does affect the amount of work the other members of the team have to do and it can make it a more confusing and hard work for the rest of the team on top of their current job roles.

Tickets and Marketing

This was one of our weaker areas this year for the event. Personally I don’t think that we marketed the tickets being on sales as much as we should have to get people to buy tickets. Therefore these lead to less tickets sales from the previous years and us not being able to fill the auditorium for the night of the show. Some of this could have been down to the amount of school trips that were either already ongoing or leaving the day after the event.

Moreover some of this could be down to the tickets going on sale so late to the final date of the show which made the time for people to be able to get tickets was very short. To contact all the customers we had to send emails and letters. By the time that the parents received these it did not give them a large opportunity to buy the tickets. We tried to market the tickets by attending the class rooms across the school and asking people to buy them. However this was not enough tickets to fill out DUCTAC.

Areas of improvement of recommendation for this would be to use a more appropriate marketing scheme and allow the customers a month to purchase the tickets. As a team we should have indicated at least 2 of the team members to be marketing and selling the tickets to our customers amongst this time instead of presuming that customers would buy the tickets due to the previous years holding the event and it being popular.

Were the Objectives and Aims met?

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Aim 1 – Raise money for charity

This was one of our first aims for when we decided to stage the event, in order to make this be achieved we had the following objectives:

To ensure successful fund raising events Increase number of acts to ensure more ticket sales Increase sponsorship to at least 3 sponsors Increase advertising to ensure more ticket sales

Produce a DVD/photographs of event to purchase

As you can see from the above we achieved 4 out of 5 of the objectives in order to raise a large amount of money for the charity of our choice. This year we did different fundraising event within the school to raise awareness of the event and the charity that we were putting all profits to, this included a quiz night as it had never of been done at the school before. This year we did increase the number of acts for the final show however this did not increase the tickets sales for the final night which was a disadvantage to our event. We achieved 6 sponsors this year which was more than the 4 previous years which had done the event before therefore this was a huge advantage and gave us a larger amount of money to donate to the Autism centre.

we failed to achieve more advertising o ensure a larger amount of ticket sales, which was a place where we could of had more money, and we are currently in the making of producing a DVD of the final night of the show. I believe that we met this aim as a whole for our event as we raised money for the charity of our choice and after our money back from DTCM this should be an approximate amount of 18,000 AED along with prizes and vouchers for the children.

Aim 2 – Increase awareness for the charity, school and applied course

This was our second aim for when we decided to stage the event, in order to make this be achieved we had the following objectives:

Increase outside media coverage Increase promotion of event through fund raising events within school Increase awareness through assemblies, posters, school newsletter and internet

Due to our objectives I believe that we achieve this aim in some aspects however didn’t achieve this aim on other aspects. The reasoning for this is we increased the media covering and promotion due to fundraisers, posters and newsletters or emails to parents however it didn’t have the affect which we wanted it to on our potential customers amongst the school community. In order of doing this we would presume that ticket sales would have been increasing to the same amount of tickets last year or even more than we achieved. I do beloved that our assemblies wasn’t as good as the year before however we still used many promotional aspects within the school to get people interested and involved in the event however we didn’t have as many enthusiastic customers as we presumed to have which was a

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disappointment.

we believe that the recognition of the applied team has increased by holding this event, sue the amount of people congratulating our team after the event and through us working with different businesses and people when staging the event for example David Grey. I personally think that we could have achieved this aim more than we have done and improvements could have been made to enrol more customers than we did.

Aim 3 – Increase overall performance of event from last year

This was our last aim which we decided when staging the event; in order to make this be achieved we had the following objectives:

Greater variety of acts - ages and style of acts Greater organisation and communication within the event team and outside

organisations Produce a DVD/photographs of event to purchase To increase audience satisfaction through overall service provided e.g. understand

problems from previous events and evaluation survey to assess level of enjoyment Good prizes for participants Adequate venue and facilities

In order to complete this aim we set a numerous amount of objectives to be achieved throughout the staging of the event, this year we picked a wider amount of acts to perform on the night which ranged from different ages and different styles. One of our high points of the event was our organisation skills as a team and during jobs that needed to be achieved. This made the event a lot smoother run and less stressful for our team and the customers when it comes down to the final night. Personally I believe that we achieved a better performance on the night of the show due to the previous years generally down to the organisation, and timescale which we used in order to make everything calmer and less stressful. By doing this our communication was a lot better towards the members of the team and the running of the show was on time with little problems or mistakes made.

