You’ve always dreamed of it. Hosting a gig in your own backyard for a good cause with your best pals… Who wouldn’t want that!
On the other hand, it sounds a little ambitious. All the logistics, promotion, permits. Well, this is your lucky day: one of the biggest international charities wants to help you pull it off.
OXJAM is a division of Oxfam that comes to life every August as “a month-long party against poverty”^. Their philosophy is simple: you host a gig and collect funds for this noble cause. That way OXJAM supports local acts who gain greater exposure through charity work. “Since 2006, there have been over 3,000 of these individual events with more than 36,000 total participating musicians”^^. With occasional big names, such as Fatboy Slim, too.
Image: justgiving.com
What’s your role then? Basically, you’re the event manager. You get to choose the date, time, venue and audience. You also get to decide the type of gig. A proper music show, stand-up comedy or poetry evening? The more ambitious, the better, since it will attract more sponsors and patrons. But if you can’t book the Royal Albert Hall, your living room will do as well.
And don’t freak out: if you have no experience in promoting and marketing, OXJAM is there to help. After you have registered the gig with them, they will “design, build and promote your gig to make it a party you (…) will never forget”^^^.
Sounds like a plan? Then you’ll be happy to know there’s something else to it. In Oz, for instance, all gig organisers enter a draw to win tickets to an “international music industry conference”^^^^. Not only do you get to do something good having fun but you also gain contacts in the entertainment business. A win-win situation, really.
So, if you had any plans for August, you might want to postpone them and join the OXJAM movement. And in case your backyard is not suitable for the purpose, you can always be part of the audience at someone else’s gig.
*The article was written in 2017, so some of the info might now be obsolete.
^^ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxjam
^^^^https://www.oxfam.org.au/media/2017/06/matt-okine-kicks-off-oxjam-2017/
Based on the the following press release
To find out more about OXJAM, go here
Silly McWiggles. A blog about Aussie music. 