All Time Low Concert Review

All Time Low // The Maine // We Are The In Crowd

Friday 3rd February 2012

HMV Hammersmith Apollo, London

On 3^rd February 2012 I went to London to see All Time Low perform at the HMV Hammersmith Apollo as part of their UK tour. They were supported by We Are The In Crowd and also The Maine. While I was there I noticed lots of different things such as clothes that the audience we wearing, the sort of merchandise that was being sold, the demographic of the audience and various other points that I wouldn't have necessarily picked up on before studying media for A-Level.

All Time Low, The Maine, We Are The In Crowd and their Tour Crews.

Firstly, the main thing that I picked up was the style of clothing nearly everyone was wearing. Mostly, people were wearing skinny jeans with a t-shirt and trainers. The t-shirts were in essence the same as they had logos of other bands or clothing lines on them and were also brightly coloured. Most of the band t-shirts were All Time Low ones, either from the present tour or past tours, or they were t-shirts with bands on from the same genre, such as Blink 182, You Me At Six and Paramore. The most noticeable clothing brand of t-shirts was Glamour Kills, it is an American company which is connected with All Time Low and a lot of the clothes that the band actually wears are Glamour Kills. Jack Barakat, a member of All Time Low, even has his own line within Glamour Kills called JaGk which he designs himself. It is very popular with the fans and I spotted a lot of people wearing JaGk.  The skinny jeans were either brightly coloured in colours such as green or red or were very dark denim or black. The contrast between dark jeans and a colourful top is something that is very typical of the genre and is the main basis for the ‘look’ of the genre. Another clothing line that I spotted quite a lot was Down But Not Out, this is a clothing line designed by a member of a similar band to All Time Low called You Me At Six. Their lead singer Josh Franceschi set up DBNO in 2009 and is very popular within the style of the pop/punk/rock genre style. Finally, the shoes people were mainly wearing were Converse or Vans or similar equivalents. Most people choose to wear trainers to gigs as you need to wear comfy shoes as you stand for a long while but this type of shoe is generally worn outside of a gig situation too. This is the point I noticed was most obvious, especially when standing in the queue to get in as there were lots of people about.  

Band T-Shirts

Example Outfit:
Glamour Kills T-Shirt, Skinny Jeans, Converse, Silicone Bracelets. 

Glamour Kills Clothing (Modeled by Alex Gaskarth)

JaGk Clothing - Part of Glamour Kills (modeled by Jack Barakat)

Down But Not Out Clothing

Vans and Converse

The merchandise that the bands were selling was very typical of the genre. There was the t-shirt with the tour dates on the back, t-shirts like this are very common at gigs, I have bought ones similar at gigs such as Paramore and another All Time Low show, also there was a variety of other t-shirts with different band logos on but the tour date t-shirt was by far the most popular. Another item that has become popular recently is wide silicon wristbands. Bands such as Kids in Glass Houses have previously sold silicone wristbands as part of their tour merchandise. Also, part of the subscription pack that you get when you sign up to the All Time Low fan club, The Hustler Club, is a silicone wristband which is exclusive to members of the fan club. Lots of people at the gig were wearing different bracelets like this or old festival wristbands, along with beaded bracelets.

2012 UK Tour Wristband

The Hustler Club Wristband

The demographic of the audience all depends on the genre of the band. The pop punk genre mainly appeals to males and females aged 14-20 years old of a white ethnicity and this was reflected by the types of people I saw while at the gig. Although there were slightly more females than males as All Time Low’s fan base has a larger following of girls than guys. Apart from what clothes people were wearing, this was most apparent right from the moment of turning up at the venue. It was also what I expected the audience to be like because of the type person associated with the genre and also because audiences were similar to this when I have been to other similar band’s gigs. 

Fans at an All Time Low Gig

These are some photos that I took during the gig. As we were in the circle we were looking down towards the stage, we got a good overall view and got to really appreciate the lighting which was amazing. 

Alex Gaskarth

All Time Low

Jack Barakat, Rian Dawson and Alex Gaskarth 

Alex Gaskarth

Overall Profile

Target Audience Overall Profile

View more presentations from Vickii Randell.

Musical Profile - Festivals and Similar Bands

Analysis of Reading Festival's Poster and Website

I have chosen to analyse the Reading Festival poster and website as I think that it is the most likely festival for my band, The Hype Theory, to perform at. I came to this conclusion after looking at all aspects of the poster and website, such as the bands playing at the festival, the colours used, the imagery, etc.

            The first thing that stands out is the contrast between the dark colour of the background and the bright colours also used. The bright colours are primary colours – red and yellow – and are very shouty and loud which makes it stand out against the rest of the page, it could also be described as ‘punky’ and alternative. The colour is also mainly in blocks, and shapes such as triangles and ellipses. The ellipses could have a connotation of the festival wristband as it is around the name of the festival and is also similar to how Kerrang!’s logo has been designed. The triangles around the edge of the ellipses are poppy and punky which connects back to the genre of pop/punk.

            The background is made up of a photo of the crowds from a previous Reading Festival, the way the image has been used is to get people to look because to start with you don’t realise the background is made up of a photo. The fonts used are, again, very shouty and bold which stand out from the dark background but they are modern so appeal to an audience the same age as my target market.