we ensured that we continued the prizes for the acts this year in order to maintain the same level of satisfaction however we changed the gifts for the teachers so that they wasn’t receiving the same present ever year. Which we believed worked well as was more personal from our team, the venue had good facilities for the acts, team and customers however the communication as discussed earlier was poor and gave us a bad experience with the business. I believe that the performance was increased from the previous year as even though we didn’t sell out on the ticket sales we still managed to raise the same if not more money than the previous year and many customers who attended the show said it was extremely good and if not better than the previous year which is what we wanted from the beginning of the event.

Were key deadlines met?

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In order to ensure that we set deadlines at the beginning of the event we made a brief Gantt chart which showed when tasks needed to be done and when they needed to be completed. However due to the fact that the team member who was carried out this job did not perform to his full potential we never got a completed Gantt chart which had all the tasks predicted time dates and completed dates in therefore we as a team have found this hard to evaluate this section of our event

Due to the tasks which needed to be done without using the Gantt chart as a overall method of measuring this the majority of the key deadlines that needed to be taken were completed on time.

The tickets were not printed and delivered by the time that we expected them to be done this then lead them being late o sale and with little time for the customers to buy them. We wanted all tickets printed and I school ready to be sold by the beginning on January when everyone was back to school from the Christmas holidays however due to one of the team members which were in charge of doing this the tickets were late and not placed into the school till mid January which only gave them 4 weeks max to be sold. The tickets were printed on the very same date that the printers had told us they would be ready.

The deposit to hire out Ductac was paid on time and earlier prior to the previous years which had booked the show. The deposit was paid in the first month of staging the event to be sure that we would have a specific date that we wanted without other businesses booking their shows with our venue choice. Due to DTCM these were charges that we were unaware of therefore this was not planned for in advance and changed some of our financial aspects of the event, and the final payment for DUCTAC was paid on the night of the show which is what we planned for therefore this was also done on time.

The printing of the programmes was on time and organised before the event so that we was not doing it in the last minute. This was a harder task to get on time in case any of the acts dropped out as this would leave the programmes to have correct information and which would result in having to change them and reprint 300 all over again. Due to making sure that we did this at a sensible time in the staging of the event it meant that no changes needed to be done and this task was completed with no problems.

Prizes for the event was also done on deadlines, we had sorted all the prizes for the students with plenty of time however we were slightly delayed with some of the teachers presents as we tried to get different things which would involve talking to members from their businesses and sorting out what would be practical and suitable for them. Moreover when it came to meeting deadlines as a team we met deadlines on an 80 percent basis. There were some deadlines that weren’t met however usually it appeared to be the same team member each time that failed to meet these. The rest of the team would meet deadlines if they were set a task which involved them to achieve this is a suited time scale. Myself personally I feel that I kept to deadlines very well, this is because I used an electronic diary which kept myself informed of jobs that needed to be completed or done by other team members and I also used to-do lists for myself and for the team to ensure and remind them of the tasks needed to be

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done and when they needed to be completed by feel that throughout my time planning and staging this event I have increased my organisation skills and time keeping.

Did our planning promote effective performance?

The lighting and sound was planned and practiced during the setting up and rehearsals on the night of the show, we did this by asking each of the acts which colour lights they wanted and any effected they wanted to be used during their performance. We then did this by coordinating a sheet of paper to sound light and backstage so we could discuss and get these right on the live show. This went completely right and there was no mistakes which was effective and make the show look better than just a plain stage. David helped us by adding extra lights around the stage so that it bought colour onto the background and we made sure that all the team using the lights were trained and confident in what they was doing.

The first assembly that the team put together went very well, this was because we made a video and ensured that all members of the team had something to say and that we promoted the event as well as we could. This took a lot of planning and practicing in order for it to be effective. However our second assembly was not planned as well as the first and was more rushed and un organised than the first, for both of the assemblies the videos put together by Kirsty were to a very good standard however the planning of the speech in the second assembly wasn’t as effective as the second one which was due to our mistake.

