Band's Time 2 24 The Charts Once example essay topic

User Guide Contents 1. Introduction 2. Planning Your Triumph 2.1 Managing Personnel 2.2 Bands 2.21 Signing Bands 2.22 Releasing an Album 2.23 Releasing and Promoting a Single 2.24 the Chart 2.25 Arranging A Tour 1. Introduction This program lets you become the driving force behind your own record label. It simulates the work of the hundreds of people employed by labels such as SONY, Polygram and Creation; people who have to ensure that they have the best artists with the best material and the best promotion backed by the best facilities.

These managers are a rare breed and as a result are very special people. This game allows you to join their ranks. Knowledge of the music industry, skill and a cool head under pressure will be required of you but you will also need to be able to manage money. A top label can spend a million pounds a week and you will be held responsible for every penny. The game incorporates as many aspects of the music industry as possible (singles, albums, tours etc.) The menu system will give easy access to all the important areas of the game incorporating a streamlined approach to the game. The main game section allows access to practically all the information within the game, including the bands, artists, discs, companies and charts.

The bands' ratings are updated at the end of the year along with the artists' attributes. The bands's chedules will be filled in as time passes by both human and computer players creating a challenging environment to play in. Artists have their own personalities making them more or less suited to different aspects of the game. Discs produced will be promoted etc and their success depends on this almost as much as on the actual quality of the disc itself. Artists will write new songs and record new discs allowing the game to continue. Restoring a Saved Game o Choose Load Saved Game from the first menu o Once selected, if you have a game saved it will be automatically loaded for you, once complete you should be placed at the main game menu at the point where you saved the game 2.

Planning your Triumph 2.1 Managing Personnel Within the game you will find that in order to keep up with your rivals and get the most out of your bands you will need a good team behind you. To look at your personnel (select your company from the view companies screen or select personnel from the menu with your name on) The personnel will be divided into different teams: - o Research and Development Department - It is important for companies to keep up with the technological advancements of the business. A strong Research and Development team will allow a company to develop new technologies and thus become more efficient and reduce overheads o Production Department - This department will actually manufacture the discs your bands have recorded. It is no good recording a song that will sell millions of copies if your production department is only capable of making 10,000 a week.

NOTE - This is a department which influences which label big bands sign for a great deal. o Distribution Department - Once a record has been recorded and manufactured it must be made ready and then sent to music outlets around the world. Similarly to the production department your potential sales will be limited if enough copies cannot reach the shops to satisfy the demand. NOTE - This is another department which influences which label big bands sign for a great deal. o Hospitality Department - In order to keep your bands happy and promote the image of your company to attract new bands you are going to need to be able to offer a good standard of hospitality to your bands. This department really comes into its own when a band is on tour and can make a huge difference to the morale of the band and consequently the success of the tour. In general, the bigger the bands you look after the bigger this department will need to be, you may get away with putting up small unproven bands in bedsits when they are on tour but more established acts will demand 5-star hotels, limousines, free bars and everything else that goes with the rock and roll lifestyle. NOTE - Some bands or artists (particularly those with high flair or character ratings) may make exceptional demands on the resources of this department.

It is up to you how to deal with this but it may well be most beneficial to simply increase the size of your department to accommodate the demands. o Public Relations Department - Inevitably, sooner or later one of your artists is going to do something which could spell the end of their band's career. Whether it be your arrogant front man putting a TV through a hotel window, the heart-throb of your boy band announcing his homosexuality, an artist condoning the use of class-A drugs on a live Saturday morning kids TV show or a band attacking a press photographer it is up to you to make sure the damage to their image is limited as much as possible. How is this done? The press release of course, this is where the PR department comes in. A good PR department can sometimes even make such actions improve the band's image and are vital to companies who look after the interests of the most famous and volatile bands in the business. o Security Department - If your band is playing a gig they will need some form of security, the degree depends entirely on how famous the band are. If a band is well known world-wide they may need security whenever they leave their homes as well as when they make scheduled public appearances.

For less famous bands security will still be needed whenever they play gigs on a tour or make television or radio appearances. o Finance Department - The bottom line is always the same - cash. Creating a successful company isn't just a case of signing the biggest bands and promoting them with as much advertisement as possible, the books need to be balanced as well. There's nothing more fun than blowing your way through someone else's money but your board are going to want some kind of return on their investment. If they don't get it you can be sure they will not hesitate in bringing someone else in. Your finance department doesn't just do your books for you though, they will also think of new ways to generate cash for your company and a good department may increase your revenue significantly. o Talent Department - Assessing every band in the world would be an impossible task for anyone, least of all a busy manager with time and resources at a premium. It is hard enough maintaining an accurate assessment of your own bands without worrying about those not controlled by you as well.

