Hi all,

Some of you may have seen me start a new thread the other day talking about v bulletin, well as you can tell I am thinking about makeing a new forum. This forum that I am intending on makeing is for everyone in the flintshire region to join and talk about the local music scene.

With me being a big music fan, and just as big music fan for the local bands I thought this would be a great opportunity for bands to advertise local gigs, talk about gigs/bands and just general chatting. And with hundreds of people going to local gigs that are happening there are guaranteed to be hundreds of users.

But what my question is, because I will be creating this forum, so I will have to pay for either V Bulletin / IPB (which hasn't been decided yet) and with me being young and all, money is a lot harder to pick up on, so I was wondering:

Would it be feasable or right of me to tell people in my area within the music scene about my new plan of website and tell them the benefits and then see if I can get a little amount of money off them to help pay towards this, and if I did this to many of the bands / fans I am sure they would part with what would be as little as a few pounds.

But is this right way to go? or would it just be best to suck it up and purchase the forum on my own?

Let me know please
Thanks
Craig

I don't see a problem with asking people (merchants in the music biz, bars, etc...) for money. They could be your sponsors ... with their ads on the forum. Sort of like here with the Textcall ads in some areas of the forum. Someone purchased the space for that.

That's how I would approach them. But first, I think you would have to suck it up and by the software and the hosting. They need to SEE something is happening... that you're not just going around asking for money you know?

Hi,

Thanks for the reply, I get what your saying about the advertisement, but the plan was to have free advertising anyway, so they could advertise the local gigs, so that would be contradicting my point of free advertising of gigs.

I get what you mean, if I get money of them first they may think I am just robbing them, so I wouldn't mind paying for it first then working to get money off people, but how would I do this though? because If i bought the software and hosting (which I already have) and I create this forum, and then they know about it, wouldnt they not pay? because it is free for them as it is, do you get what I mean?

So how is the best way to get them to part with some money, its not even substantial money, because there are so many bands / people who love going to gigs, I belive that a few pounds each would be a significant.

Thanks
Craig

Good question!
Here are some ideas off the top of my head.
You could ask for forum sponsors/ site sponsers. They get an additional link to their site and larger print perhaps located in the footer or side bar.

You could let the "sponsors" advertise things like Ladies' Nights, comedy nights, seasonal ads like St Patrick's day, New Year Eve, things that are not Music related/band related.

You could have a page for sponsors which features a store front photo or interior photo with addresses, telephone number, hours, points of interest.

I like the sound of that sponsors page, and on that page being a big sponsor about the pub/club where the local gigs take place.

Because there is one place that every thursday night (tonight) where 4/5 local bands play every week, so if I spoke to the woman who owns that place to advertise for some money, there could be something there. But one problem though, alot of people know about this place already, and go to it every week, some weeks to the extent they have to stop people from coming in, so I can't really see her parting with her money if she is getting a good crowd already.



Sorry could you please elaborate on this point please, I don't understand.

Thanks
Craig

That's what I meant

Maybe think of this as a directory listing of pubs, facilities, bars, concert locations etc.

In each directory listing for instance:
Linda's Pub and Grill:
207-xxx-xxx
1000 Main Street
San Diego, CA 00000
7pm - 1am Wed-Sat.

I can include ONE photo of my pub and grill
I can also advertise my weekly specials:
Wed night is Ladies' night, Thursday nights is big band night,

This would be a paid advertising section.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for all the replies everyone, its much appreciated.

So, do you think this advertising of bars, pub, and facilities is the way forward? that is the best source of income compared 2 me going out and asking a few people for some money for it? Because I was thinking about if I did collect money off people, I would have a dedication page, or in the footer, and list everyone that donated some money.

Which one would be more suitable?

Maybe you could do both. Have advertising as a sustainable and continued source of income, but if you get people donating money for setting up your site, you could have an affiliates/links page with their details/websites on as a thanks for the initial donation.

Yeah I agree with you there Craig, I think that is possibly the best way forward do both, and then I could have a decent income off it, but I feel we would need to become a bit popular before I can go out and ask for sponsors don't you think? because who's going to want to put money into a website that could be a flop?

Yeah could have a links page an so on, but there is one problem with that though, because they are just ordinary people, they won't have websites, but they have like myspace, bebo, facebook and so on, would it be good linking to them? and even the bands don't have websites, again only myspace and so on.

I could produce them websites, but because they are youngsters and so on, they don't have the money to supply what type of money I am looking for, but that is another thing anyway.

The pub advertising is better I think ... and less work really. At least with the ads, you are giving "something" back you know?... there's nothing wrong with a donation section ... even we have one but we don't rely on it. We are hoping to get ads to keep the place rolling once we have a bigger user/viewing base.

Ok,

I think I have the basis to work on now, so I will explain where I am, and then could some help say the best steps to doing this?

Ok, I have the domain name, and hosting already sorted. I have yet to decide what software to use IPB Or VBulletin, but once I hear back in the other thread and made my mind up, I will then buy that in a few days.

So, what would my first step be?
Create a good looking forum? make sure I am happy with everything? advertise it by word of mouth, myspace (where all the bands and fans are) maybe do a few flyers to take to gigs. Once I have a fairly substancial amount of users, and it is being used frequently, then go out and find advertisement?

Do you think this is the best plan of action? or is there something I should be doing that I missing? or am I doing it in the wrong order? any help would be much appreciated.

I think you've got the right order of things there!

Word of mouth is what will get it going.... as well as a kick-ass design.

Ok thanks for everyones help.

I am excited about this project now, I believe in myself to make this pretty big, and I have the users and bands to make it work, so I am pretty optomistic.

My main worry at the moment is picking between vbulletin and IPB, because I was all set for VBulletin till today when I was shown IPB, and I fell in love, so as it stands that looks like my decision.

But I will keep people informed throughout the whole project, and you will probably have to give advice or some help somewhere along the line

Thanks again
Craig

HAHA!!! Well ... you should have seen us when we were trying to figure out which to go for. back and forth it went for a few weeks. It's not an easy decision and once you've chosen one, you'll regret not taking the other.

Pick on and STICK WITH IT!

I didn't read every post in this thread; kinda skimmed through.

It's going to cost money to get this thing started. There's no way around it. Granted starting a website, by no means, is expensive if you're the one doing it all, but it does take time.

Businesses are not going to want to pay to advertise on your site if its brand new and has little to no members. You're going to have to prove that the site is worth advertising on for them.

You might see a couple bucks from Google Adwords if you get more than a few visits a month, but aside from that I wouldn't expect much until you start getting at least a decent amount of traffic.


Now, what does your forum have to offer that's going to make people want to visit it? Is there any sort of demand for it? Weigh your options and see if it's even worth doing before taking the time and money to do it.

It's not an option to use a free forum? Like phpBB for instance?

Don't ask for money to help get the site up and running. If you cannot afford to run the site then wash some cars or something. Once the site is up and running you can get back what you paid for it and cover the hosting by getting sponsors, providing premium membership as well as a host of other things.

yeah.. and when your membercount grows you can ask for donations to buy vBulletin of IPB..

Or you could continue to use the free forum.. if it is gathering members and people are used to it then why cause upheaval with a change of platform?