Lauren Arrowsmith -AS Media Blog: October 2013

Music Magazine Proposal

My magazine is going to be a festival, club events and fashion magazine. Although these subjects are all very different they will fit together within my magazine, as festivals and clubs both hold events therefore I can do reviews on different special nights in clubs and festivals. Then the fashion side can come in with pictures of the music industry artists and what sort of things they wear on nights out or when performing at festivals and also people will be able to send in their own photos and this can be shown to people wondering what to wear.

According to my audience research the names ‘Lights’ and ‘Mix’ are most popular within the people that filled in my survey, I think ‘mix’ is an appropriate name for my magazine because I have 3 different sub genres in my magazine therefore it is a good ‘Mix’. The two least favourite names for my publication were ‘Shots’ and ‘Volume’, I think this is because they were more associated with just one or two of the sub genres rather than all three like the other two were.

When I asked my research audience what artist they prefer out of a selection of four options it was a 50/50 split between Rihanna and Rudimental. These are two different types of music genre artists but both are popular within the younger generation. Both artists would be suitable for the front cover of my magazine as they fit a few criteria’s of my magazine, they both are played in clubs and enjoyed by the clubbers, they both attend festivals and are well known. But whereas Rudimental aren’t into the fashion so much, Rihanna is and she is always setting off new trends and standing out in a crowd of people.

87% of people who answered my survey would like to see bright colours on my publication, I will do this but I will keep it to just 3 or 4 colours because if I use anymore than that it will start to look messy and quite distracting as the reader won’t know where to focus first and their eyes will drift around the page instead of being drawn to certain things. Only 12% of people wanted to see primary colours on my publication and no one wanted to see any plain, neutral colour, this is understandable because if I chose any other colour scheme apart from bright eye catching colours it wouldn’t fit the sub genre of my magazine.

Majority of the respondents from my survey said that for the special offers they would like to see in my magazine are festival priority tickets so the tickets would be available for them before anyone else. I would do this by offering the option of signing up for a website and you are able to get priority tickets if you agree to letting us email or text you when tickets come out and who is going to be at what festival. Another offer people would like to see is club entry discounts for students, who are old enough to get into town, or people could get vouchers, for example, if the person buys a certain amount of drinks they get another 2 drinks free, students will enjoy this feature because it will save them money. As this is a magazine aimed at the younger generation/students, money is a great deal to them and they love to see special offers available to them and they will want to use them and make the most of this opportunity. The last thing people mentioned as an offer they would like to see is student discount in shops, if a shop doesn’t offer student discount there could be a limited time where these certain shops offer student discount, there students will enjoy that because again it will be saving them money.

When I asked my audience research what they would like to see featured in my magazine, a lot of the responses included things like band interviews and behind the scene sections. Another feature people would like to see is where affordable fashion can be found, students can’t afford the most expensive things so where can they find the cheaper but still as fashionable backups to these designer products. People would also like to see reviews on festivals and club nights so they will know whether they want to go next time. I will feature all of these things in my magazine but each month when the new publication is out I will focus on a different sub genre each time so different sort of artists and fashions are being used and are being mixed in together.

62% of the people that responded to my survey are willing to pay £2-£2.50 for my music magazine which I think is a reasonable price to pay, 25% were willing to pay more than that, and the another 25% we only willing to pay between £1-£2.

I asked if student discount to get into clubs was offered to the magazine readers would it be used instead of ignored and forgotten about and 100% of the replies said that yes they would use this discount as it would be a benefit for them and it would be very useful.

My final question on my survey was asking whether they would subscribe to my magazine and 75% of the people said yes they would as they think it would be something they would enjoy reading and benefiting from monthly and the other 25% said no as they don’t think it would be as useful for them as it would for other readers.

Overall I think my magazine is going to be a success and even though there are three different sub genres within this magazine I think that they all come together and that they are a good mix of different things. They all are enjoyed by students so therefore they will want to buy this magazine. Students like to know what’s going on behind the scenes of the music industry and what’s hot and what’s not in the fashion world so this will be happily read my many students.