This is why the talent department forms an important part of any record label. Depending on your financial situation it is a good idea to improve this department as soon as possible. Each employee will scour all the pubs, clubs, talent contests etc assessing bands for ability and their suitability for your label reporting back to you if they find a band they feel may be a useful addition to your company. Be careful though because they are not, of course always right with their information. You should spend time getting to know how many people are working for you in each department, how good they are and who the head of each department is. Also make yourself aware of who is and who will be available to you (select view personnel from the main menu) 2.2 Bands Although they do not strictly form part of your personnel they are the most important people your label have and the reason all the other people are employed.

Regardless of the size of the label you manage if you are to make a success of your career as a manager it is absolutely vital that you pay due attention to each artist's attributes and quickly learn how to recognise how to fully make the best of their services. Attributes - Each artist has a set of attributes, some of which are visible within the game and some which are invisible but still have a very great bearing on the game. 2.21 Signing Bands Signing Bands (select view bands from the main menu) is one of the most important parts of the game, take time to familiarise yourself with the bands available, which labels are interested in them and their contract demands. If you feel that a band is right for your label then approach to sign them by selecting the band, this will open up the band details screen, from here select managerial options and then approach band. If the band is interested then you will be presented with the offer screen Make an offer that you think is reasonable (bands will often settle for slightly less than their asking price, however if there are a number of labels after them you may need to offer more.) Similarly offer a reasonable signing on fee and royalty rate and then select a contract length.

The band will let you know of their decision by the next week. Once you " ve signed one or more bands the game really begins (ideally you should try to sign 3-5 lower priced groups.) Selecting managerial options on the band details screen of a band you have signed will now open up a new set of options to you. 2.22 Releasing an Album Once you have signed a band a good place to start is to tell them to start work on a new album (select release an album from the managerial options screen.) Providing they have not recently released an album they should begin work on new material. You can then check their progress as time goes on by looking at the bands discs (see discs by a band on the map.) First of all a new disc title will appear, then as the weeks go by you will see that the disc has more and more tracks added to it as they are written. Once 10 tracks have been written you will be informed that the album is ready and you will be asked to choose a release date for it. For more details as to how to do this and how to promote the album see the next section (remembering to choose promote album instead of promote single of course.) NOTE - A band will only work on new material when they are not doing anything else during the week, if they have a busy schedule the album will take longer to write than if they had nothing to do.

Also, the quality of the material produced can depend on the energy and morale of the person writing it. 2.23 Releasing and promoting a Single After this try to release a single (release a single from the managerial options screen.) If there are enough unreleased tracks and a single has not been released by the band in question too recently you will be asked to select a song to release. Choose a song and then choose three B sides in the same way. You should then set the release week to be around 8 - 10 weeks ahead of the week you are currently on. Checking the band's schedule now (view schedule from the band details menu) will show that they are recording for the next two weeks and then releasing around 6 weeks to 2 months later. This provides enough free time to promote the single before its release: - Select managerial options and then promote band.

Choose promote single and then TV / Radio appearances. You will be presented by a list of TV and radio shows which want to feature your band (if there aren't any try looking at magazine features.) Select five or six shows with the best quality you can in the weeks leading up to the release of your new single. Next, if you think that the band are likely to make a lot of money select advertise release from the promotion menu and select one of the advertising campaigns (large, medium or small.) If you have the money and feel that it is worth the investment then select yes on the relevant screen. NOTE - This is an expensive way of raising sales but it is very effective and does not occupy the band's time 2.24 The Charts Once you have experimented with releases etc for different bands there is little left to do except see how they did, when the release date of one of your bands's ingles is reached check how it did in the chart (view chart details and then singles chart from the main menu.) The chart, as you would expect shows the top 40 singles of the week along with the amount of copies they shifted in that particular week and the position in the chart that they were the previous week (NE denotes a new entry and '-' denotes a non-mover.) The album is exactly the same as the singles chart except that it shows the top 10 albums of the week. 2.25 Arranging a Tour As you continue to play the game and your band (s) reputation (s) begin to grow the time may come to arrange a tour.

This can be done by selecting Arrange A Tour from the managerial options menu. You will then be asked to select the area of the world the tour is to take place in (make your choice depending on how well known the band are world-wide compared to in the UK, bearing in mind the relative costs of each type of tour.) Once you have selected an area you will be asked to input a length for the tour (usually 3-6 however you may be more restricted if there are a limited number of venues available.) Once entered you will be asked to enter the starting date of the tour. The next step after that is simply to select the venues of the tour (you will need to select one venue for every week of the tour.) This is done simply by scrolling down the screen selecting venues with the enter key. Note that in most occasions there will be several pages of venues to scroll through. To see feedback of each stop on the tour check the bands gigography (see band gigography on the map.) You will see the venues played, the attendance of the gig and how much the fans enjoyed it (quality.) NOTE - Some groups will naturally be better than others when performing live, although the bands live rating plays a large part in determining the success of each gig the morale and energy levels of each member also play a key role as well as their flair levels.

Also note that some bands (usually pop groups) will not perform live even when playing a live gig and so their live rating will have no effect whatsoever.