Sunset Events is an events company specialising in music festival experiences within WA. You would have most probably heard of many of their events including Southbound, Stereosonic, Blues ‘n’ Roots, Groovin’ the Moo and many more! I ended up working five weeks full time for Sunset, having to catch public transport into Fremantle each day which was a bit of an experience! On my first day, I was asked to sign a confidentiality agreement stating that all inside information I was given about the events was not allowed to be published or spoken elsewhere. At the time, I didn’t actually realise how important this confidentiality was for the business or for the communications department. However, on my first day I was lucky enough to be involved in a meeting with the promoter of Stereosonic, Andy Scally, who told me an interesting story!A past intern actually broke this confidentiality agreement and some inside information was spoken about a possible headliner act at a festival. This information was spread and got back to another festival event company who then proceeded to offer this possible headliner more money to play at their festival instead! What this meant was that Sunset had to then counteract this offer, ending up having to pay a lot more for the act! So the effect of breaking confidentiality agreements has a huge effect on event companies as it can lead to higher costs which need to be subtracted from other areas (in the case of Sunset, less money was available for obtaining other quality acts and promotions). So overall, the live entertainment industry is a highly competitive environment and the only way to differentiate is through the communication tools you use and how successful they are.
Well that is just one of the insights I gathered from my internship at Sunset and I have so much more to share with you! Some of the things I worked on over my five weeks included research and scanning the environment, management of the website and social media, various campaign ideas and implementation as well as evaluation tools. I look forward to giving you all some insight into these and hearing about all of your experiences also!
Until then,
Melissa
Curtin Bentley Campus
3 comments:
Hi Melissa,
Sounds like you had a great time working at Sunset Events and it seems that it was a very rewarding experience for yourself. I would just like to say that I found your discussion on confidentiality very insightful. The story you told demonstrates just how much backlash can occur through not following the rules of confidentiality and is something that my mentor has warned me of too. In fact she has even restricted the use of mentioning the name of my placement or the people I have dealt with in my blogs. As she has advised me, and what your story displays, is that if competitors get hold of the information we speak of as insiders of an organisation it can provide them with a competitive advantage. Such an advantage can cause damage to the organisation like in the Sunset Events case and create repercussions that ultimately become your responsibility.
I hope that my reply post has been of value to you and I look forward to reading the rest of your experiences gained at Sunset Events.
Tahnee
13944984
Hi Melissa,
Having completed my prac placement in a very similar organisation, I can completely understand what you refer to when discussing confidentiality. I have heard of similar stories within my work place Mellen Events. Artist contracts are held so close to management’s chest here, that even in an office of 12 employees, big artist names are not released to the whole team until the last minute. There is such a risk with information dissemination and in such a small industry especially that of music promotion within Perth, competition is very fierce. It can sometimes be a scary thought that you know some very vital information in regards to your organization, and that any slip ups can end up costing your company a lot of money. It’s exciting to have that responsibility, but also very daunting at the same time!
I hope you enjoyed your placement; I love where I am and all the experience I am gaining in such a fun industry! Good luck writing your report! I’m sure you have lots of interesting ideas and projects to share!
Mel :)
Hi Melissa,
Your experince at Sunset Events sounds great!
I loved discussion on confidentiality. The story you told about what happened at your work placement just shows how easy it is to be ignorant of something like confidentiality. something similar happened at my old job where the company i worked for ended up paying double just because one of the employees decided to put it on Facebook. Even at my work placement they give me documents to work on but they tell me that its strictly confidential and i start freaking out because ive heard stories like yours and i dont ever want that to happen to me.
Barbara
14677236
Bentley
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