The fundraisers were also a big success for our event, due to the limitations we were faced with at the beginning of the year made this had for us to raise as much money as we predicated. However we got ways round this by creating a quiz night which was extremely successful and raised a lot of money. We were able to plan all of our fundraisers with enough time to advertise and promote them so that the customers and school community knew about them. The biggest success from holding the fundraisers was the fact we were able to achieve cash which could be used for prizes and venue hire later on. The efficiency in planning fundraisers helped ensure that the fund raisers were very successful in raising a substantial amount of money for the DBS has Talent.

The auditions for the acts were planned one week ahead prior of them being held. This helped ensure that we were able to arrange various auditions in terms of age, groups and their chosen talent. We also could then plan the specific location on where would be most suitable for them to audition for example all dancers auditions were placed in the basement or sports hall so that they were able to have enough space. The good planning of the auditions meant that they were conducted very smoothly with minimal problems.

The last area which was a positive from planning our event was the cameras that we were given to film the final show. This was due to David Grey when we had a meeting with him about the lighting and what to arrange for the night of the show. Once talking to him and explaining about what we want to achieve he was impressed with our efforts and was able to arrange a meeting with a guy that worked at JVC. By doing this we were lent 3 top of the range cameras where we were able to understand how they worked and what not to do and what to do to get the best possible results from filming this. By attending the meeting I was

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able to collect notes which were types up and given to the members which were using the cameras on the night so that we could set up all cameras and have them synced together so when placed the footage into one file they would look the same and to a high quality standard.

Strengths and Weaknesses as a Team

Strengths

7 people in the teamhaving a larger amount of people in our team was a strength as it can reduce stress on each individual due to their being more people to handle the work load, also its beneficial as there are 7 people to share ideas and contribute into making the event successful. Also by having this amount of people all the job roles could be divided up into smaller groups and this gave the chance for individual team members to bond with others whilst doing smaller team activities which improved some areas of communication.

Achieving several sponsorsby achieving several sponsors this year it was a benefit to our team as this covered several prizes along the way when we did fundraisers and it increased our overall profit at the end of the show as this covered venue costs as well. Also by achieving this May sponsors this increased our awareness of the school and the team due to big brand businesses that had agreed to contribute and help us out with the event.

Good ideas/creativity/ uniquethe team members all have good individual ideas that help with creativity and ideas for the show i.e. opinions on who the judges should be. We also added our own unique touches this year by changing the name and filming the show for DVD

Weaknesses

Communicationthis was one of our weaknesses as a team as some of the members struggled to communicate and join in with the others which kept the group very divided at times which made the communication barrier struggle. Also some of the embers didn’t share their work or information they were told which made other unaware of what was happening at times in the staging process of the event.

DisagreementsAlong with being a strength, having a large team is also a weakness as assigning job roles to people can be difficult as not everyone will have good skills in their specified job role. Some of the team members were assigned job roles which they plainly say they didn’t want to do or said they had no skills to do this. Also when ideas were given out most members of the team had their own idea which lead to major disagreements and decision making a lot slower than it could of been.

Decision making skillsAgain, referring back to the size of the team, as it is a large number it becomes difficult when it comes to making decisions as everyone in the team wants to have their input into how the event should be run, causing conflicts. This was overcome by assigning a team leader for the event which meant that when decision

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releases.

Organisationthis was a strength as a team as we were extremely organised which lead us being able to handle problems in the long run before they took major effect, we were able to communicate calmer and have less arguments with individual team members through this.

making was in order and the team couldn’t agree this member would make the final decision or sort out a way where all the other members’ inputs have been used for the final idea.

Individual Contributionthis was our last weakness as a team, due to certain members of the team having a lack of commitment than others, this lead the work load heavier on some individual members than others as well as tasks not being complete or done late which caused other problems. We had to work around this issue however this was one of the biggest weaknesses that we experienced as a group as it affected the team as a whole for a long period of time.

How did working as a team help or hinder you?

