Learn How To Write An Event Proposal

As we’ve mentioned before on our blog ‘42 Easy Ways To Get More DJ Gigs’ running your own club night is one of the best ways to lift your DJ career to new highs. You can learn all about how to run your own night in our other blog titled ‘Become a Clubland Promoter’, but this blog is all about the first hurdle, finding a venue!

How to find the right venue.

One of the biggest challenges when starting your own event is finding a suitable venue, and then convincing them to let you use the space. First you need identify a list of suitable venues, often by looking at where other events are running their nights or by looking at venue listings online. Failing this you can go door-to-door to find a hidden gem. Once you have a list of possible venues make sure you draw up a list of positive and negatives for each space so you can identify the best candidates.

How to contact them.

Now you have identified your main choices you need to reach out and contact them. The best way to contact a venue manager is in person or by phone. Emails are far too easy to ignore and you’ll never know if they just ended up in a spam box. If you can’t contact them in person, by the phone or by some kind of online message platform, you can resort to emailing them. Most venues will have a website with their contact information listed. If you are in London and handy page is the venue list on Resident Advisor.

Avoid trying to get the contact information through a promoter already running a night at that location. They won’t want to open themselves up to competition.

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What do you say?

When you contact a venue for the first time you should ask for the best person to talk to about running a night (the promotions manager or booker) or ask about hiring the space. Once you get through to the right person you should ask them if it’s possible, and if you can send them an event proposal.

How to write an event proposal.

First, write it in letter format and include your contact details.

1. Introduce yourself, what you do and your relevant background. What makes you a reliable, trustworthy and a suitable promoter? Perhaps you have hard evidence like press articles, interviews or past flyers you can include here.
2. In a few sentences lay down the fundamental question, tell them you’d like to run and event and the date(s) you are ideally looking for. At this point you can also suggest a business deal. Most promoters will take all the door money or a cut of the bar take.
3. Now provide more details but break down the proposal into bitesize chunks.
4. The type of event you wish to run, is it a live music event, or just DJs? Give them an idea of the kind of things that will be going on.
5. Tell them how many people you will be expecting to come, be realistic.
6. Tell them what your demographic is, they’ll want to know what kind of crowd are coming to the venue.
7. Tell them who will be performing and what the pull of the night will be. For example is there going to be a headline act or some other thing which is going to attract customers. Include any images or videos which will help engage their imagination.
8. Tell them what times you would need to be open, if not following their normal opening times. Allow time for setting up any equipment or doing sound checks.
9. Give them a breakdown of how you are going to successfully market the event. This could be basics like flyers, posters, mail-outs or more advanced advertising like sponsored posts and brand partnerships. Perhaps show them mock-ups, imagery or logos to reinforce your brand.
10. Reassure them by giving information on your previous experience, and why you think the event will be a success. If you don’t have any previous experience you can perhaps focus on other positives like having a large social media following or partners who will help run the event and spread the word.
11. Ask them any questions you need to know like for example is there a hire fee, deposit or any other costs you should know about. What is their official capacity and licensing hours. How much are drinks at the venue and what are their door policies.

Now send your proposal to them, wait a day or so and then call them to remind them to read it and respond. If you are turned down try and ask why so that you can learn from the process.

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We hope this helps you on your path to being a promoter! Don't forget if you want first-hand advice you can enrol on any DJ course at LSA. We're here to help.