Contemporary Fashion Business Reflection

Finding the venue

reflection

Finding the

VENUE

A visual journal, reflecting on the process of my role and responsibilities in Project-Comms; The Project Management team for Comptemporary Fashion Business.

All imagery taken by Alicia Jones Venue : The Walls, Chester

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Planning a memorable exhibition for the class of 2020.

The contemporary fashion business module has given me the opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of the business-side of fashion and has broadened my knowledge on what skills are needed to progress into a career within this area of the industry. By working in teams and demonstrating different entrepreneurial skills, the Fashion Marketing and Communication graduating class of 2020 have had to arrange, promote, design and successfully execute their end of year, launch night exhibition to industry, press and peers.

In order to do this, the group have been separated into two teams; the creative management team and the project management team. The creative team are responsible for creating the design and visual communication of the event, whereas the project team are required to handle the logistics and capture a more managerial approach. The end goal for both teams is to host a memorable launch night exhibition which will support the fledgling careers of the soon-to-be, Class of 2020, graduates from the Fashion Marketing and Communication course at The University of Chester.

When it came to choosing teams, it was important to carefully consider each individuals skill-set to ensure they were placed within the team which would be most suitable for them. For me, one of my biggest lessons throughout my time at University has been understanding that I adopt business and marketing skills more so than creative skills, so it was unquestionable as to what team I would be on. Project management would be the team that I would succeed in and it would give me a real opportunity to develop and refine the skills which I already attain in this area. There are six of us in total on the Project Management team, and between all of us, we have negotiated individual job roles. Each of us were delegated a specific role which not only we would enjoy but also which our unique skill-set best suited. My responsibility amongst the Project Management team was to find and secure the venue in which the launch night would be held. This was decided because I was able to put forward a number of transferable skills, both soft skills and hard skills, which were essential for the success of finding a suitable venue for the event.

Looking back on the process of confirming a venue for the launch night exhibition, I am able to reflect on what went well, what problem solving I had to do and what skills I have adopted along the way.

The starting stage for me finding a venue was to arrange a meeting with every member of both teams so we could collectively discuss, as a group, desired ideas for a venue space. Doing this was a way for me to get an overall sense of exactly what was wanted, so I knew what kind of location to look for. During this time, I was able to showcase my communication skills through open discussions, my team-work skills by giving everyone to chance to share their thoughts and also my ability to show that I am able to take on people’s feedback and consider it in a strategic manner. We discussed dates, times, location, aesthetic, cost, capacity and all other general queries that needed to be answered. Although people had different opinions on what they individually wanted, it was my job to take all of the ideas away, consider each of them and find a coherent solution which everyone would be happy with.

After gathering this feedback, I was then able to go off and research all different venues which are in and around Chester that suited the desired criteria. With Chester being a fairly small City, I quickly come to realise that there is not a wide variety of event venues to choose from. Because of this, I had to think more broadly and be open-minded about the places we would be willing to contact. In the end, I managed to find eighteen possible venue options; I emailed each of them with my proposal and waited for responses. Throughout this time, I was able to expand on my email communication, copywriting skills and my marketing and pitching skills. With utilising these skills strongly, I was able to assure the possible venues understood all of the reasons why they should agree to host our event.

When I started to gain responses from the venues is when I knew that I was going to struggle to confirm somewhere which met our needs fully. The general guideline I had was that people wanted the exhibition to be on Friday 19th June 2020, in a professional setting within Chester, with a venue capacity of over 100 people and all for the cost of less than £500 total. Most venues got back to me saying they were either fully booked, could not accommodate to our capacity, our budget was not high enough or some didn’t respond at all. This was the time where I really had to put my problem-solving skills to practice, as I understood that it was going to be difficult to find somewhere which completely fit our needs and we needed to compromise something in order to make it work.

Out of eighteen emails sent, there was only two responses which came back some-what positive; The Walls and The Leverhulme Suite, both based within the grounds of Chester Racecourse. The Walls were willing to adapt to our budget with food and drink included but were unable to offer us the Friday night. The Leverhulme Suite was a bigger exhibition space, but they were over budget with no food or drink included. I went to view both venues and afterwards held another group discussion with both teams, where I could feed-back to them. Both venues had advantages and disadvantages which needed to be carefully considered by everyone to ensure that it was a unanimous final decision with which one was going to be confirmed.

After a short-talk of going through everything, it was decided that all eleven of us were most eager to host our launch night at The Walls. We all love the space and believe that it represents our brand well, so we were all willing to relinquish the day and hold it on a weekday instead. This was the last part in my process of confirming the venue, and the main skills I had to put forward were negotiating and decision-making.

At each stage of this process, I have had the opportunity to utilise a large number of skills and really develop on them further. Each of the skills that I have developed on during my role are ones which are transferable, with many of them being highly desired soft-skills including team-work, leadership, communication, problem-solving and many more. I feel it will be hugely advantageous for me to be able to put forward such a vast array of skills when applying for graduate job roles which will help me advance into a career path of project or business management in the future.

Reflecting back, I know one hundred percent that this was the right team for me to be a part of. Not only have we managed to all work incredibly well as a team to deliver results, but we have all been able to advance individually as well. Each of us have worked hard to ensure that our responsibilities have been completed in time, and we have all communicated effectively throughout the entire process. I believe we have collaborated well and successfully managed the logistic-side of the event to aid towards running an unforgettable final exhibition.

Alicia Jones