This week the XLR Collective had an inspiring session with Bristol-based singer and MC Eva Lazarus. KWMC Communications Coordinator Daniel explains what they got up to…

10th July 2017, KWMC

Bristol based sensation gets comfy with XLR’s newest collective. Last night was an exciting night of development for Hack a Heckle (HAH). The group sat down with Eva Lazarus, who is perhaps best known for being the lead singer of Bristol born bass-music band ‘Dub Mafia’. Having learned from their previous experience with Kaptin Barrett from Boomtown Festival, the collective organised themselves before their session. They delegated who was going to give the newly refined ‘elevator pitch’, what questions they were going to ask and what they were going to ask from Eva at the end of the night. From the very beginning, the attitude and energy of the group was shifted into a position of coming to get what they needed to make this project the best it possibly could be.

After giving their pitch and showing Eva their passion for the cause they were championing, the session steered towards a sharing of experiences around musical street promotion and busking. After giving some practical advice Eva stated that “it discredits what you’re trying to do if one person can shake the rage out of you” – a valuable lesson in how to navigate through disrespect while promoting their cause in the city.

Having a short break to keep the energy in the room high, the session changed direction to music and the practicalities of their campaign launch on 22nd July. The collective shared their finished and in-progress songs and got feedback: having an accomplished singer, songwriter and record label owner praise them for their hard work and talent brought a real sense of unity and accomplishment to the room!

Next, the group moved from the music to the strategy for the set list: the group made the unanimous decision that it was best to start and end with upbeat music while having more low strung selections in the middle.

The end of the evening was perhaps the highlight of the session. Eva opened up about her personal experiences with harassment including a time where a man grabbed her while on stage then had no help from the venue security who witnessed the situation. It was evident that the collective had found someone who had a genuine heart for their cause. To finish off the night a member of the group who was quite shy about speaking to Eva regarding what the team wanted from her (at first), confidently articulated their requests and why they felt Eva was a perfect fit to partner with them. We’re all pleased to say that Eva proudly agreed – a successful meeting to say the least. Bring on 22nd July!

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This week the XLR Collective visited the team at Saffron Records – an all female record label and music education platform based in Bristol. Collective blogger Olivia shares what the group learned and how they’re planning to put it into practice in their campaign to combat street harassment…

3rd July 2017, Saffron Records

This week we visited Saffron Records and spoke with Laura who is the Creative Director at the record label. She started the talk by getting to know more about our campaign by asking us key questions […] For example she asked us what our targets where and advised us to make small, achievable goals that we can set and achieve, rather than grand targets that overwhelm us as we are just starting off.

She gave us really useful ideas about how to collaborate with other campaigns such as ‘Cheer up love’ who fight gender harassment through photography. She also gave us great advice to just approach all like-minded artists and musicians we can think of and really use every possible link we have to contact them.

Laura had lots of amazing ideas that really got us thinking [about] how to move forward with this campaign and vital things to consider. She then got us thinking about crowdfunders and the group split off to research different aspects such as: possible funders, brands that match our target audience, targets and stretch targets. She also got us thinking what rewards we can offer people who donate to our campaign.

Towards the end of our visit she really helped our group set roles for each member. We [had] previously assigned roles for everyone in the group but over time we got into a bit of a grey area of who does what. Along the way we have had members leave [the Collective], which means we have a few roles to re-assign.

Laura was a fresh pair of eyes who really helped us in picking each person’s role, by going though each individual’s strengths and assigning a role that best fits their ability. This left the group feeling [we had] a lot more clarity about how to move forward. Overall the visit has given us a lot of ideas about what to do with the campaign and made us think deeper into ways to progress.

Written by Olivia Sully-Karlis

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This week the XLR Collective did some serious social media strategising, as they prepare to launch their campaign to challenge sexual harassment on the street. Collective blogger Olivia gives a behind-the-scenes insight into their marketing plans…

26th June 2017, KWMC

This week’s session began with each member of the group discussing what they’ve done over the past week towards the campaign. We discussed these ideas and outcomes. We then discussed that tasks need to be fairly spread within the group [and] we created a list of all the aspects that need work, them being: busking, merch, [Bristol] Harbour Fest, festival POA, social media/website. We then went round and each group member said what tasks they will do for the upcoming week and by what date.

We are waiting for the branding […] to be finalised and then we can move on with ordering merchandise. We need to order t-shirts for the group ASAP and have a group photoshoot [in order] to have content for our introductory posts on social media. Our previous [photos] are not suitable due to members leaving [the programme]. We are contacting a photographer who has worked with us before and decided to have a day with them, going around Bristol taking photos to create some content. That way we can have a group shoot all in the same day. Dates for this need to be agreed and confirmed.

But for this week, the team is focusing on the social media and website content, busking locations and song lists, a finalised ‘elevator pitch’ and a disclaimer (to be genuinely used and especially needed for contacting artists, poets, spoken word artist, festivals and people we want to work with). We need to tie together the hashtag, slogan and main imagery we will use on our posters, flyers and social media as we want a current theme that our audience can recognise us with. We also decided what we would want to get out of having a space at a festival, so we can be clear [when] approaching events what we want and how we will do it.

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