Working in a team throughout this event has given me an extremely large amount of firsthand experience and insight in to how difficult and challenging it is to work as and in part of a team in real life business situations. My personal opinion would be that I have experienced how hard it is to work in a team and working with different personalities, some much easier than others. In a business like ours for example some of the members were more motivated than others which made them easier to work with on my behalf. I felt as if I was extremely motivated and high in contribution over all moths of staging the event which made it harder to work with those that didn’t have the same interest or strong views on achieving a successful event as I did I feel that I could work in a team however not as large as the one which we had due to the amount of disagreements and different personality clashes that we experienced throughout the event the reasoning for this is because I fell that I have the tendency to take up many task and these tasks I like to follow through with the best of my ability and standards so that they are done to perfection which I believe its correct and satisfying for me.

Another reason to why I believe that I would be better working in a smaller group would be because I feel that I can take in other team members opinions and ideas, I do however like I have my view point’s noted and considered when making decisions, which would be done a lot more frequently in a smaller group. Although it is easier to combined ideas in a smaller group and make sure that all the members of the team are happy and more motivated.

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I believe in the end the experience that I have gained through being a part of the applied year 13 team will insight me and help me later in life when working in a real business with other colleges. This also has been done with the support from Mr. Bentley, Mrs. Pugh and Mrs. Stone and Mrs Wade has taught me a valuable lesson in the meaning of teamwork and organizing an event.

What improvements could be made to the team and how would they improve the team’s performance?

Certain areas of the team’s performance in my opinion could have been improved;

The communication aspect of the team could have been improved as it was very poor throughout the duration of the event preparation. Towards the end of the event this gradually improved which meant that tasks were more complete and the stress levels were reduced in the team members as job roles were not completed and some tasks people did not know what was going on this sided down to the communication being at a poor level. Some of the team members struggled to talk to the others which was one side of the communication issue that we experienced where as the other was due to the fact that people did not come into school which caused the communication at a low point when trying to contact the team member. During the upcoming week of the event where the job roles were limited to small tasks that people did not mind doing the communication improved which meant that the jobs were done to a higher standard and without any problems occurring.

Communication with others that were helping with our event was very strong, for example with the year 12 applied group that had volunteered to help out on the night of the event was very strong, we communicated with them about their job roles, how to carry them out and times they could take a break and so on. This made the running and responsibility of making sure they were doing their jobs correctly a lot easier for us. Communications with the acts were sometimes at its high points whereas some times were also not extremely good. This made some of the running on rehearsals delayed and when having to receive music and passports this was a challenge with certain acts as they failed to bring in what we needed when we asked them.

If the communication within the team was improved this could of made tasks and job roles which were delayed or incomplete, sorted with enough time and less limitations as well as the team could of worked better together and planned ahead instead of trying to find out what everyone was doing all the time instead of focusing on their own task. By improving communication everyone also would have been able to evaluate the event as a whole more and we would have improved problems or disagreements more efficiently than we did.

Job Roles

This was another element during the event which we could have improved on. From the beginning of the event we never assigned specific job roles for specific areas which needed to be covered for example PR, human recourses, marketing and so on. By doing this some of the

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job roles and tasks may have been completed. Also the team members would have had more idea and knowledge of the areas they were covering if we continued this throughout the event so some of the sections would have been to a higher standard of work. The marketing was an aspect that we didn’t achieve to our best level throughout the event this is because we didn’t focus many of the tasks on doing this. By assigning job roles for the individuals in the group we may have covered these sections better.

However a drawback from doing this could be that people become demotivated and bored of doing the same thing over a period of time which would decrease the amount of work produced and the quality of which the work would be in. Also as one of the members in the team had a poor contribution his role that he would have been assigned would have never been complete or would have left someone else having to cover this job as well as complete theirs. Therefore this could have been less successful than our original efforts. If we had more focus on some roles we would have achieved a better marketing technique and could have sold more tickets therefore this could have been something to improve on throughout the event. As we were more focused on making money from sponsors and fundraisers than marketing the event.

How well did the team work as a whole?

My personal evaluation of the team and how we worked together would be that we worked and co operated very well. Setting aside the fact that we had conflicts and disagreements due to decision making and ideas which had to be made, this generally happens in every team or business.

In terms of the commitment and effort from the team members and the tasks which were carried out the majority of the team were very good at this, there were some team members which had less commitment and participating in the staging of the event than others, however there was the opposite where certain team members had extremely high participation and commitment to the organising of the show. An example of this would be when we held auditions for the acts to be part of the show some of the team members decided when they wanted to turn and what days they would attend whereas others were there for every audition including afterschool so that they were able to see all the talent which we had in order to select for the show.

