INTERVIEW // Liverpool Events - Often Imitated, Never Duplicated
Liverpool, famous for many different reasons, from Football to Brookside, our city has a very unique image to the rest of the world. One of the most recognisable offerings of the city is our music scene, and those who party here will know what's going on and when thanks to Liverpool Events. The online brand who provide one of the most in-depth and comprehensive guides to Liverpool’s vibrant and often unrecognised party scene. Running since 2015, they have a very impressive following of over 30 thousand across social media platforms, with Instagram being the primary outlet of 23 thousand followers alone.
We wanted to get behind the scenes and find out the vision behind the brand that is quickly becoming a vital tool for those in the scene and party-goers alike and find out what the future holds for Tom and his team.
So, tell me how it all started, what's the story behind it, and when did you start to see it’s rise? Did you have a clear vision of how you would grow this from the outset?
I actually started this during my final year of studying Marketing at LJMU, I wouldn’t actually say the degree made me start it, more of a procrastination tool. I just remember thinking that there wasn’t one place you could look to find what is happening in Liverpool, I noticed a few similar accounts but you could see that they were run by certain promoters who would just be posting about their own events. So I thought why not start something which posts about every event in the city, a guide so that people can see what is happening that weekend or in a month's time.
I think it took around 3 months to reach 1,000 followers which is when I started to take it a bit more seriously, I didn’t actually tell anyone about the account until this point, it was quite funny to see people I know follow it and not know it was me. From that moment it took off a bit more, the main method of growth was just from people tagging their friends in the posts with “let's go to this”, “have you seen this event”, which then led to their friends following. The page gradually started rising, hitting around 4,000 within the first year, and within that time I started getting approached by promoters to help promote their events which I was happy to do. Through doing this I have been fortunate to get to know many of those involved within the scene in Liverpool, which has, in the long run, allowed me the opportunity to work full time in the music industry.
I wouldn’t say there was a clear vision of how I would grow the account, it was and still is essentially grown through word of mouth. Although in more recent times I’ve had to adapt the content massively. Initially, I would be posting event artwork constantly but that just doesn’t work anymore. In a way, it's always been a sort of hobby as something I’ve done on the side from my job so it’s been fun to play around and see what methods of content connect more with people.
Our overall aim is to spread the word about Liverpool nightlife, educating current residents and newcomers to the city about what is happening whether that’s upcoming events, the clubs in Liverpool or local artists to keep an eye on. We often run ticket competitions to some of the biggest parties in the city alongside hosting Instagram takeovers from artists that are playing in Liverpool!
Some of the content you create is Instagram takeovers with some of the artists that come to play in the City, what are some of your favourites?
Instagram takeovers have been one of my favourite things to do, aside from just posting about events these are sort of small projects to work on. Over the years a lot of artists have turned down the opportunity to take over so it always feels like a tiny achievement whenever someone agrees. They give a great insight into the city, it's so cool to see an artist's journey around Liverpool from their point of view as they visit different record shops, cafe’s, bars and generally their experience of Liverpool’s clubs.
In the past, we’ve had so many artists from across the dance music spectrum hosting takeovers on the page but a couple of my favourites have been Soul Clap and Spencer Parker. Soul Clap played in Liverpool for Liverpool Disco Festival who helped arrange the takeover for us, it was fun to see them partying with the likes of Jamie 3:26, John Morales, and watching Melba Moore! Spencer Parker took over for Jovial at 24 Kitchen Street and had me laughing all day, taking us on his journey from Bali to Liverpool featuring delayed flights, memes, and club memories. If you head to our Instagram page you can see both of these takeovers saved in our highlights as well as ones from Rebekah, Melé, PBR Streetgang, Hammer & many others!
Your Instagram page gets a lot of engagement, what do you think the key is to this?
Do you now have a formula when posting or do you still experiment with content to see what works?
I’ve just been winging it to be honest haha! The key is keeping the content relevant and current, for me, the page is about Liverpool so posting about what’s happening in Liverpool always seems to get a good response. We always try and find unique content that hasn’t been posted on most pages, otherwise, people have already seen it and are less likely to interact with your post. When posting about events I think sharing videos etc. of the artist is always best to get people hyped for the event, most of the time we’ll look to running competitions with local promoters to increase awareness further.
Recently we’ve started posting a lot more Scouse humour and memes which actually have a better response than most things, people just want an easy laugh at the end of the day. Never thought Liverpool Events would turn into a meme account, not that it is, but with the pandemic that’s going on, we can’t really post about events.
With events being at a standstill right now, due to the Pandemic, how have you found new ways to post content, and what was the biggest challenge with that?
As you say events are at a standstill which is the majority of the content on Liverpool Events, rather than looking into the future of what’s happening in Liverpool’s event scene we’ve spent time reflecting on the past and celebrating what has already taken place over the years. Digging out photos and videos from some of the iconic clubs Liverpool has lost including The Kazimier and Nation. We’ve also looked at focusing on what we do have, highlighting some of the best clubs we have at the moment, and providing a bit of history on them to educate some of our followers.
We hit the 20 thousand follower mark during lockdown, to celebrate we launched a huge competition giving away tickets to some of Liverpool’s biggest parties for the winter period, to give people something to look forward to. It had a massive response online, probably because people were on their phone 24/7, reaching about 40 thousand people! We’ve managed to still put out content but we cannot wait for events to return so that we can start to support Liverpool’s party scene!
What advice do you give when an Artist is creating content?
However you come across online is what people are going to think of you in real life, it's important as an artist to convey your personality in the correct way early on in your career. When it comes to creating content for your own platforms it has to be relatable and relevant to you, let people know what you’re working on, how you’re pushing your career, people follow you for a reason so don’t be afraid to big yourself up. If you think it's the right move then keep your personal account separate and create an artist page, this way you can focus solely on your music via that account and keep anything that isn’t relevant away.
Have you got your eye on any rising talents?
So many good artists have been coming out of Liverpool recently, James Organ has had some huge EPs in the past 12 months on the likes of Last Night On Earth, Knee Deep In Sound and Circus Recordings, whilst Matrefakt have had consistent support from Denis Sulta, Mella Dee, Skream plus many others! Ross Robertson has been DJing for the likes of ENRG, Abandon Silence, and Club Bad in recent times and has been working on his first-ever EP which is finally ready to come out 14th August on Hyde Records, looking forward to hearing his first piece of music! Also, I'm keeping an eye on Josh Samuel, since establishing himself as Medication’s lead DJ he’s just released his first major EP on Gorgon City’s REALM as well having another EP signed to Solardo’s Sola, big things to come from him!
What does the future hold for Liverpool Events?
During lockdown we started something that we’ve been meaning to do for a while, launching ‘Kreativ Media’ our social media management brand. So for the future, we will be working on building the brand as high as we have done with Liverpool Events and pick up some new clients that we can help along the way!
It's clear to see the impact that Liverpool Events has had on the city's music scene and we're anticipating a positive future for Tom and the team behind the brand.
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