A Study of Start-ups: How to Thrive in the Entertainment Industry
Advisor: Mark Sperrazza
In September 2023, a chance encounter with a pair of turntables evolved into my first foray into the entertainment space: the Arrow DJ Group. Over the next year, through immense trial and error, I learned the intricacies of finding performance gigs and building a client base. However, I struggled to execute a profitable promotional event. This study will explore the metrics and management strategies vital to the success of entertainment startups. Investigating the key aspects of an entertainment startup, namely promotional strategies and pricing structures, will help determine where new firms should invest their time and capital to optimize start-up success. For this project, I will be working with Synchro Events, an event promotion company based in NYC. This internship will provide the unique opportunity to gain data on successful promotional strategies from professionals who promote various events throughout New York City.. Through this study, I will also investigate existing academic literature on different types of promotional strategies. I will also gain insight from speaking with working professionals in this industry through my placement at Synchro Events. I expect to find that appropriately leveraging social media and dynamic pricing will contribute to the success of multiple events. This research will allow me to better understand the forces that contribute to a successful entertainment venture so that I may emulate those findings in my businesses. For the industry at large, a deep analysis of the factors that increase growth in start-up ventures could lower barriers to entry by increasing the accessibility of the entertainment industry.
Project Blog
Week 0: Introduction
Hello all! My name is Maddox Murphy. I have been DJing for over a year and a half and have grown my passion into a fully viable business. Working on my business has fostered my love for entrepreneurship, more specifically how to use data and novel strategies to enhance start-ups. This project will primarily focus on how two strategies: dynamic pricing (changing the ticket price based on the price the consumer is willing to pay) and the use of social media can improve a start-up's chance of success. I am excited to begin my journey with Belda Cilignr, Co-Founder and Lead Brand Specialist of Synchro Events. Synchro was founded in 2020 and promotes the underground dubstep and house scene in NYC. Through working with their company I will be able to gain hands-on experience and data through participating in team meetings and working directly with Mr. Cilignr on marketing and pricing techniques. Thank you for tuning in and I look forward to sharing more on this experience.
Week 1: Start-Up Basics
Welcome back to my Senior Project blog. I spent this week investigating the foundations of starting a business and analyzing the agreed-upon principles that lead to growth from the outset. In that vein, I started to read “Disciplined Entrepreneurship: 24 Steps to a Successful Startup” by Bill Aulet. Aulet identifies 6 major themes of entrepreneurship: who is your customer, what can you do for your customer, how does your customer acquire your product, how do you make money off your product, how do you design and build your product, how do you scale your business. Of these themes, I believe the most relevant at the outset of this project is to identify the answers to the first three of the theme’s questions which will be a focus of mine next week. Along with the 6 themes Aulet also described the single necessary and sufficient condition for a business: a paying customer. This struck me as it was deceptively simple, however, it is a concept many founders often overlook, choosing to focus more on building teams and gaining investors rather than obtaining paying customers. I will take this to heart as I continue my research and look for patterns and strategies for success. Regarding my placement at Synchro Events, I have yet to begin my internship with Mr. Cilignr. My work there is set to begin at the start of next week. While I would characterize this week as relatively slow it was nevertheless invaluable in reframing how I view start-ups.
Week 2: Artists and Repertoire
Welcome back, everyone. I am happy to report that I have begun my internship with Synchro Events. This week, Mr. Cilignr assigned me to locate and document potential talent for Synchro’s upcoming Manifest music festival. This process of identifying musicians is called Artists and Repertoire (A&R). This term is usually used in the context of music labels looking to sign talent; however, instead of signing artists to a label, we are booking them for an event.
On July 4th, Synchro Events will host their fifth iteration of Manifest, and for that, they are looking for House, Tech House, UK Garage, and Bass House (sub-genres of electronic dance music) DJs and producers to perform. For this assignment, I was given a set of criteria to ensure that the talent I found was not more popular than Manifest’s headlining act. This meant I had to be limited to individuals with less than 60K followers on Instagram and 105K monthly listeners on Spotify. Moreover, I was required to find 5 smaller, less popular acts and 5 larger acts that were based in the Tri-state area. To locate these acts, I searched on Reddit forums regarding the rave scene in NYC. In the end, I found 6 smaller acts and 5 large acts, one of which was our very own Mr. Heilbronn, who is active as House DJ and producer. I had a lot of fun with this week’s assignment. Being exposed to new artists that I may not have come across otherwise was a unique pleasure.