In order for the team to work to its best and highest ability it would of required all team members to be involved at all times taking part in decision making and understanding different factors of how the event was put together and created. On a whole the team worked well together and we achieved some good aspects throughout the event. However at times there were places where we could of co operated better and worked more mature and as a

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team. Our biggest downfall was commitment by other members of the team as this affected our work and tasks which needed to be complete.

Individual Team Member Evaluation

Harley Allison

Harley was a committed and efficient team member throughout the whole staging of the event. She always was able to help with others jobs and she always did her job roles which she was given and she never complained about any of this therefore she was a good team player. She was always committed to be involved no matter what the job was, she contributed to all of the fundraisers throughout the event and didn’t mind spending her own time. When it came to speaking out loud to audiences this was one of her weaknesses however she was not afraid to talk to internal and external customers about details or important noticed that needed to be passed on. Harley didn’t like to work as an individual across the staging of the event every job that she was given she would do this with Emily therefore this made the process slower some things when jobs needed to be done as they would both go together everywhere or work on a task together when sometimes only 1 person was needed to do this. Therefore jobs were not achieved as fast as they could have been, however Harley’s efforts were always to high standards and all tasks were completed when asked.

On the night of the event Harley was very helpful, she selected a job which none of the other team members wanted to do therefore she was easy to co operate with in situations where we needed all the members to compromise to make everything easier. She did an amazing job of the lights on the night of the show and she helped train the younger years which were going to take over her job at the end of the night. Harley was very organised and 100 percent reliable at all stages of the event.

Emily Playford Emily was also very committed at the beginning of the event, she participated in all of the fundraising event to make sure that we were able to raise as much money as possible. Emily stated most of her skills in talking to the acts and the teachers amongst the school so that they were informed and well know about anything that was happening. However like Harley, Emily struggled to work individually, every job she was assigned she wanted to do this with Harley or would just take Harley with her. Therefore this was slowing the process of jobs being done. When it started to become closer to the event Emily contribution started to decrease and she decided that she would do her coursework than finish the jobs that needed to be done in class which lead me Amina and Harley to cover the jobs for the rest of the class.

Emily was not happy with her job role on the final night of the event as she wanted to do backstage. However after she discussed this with me she agreed that lighting would be a better job for her, and she did an amazing job of this and was easily trained by the team at

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DUCTAC in a small period of time. Emily also found presents for the female teachers that had helped us out throughout the event, which was a huge help. Emily had a large participation to the event and most the time was able to help when she could. She never missed any meetings or afterschool activities.

Amina Darwood

Amina was one of the large characters of the group which was hard to work with at times depending on what job role she was given. Amina liked to do jobs which entitled her to leave the school premises, however any type of job roles which involved typing or creating a document she did not want to participate. At the beginning of the event her contribution levels was very low and she was close to being out on a contract with the class about commitment and contribution levels. However once the event started to come together Amina started to contribute a lot more than she was originally. At the start of the event Amina did not commit herself to any of the afterschool auditions, or any meetings that involved her taking time out of her social life. This meant that she missed some of the key pieces of information that we discussed as a team.

When we started to experience issues with DTCM and the government she was the first to set in and help out, as she is half Arabic this was an advantage to our customer service being a Dubai based business. She was able to contact several different people and make sure that all the jobs were done to high standards without more problems. She handled this very well and she saved us from postponing the event. After she achieved this I believe that she was more committed to the event and wanted to participate more, therefore on the night of the event she was placed as stage manager and she did a good job, however at times she was loud backstage and didn’t realise when microphones were switched on around her. But never the less she did an amazing job of this role and she made sure that everything run smoothly in order for the night to be successful.

Ryan

Ryan was the least committed member of the team. As stated before in the main essay. Ryan was the member of the team that did not participate in any of the out of school activities for example this included the auditions, meeting with David Grey and the fundraising activities. Ryan took on several job roles however more than 80 percent of the time did not complete any of these or didn’t arrive at school when he needed to compete this task by. Ryan was one of the hardest members of the team to work with, he lost his team t-shirt and didn’t want to buy a new one so on the night he decided

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to turn another t-shirt inside out and only have one side printed. This look unprofessional compared to our t-shirts.