            The photos shown on the homepage are fairly simple. There is one of the merchandise available from the festival, these reflect the type of clothes that my target market wears, for example printed, coloured t-shirts. Also, the image of the crowd at the top connotes the energy you feel when you are at the festival but also shows a snapshot of the experience you will have.

            Finally on the homepage, there are various companies’ logos. Just above the links at the bottom of the page there are some sponsors which have sponsored the festival, these are companies like NME, Relentless Energy Drink, Tuborg and HMVtickets, etc,  which are all companies my target market would be interested in. Also, at the top of the page there are the Facebook and Twitter logos, along with an artist search symbol and a forums symbol. These are there so the festival is accessible on social media for fans, it also connotes that the audience is fairly youthful as they are more likely to use Facebook and Twitter.

            The festival’s poster is quite different from that of the website. It is much more in your face because of the background colour of bright yellow but it still uses certain imagery such as the festival’s logo which could connote a festival wristband and the logos of well-known companies along the bottom of the poster. The font is still modern, shouty and bold which makes the names of the bands stand out from the vibrant background. The use of red as a highlight along with yellow background and black accents makes the overall poster very contrasted, colourful and it stands out from other posters.

Reading Festival Website Homepage

Reading Festival Line-Up Poster

Analysis of Similar Artists to The Hype Theory

View more presentations from Vickii Randell.

What Can You Learn From This?         

            After looking at this information about similar bands and the festival The Hype Theory would I attend I have learnt a few things that will influence me when I make my music video and plan my digipak. Firstly, I learnt that colours, font and imagery are very important on products, such as festival posters and CD covers. This means when I create my digipak I will have to use bright colours, like orange, purple and green, fonts that stand out and are bold, and the imagery must connote music, like the circle on the Reading festival posted connoted a wristband. Secondly, the way in which technologies is combined with real-life products, like the Twitter, Facebook, etc logos on the festival website. So again when I am designing the digipak I will have to include website addresses on the cover for the band’s Twitter, Facebook, etc. Also, in the music video I could include technologies such as a phone or a laptop as this will mean that the audience will be able to identify with the content of the music video. Thirdly, the use of images of the band is very important throughout the products related to the band. Whether it is on the digipak or in the music video the connection back to the band is vital, this is because the band and their music are at the forefront to the fans. Finally, the theme from the digipak/album cover must continue throughout the whole range of products as it makes it easy for fans to identify with their whole range of products. This even extends to merchandise ranges on tour, to stage designs and website design.

UK Tribes and Find Your Tribe - Me and My Target Audience

About UK Tribes and Find Your Tribe

UK Tribes was created by Crowd DNA for Channel 4 to discover more about young people in Britain. Nowadays, tribes are much more varied than they once were. For brands and companies it is very important that they know who their target markets are. To get the information, young people across the country were questioned about different aspects of their lives; for media, to aspirations, to their brand preferences. The information was honest and uncensored to create a data bank full of information.
The company UK Tribes was created in 2005 to run a project named TV Glue. The project focused on how TV was part of society. A smaller part of the project focused on how ‘social glues’ affected youth culture, based on music, sport, fashion, technology, etc. This information was regarded as very important by marketing and media people. The research continued and extended its depth, it became more genuine and ‘close-up’ to avoid generalisation. All the information is from young people about themselves.
The research was conducted using two types of questions, qualitative and quantitative. Qualitative research included online forums, in-depth interviews, vlogs, etc. The quantitative research was made up of an online survey called ‘Find Your Tribe’. The first version, which ran in 2006, gathered data from over 50,000 people and version two, which ran in 2008, gathered 38,000+ people’s data.
The output created from the research was priceless; it allowed media and marketing people to find out about youth culture and what was happening in young people’s worlds.
Since the project started the data has changed, they started off with 23 tribes but gained 4 and lost 2), and it will continue to change as young people and their culture develops. While UK Tribes are recording this information they are building up an invaluable archive of young Britain.  

                                          My Tribe was an Indie Kid 

My Target Audience's Tribe was Indie Scenestar

Alternative and Leading Edge Tribes

What Will Marketers Find Useful From The Information?

The information that has been made available by this project is very useful for the media and marketers. Before the survey there wasn’t really any ‘real’ information about the youth of Britain that was constantly evolving. Now if the information is used it is up to date as possible because as more data comes in from ‘Find Your Tribe’ the data is updated. The breakdown of the segments and tribes allow the information to be specifically tailored to which audience the media and marketers are looking at.  The media information will allow marketers and media personnel to promote their products to their target audience through the right social networks, magazines, TV channels and online sites. For example, if a marketer wanted to promote a new magazine they put adverts on Channel 4 and Channel 5, as they are the channels the target market have said they most watch. The media consumption section shows how much the certain tribe spends on each type of media, again in the case of the tribe for my target market; there would be no point me trying to promote my band using the TV as overall not many people from the target market watch the TV, instead I would use most likely the internet as it is most heavily used by my target market. The section on brands allow the media and marketers to find out what sort of other products the target market likes, for example, the tribe I looked at did lots of online shopping so to create a wider brand for my product I could set up an online shop to sell merchandise. Much like Josh Franchessi from You Me At Six and Jack Barakat from All Time Low has done who have their own or are part of a clothing line, (Down But Not Out and Glamour Kills).

Links to the Websites:

http://www.findyourtribe.co.uk/

http://www.uktribes.com/

Labels

Here are the labels I will use on my blog.