Thinking back to the reading I did last week, my answers to the first three of Aulet’s questions are as follows. Who is your customer?: those who enjoy attending raves that specifically pander towards listeners of House and related sub-genres. What can you do for your customer?: host events that feature popular DJs and producers who play the type of music they enjoy. How does your customer acquire your product?: through online sites that allow for the purchase of tickets to one’s events. Although the answers to these questions seem simple, it is vital to reflect on the structure of one's startup before executing a vision, and these questions provide a framework to engage with the foundation of a new business.
Week 3: Venue Investigations
Last week, I focused on locating talent for Synchro Events’ Manifest festival. Mr. Cilignr gave mainly positive feedback on my chosen acts. The only point of constructive criticism he imparted was that I must include the location the artist is based, so that when Synchro sends out an offer sheet, it includes travel and stay options for the performer.
This week, I identified possible venue spaces for Synchro’s events. Mr. Cilignr started this week with an anecdote about how he located one of his company's primary venues. He spoke about how he used Craigslist to locate a venue even before they had hosted any official events. The venue has since become a massive event space with big-name performances. In that vein, I also used online avenues such as Tagvenue and Peerspace to search for possible event spaces. Furthermore, I brought in my own knowledge of venue spaces through my experience as a DJ to compile a few options into a Word document. This document contained several key pieces of information, including the venue’s neighborhood, its capacity, what type of venue it is (warehouse, club, etc), the space’s contact information, and a description of the venue. This week’s assignment was exciting as I investigated some unique and varied spaces, from small clubs to large warehouses and concert halls.
Next week, I plan to investigate the literature surrounding the event entertainment space. I will focus on fleshing out what I define as a successful event for a fledgling organization.
Week 4: Partnership
Last week, I was tasked with finding venue spaces for future Synchro events. I hope that my suggestions were useful for him, and I am eagerly anticipating his feedback. I was also given the privilege to sit in on one of Synchro’s planning meetings, which took the form of a more informal brainstorming session. One of the primary subjects of this meeting was the implementation of a silent disco, an event where people dance to music listened to on wireless headphones, in their upcoming Manifest festival. The team went over logistics and pricing for the experience, which ended in the team deciding to revisit the subject matter at a future date after investigating other vendors' pricing for the headphones and hardware needed to conduct a silent disco.
This week, I was assigned the task of finding other Electronic Dance Music (EDM) event organizers with whom Synchro would be able to partner on events. Mr. Cilignr explained that building connections can improve the experience for both promoters and attendees. He outlined specific criteria that these potential partners would have to fall into: they must be New York or Long Island-based, they must be primarily EDM DJs, and they cannot already follow Synchro Events. Furthermore, I was instructed to find their website and Instagram page, follower count, and any upcoming events, which took the most time to compile, about 2 days.
As I mentioned last week, I planned to identify the definition of a successful event. I have found four Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that I will use to evaluate the success of an event. The KPIs are Attendance Rate, Return on Investment (ROI), Customer Satisfaction, and Social Media Engagement. I choose to combine hard, more measurable metrics like Attendance Rate and ROI with softer metrics like Customer Satisfaction and Social Media Engagement, which will allow for a clear picture of how an event performs.
Next week, I plan to investigate different ways to implement dynamic pricing. This will give me a better idea of how dynamic pricing interacts with event success.
Weeks 5-6: Competition
In week four, I focused on finding sources of collaboration between Synchro and other event firms. Through my investigation, I found many possible partners for future Synchro events. Mr. Cilignr stressed how these partners could help promote events and reach a larger audience than you could promote on your own.
Weeks 5 and 6 have flipped the concept of partnership on its head. During these weeks, I was tasked with identifying potential sources of competition. That meant looking for events that conflict with Synchro events, drawing possible attendees away. Specifically, Mr. Cilignr tasked me with compiling, in an Excel spreadsheet, the most popular events occurring on every Friday and Saturday for the months of June, July, and August. My criteria for this task were to identify the dates and times, the event name, the headliners, and the primary genre. I mainly used the website EDMTrain to pick out the competing events. The most challenging part of this task was picking events that posed the most direct threat of competition to Synchro and ignoring the rest so as not to bloat the spreadsheet (find a screenshot attached to this post) with unnecessary information. The way I got around this issue was zeroing in on the events that took place at more well-established and popular venues. This process took especially long, as compiling that much data for so many events across three months was an especially labor-intensive process.
Also, these past two weeks, I have investigated the implementation of dynamic pricing strategies. Drawing from the MIT Sloan Management Review article “How to Reap Higher Profits With Dynamic Pricing,” I learned that events can optimize pricing through either posted price changes or price discovery mechanisms like group buys or auctions. More importantly, dynamic pricing works best when customers perceive fairness, especially if price differences reflect demand intensity or added value. For Synchro, implementing a dynamic pricing model could allow for lower prices during slower sales periods and increased prices when demand spikes closer to the event. Next week, I plan to discuss with Mr. Cilignr how best to implement dynamic pricing as it pertains to Synchro’s upcoming festival.