Ryan volunteered to do the Gantt chart for the event, this was one role which he was meant to sustain throughout the staging and final night of the show however he did not finalise this job which mean that our timescale of the event was not as organised as the other aspects therefore we could not plan our time and jobs on this piece of information. Another job which Ryan failed to achieve was the organisation with DUCTAC. This was one of the most important factors of the event which meant he needed to keep contact with DUCTAC and the manager that was dealing with our event. Due to this he realised that the original manager which was dealing with us was sacked from her job and there was a new manger which had no previous notes on our event being booked with the business. He left all the forms till last minute which then another team member decided to do as we were close to losing our booking.

on the night of the show Ryan’s job was what he asked for which was backstage however during the rehearsals he decided to take Amina job which left her confused to what to do when it came to the opening of the live show, after her asking several times he wouldn’t give her job to her, he also told Kirsty that she wasn’t doing the job that she had been trained for as one of the year 12s were going to take over instead. After I was confronted by both of the team members about this situation I had to take Ryan aside and talk to him about his behaviour towards the other two members as they were lost and upset about the situation. He also decided to speak to me in an inappropriate way. However after he did the all of the microphone numbers wrong he decided to stick to his own. I would suggest that Ryan wasn’t the best team player amongst the 7 of us and at times he was extremely hard to work with however he did have some good ideas for the group and he did achieve to get a company to print our tickets for free which was an advantage for us as a team. Ryan had some good points amongst the staging of the event however he has a lack of attendance and commitment and most times which was a drawback to the team.

Scott

Scott was a confident member of the team, he was a strong speaker and wasn’t afraid to talk to others therefore Scott was assigned as ‘the face’ of the group which was the marketing aspect i.e. speaking in assemblies. Scott also contributed good ideas to the team and always had a broad aspect to the event, with ideas that were out of the box. Scott was the only member of the team which was able to drive during the course of the event therefore this was also a large advantage to the team as when we needed to go anywhere he was able to drive us. This saved a lot of money and time for the group.

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When it came to documents or tasks which involved writing Scott's skills wasn’t the strongest here therefore he didn’t participate in these as much as other tasks which were more physical, when we were selling fundraising items Scott was a good salesman and was able to offer and outside customers amongst the school to buy into our event.

On the night of the show Scott was originally doing the camera aspect however this changed on the day of the show and he was changed to doing the sound. Scott did a good job of this and he was extremely organised and on time for when music needed to be played. As well as doing this he was controlling the light and setting up all the cameras for the other team members so that we could save time and train the year 12s. Scott was a good team player for the event and contributed a lot by using his past experience and skills.

Kirsty

Kirsty was one of the quieter members of the group; she struggled to contribute her ideas and needed a lot of encouragement when trying to get her involved. She was a shyer member of the team and struggled to communicate with others as she didn’t feel comfortable. During the staging of the event Kirsty was very enthusiastic at the beginning, by participating her ideas into the logo and creating the video for the assemblies. She also created posters for the event which were also helpful. However when the other team members had ideas and this were contributed or used as well as hers she wasn’t happy and didn’t like doing this, which caused a few disagreements amongst the team.

Kirsty had extremely talented skills when it came to putting videos and presentations together therefore this was a advantage to our group as none of the other members were able to do this. Kirsty would only participate in jobs which she wanted to do, therefore several tasks that were assigned to her wasn’t completed which lead myself and Harley doing them instead. During the staging of the event job roles which were given to Kirsty she would say that she had no skills and didn’t want to do them. Therefore we stopped assigning her jobs as she didn’t want to participate with the others.

On the night of the event I suggested that Kirsty should do a job that she felt most comfortable with. Therefore I suggested that she did the filming of the event as she is extremely interested in this aspect of media and is planning to do this in university therefore this would help her application. The week before the event I decided to work with Kirsty and do jobs with her as she seemed to be more involved if she was with myself and Amina therefore she completed the tasks of making reserved posters and folded all programmes and forms that was needed. Kirsty was a shy member of the group however I felt that she opened up to me about her input and I learned how to involve her so that she would be more confident with the others. She made a good contribution throughout the event.

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