Planning Live Concerts to Launching Digital Products
KRUTSCH’s Project Manager, Sophie Stephens, shares how her experience as an event coordinator in the music industry has translated to her process to create successful product launches.
In a pre-pandemic world, I worked for a marketing agency that runs multiple brands that use live concerts as a platform to promote its messaging and spread awareness. My role within the agency was working specifically on a brand called Commune, where I planned, staffed, and managed events, recruiting all local musicians from the Minneapolis-St.Paul area. Fast forward to today, I am the project manager for KRUTSCH. My role is to plan and track project progress and to help manage our team of designers and developers. At KRUTSCH we take on all sorts of projects, from the IoT space to electrical manufacturing, to healthcare, to sports marketing. You may be wondering how one transfers their skillset from planning live concert events to launching digital products? Though there was a learning curve to conquer being in a new industry, there are more similarities than differences between the two.
*Image courtesy of Commune
“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”
I love the quote above because no matter what project I tackle- concert, event or digital product- I take on this mindset. An event may only be a few hours long, a digital product may seem simple in its final stages, but the lead up and planning takes many hours, months, maybe even years to get it there. Each project or event starts with a main objective or goal i.e., the tree must be chopped down. From there it’s a process of working backwards on how exactly to achieve the end result or goal i.e., what it will take to get the tree chopped down.
Even before the planning process begins, one must have these three things defined in order to be successful: a budget, a timeline, and allocation of resources. In the project development world, these resources would be the designers and developers. In the music world, this would be the musicians, the venue, and the staff who will be working the event. Once these three big factors are set, comes putting all the other details into place on how one will get from idea to tangible product or live event. The next set of details that must be defined are the strategies, tactics, research, and workflow of the process. This is the same for any project, event, or concert.
There are many moving pieces to a project’s development, but a considerable piece to keep a workflow going is to have a strong organizational system in place. A strong organizational system is one that works for the team, the client, and anyone else who’s involved. At KRUTSCH we use a project management tool called Airtable where our design and development teams map out Use Cases, User Stories, and components. Airtable is great because not only does our team use it internally, but we use it collaboratively with clients so they can track where our team is at with a project. In the concert world, I used different tools, but this organizational piece is still as crucial to events as it is to digital projects. It’s important to track everything and anything because any small detail that gets missed could make or break an event from happening, or cause a product’s launch to be delayed. Attention to detail and being an adaptable, quick problem solver are must-have traits for any project or event manager.
Lastly, but definitely not least, the most important part of any planning process is communication. I feel like saying “communication is key” is not very original, but it truly is so important. I have come across a diverse number of personalities in my career, both in the music industry as well as with our designers, developers, and clientele at KRUTSCH. I can’t stress enough how important it is to be able to streamline communication and keep everyone on the same page. This is why is learning a person’s communication style, as well as learning the industry lingo is critical. I will admit tech lingo was definitely harder to learn than music industry lingo, but investing time to at least have some understanding of industry lingo, makes it that much easier to find solutions when problems arise.
Project manager or event coordinator, both titles carry similar responsibilities. We tend to be the people who are working behind the scenes, or behind the curtain, multitasking like nobody’s business to make the process seem effortless. Or at least that’s the goal. :)
End Note
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Sophie Stephens is a project manager at KRUTSCH, who has multiple years of experience multitasking like nobody’s business to create and develop successful projects and memorable events. She loves to bring strategic ideas to life and find creative solutions to business challenges.