Week 7: Data-Driven Decision-Making
Last week, I focused on locating possible sources of competition for Synchro. In my search, I came across many events that may conflict with possible future Synchro events in the summer months.
Finding a competitive edge is imperative to a start-up's success. In that vein, this week, I researched how data can be used to improve a start-up. In my search, I came across an article published by Harvard Business School titled “The Advantages of Data-Driven Decision-Making” by Tim Stobierski. In the article, Stobierski defines Data-Driven Decision-Making (DDDM) as “the process of using data to inform your decision-making process and validate a course of action before committing to it”. I learned that DDDM can take many forms, such as conducting surveys to identify popular products or services. DDDM could be implemented in the event space by examining social media analytics to see which posts customers are responding to the most. Future releases would then become more successful as the elements that made the content popular could be better identified and optimized.
Next week, I plan to continue to research implementation strategies for DDDM.
Week 8: Event Planning
Last week, I researched Data-Driven Decision-Making. Through my research, I gained a keen understanding of the importance of backing up one's business strategy with evidence.
This week, I was tasked by Mr. Cilignr to create a comprehensive list of all the steps necessary to plan, prepare, and execute a given event. My list touched on numerous aspects of event planning, such as identifying a competitive date for the show, creating a theme or genre, scoping out possible venues, contacting venue spaces and negotiating prices, ensuring audio and visual equipment works properly, etc. Through this assignment, I learned how to compile a lot of the skills and concepts I had learned about through previous tasks. Furthermore, I plan to use this list as a guide for any future events I may want to plan.
Next week, Mr. Cilignr and I will review the list and update it with any pertinent information I may have left out.
Week 9: Social Media Strategies
Two weeks ago, I focused on how data can lead a startup to success through the implementation of Data-Driven Decision-Making (DDDM). This week, I focused on case studies of companies using data strategies to drive growth in the events and marketing industry. This led me to an article in the Business Review at Cornell titled "Beyond the Stage: How Blank Hospitality's Founders are Infusing Events & Marketing with Data-Driven Strategy" by Aaron D. Friedman and Adam G. Rose.
The Business Review at Cornell piece highlights how Blank Hospitality, a New York-based hospitality and events company, is revolutionizing event planning by bringing data analytics to the core of its business. The article portrays how its founders have leveraged data to make better decisions in terms of event planning, brand partnerships, and audience engagement. As an example, by analyzing market trends and utilizing advanced event management software, they've optimized operations to deliver customized experiences. By doing so, they've attained over 40,000 social media followers and millions of engagements, a clear sign that data-driven strategies are resonating with their audience.
Next week, I plan to continue exploring strategies in which startups can integrate data-driven methodologies into their day-to-day operations, with a focus on using audience data to guide marketing campaigns and event experiences.
Week 10: Public Relations and Media Strategy
Last week, I looked into case studies of startups leveraging data in event planning and marketing to fuel growth. This week, inspired by the ideas presented in Nigel Jackson's book Promoting and Marketing Events: Theory and Practice, I turned my attention to the fundamentals of marketing and public relations (PR) in the events sector.
For event planners starting from scratch, Jackson's work offers a thorough road map of how to incorporate marketing and public relations into their strategy, His viewpoint emphasizes that event promotion involves more than just selling tickets; it also entails knowing your target audience, developing a unified brand message, and encouraging sustained participation. Realizing that events are more than one-time occurrences but rather serve as touchpoints for community involvement, brand development, and relationship building is one of the book's main themes. To maximize impact, Jackson suggests an integrated promotion strategy that combines PR tools, marketing techniques, and stakeholder engagement tactics.
Next week, I plan to continue exploring how data-driven methodologies intersect with event marketing and public relations, focusing on practical strategies that event managers can use to measure success, refine audience engagement, and build stronger brands. Furthermore, I intend to compile my research and start a rough draft of my final paper.
Week 11: Final Blog
Over the last few months, I studied how entertainment start-ups are successful with social media marketing and dynamic pricing. Supporting Synchro Events, I witnessed how coherency branding, targeted posts, and campaign-driven campaigns grew our web presence, boosting engagement by over 2500%.
Dynamic pricing was also successful. Pricing early bird, general admission, and VIP tickets optimizes attendance and revenue. But when misused in concerts, it can price real fans out of the market.