Help & Advice needed for funding Community Studio Project.

[drezz]

Hi fellow GS.........

I have been involved in a project working with a collective for over a year now, the idea being to create a community space with Venue, Recording Studio, Cafe and workshop space for various music related projects. These projects will cater for young people predominantly in the 14-25 yrs age group, but not excluding those outside that range, i.e. anyone's welcome to participate. We have a large building, with 3 floors, ground floor is the cafe/community centre space, second floor is the venue (650 capacity), and the top floor is to house the recording studio.
As one can imagine, the amount of work involved in putting this together has been pretty intense, but we have the lease and are just about to move into the building as i write this, funding has been given to purchase a quality PA/sound system installation for the venue, and funding has been secured for refurb of the building in general, but luckily the building itself is in pretty good shape, and a lot of the previous fixtures and fittings are useable for our purpose as the former use of the building was as a nightclub, so there's a stage and bar, lighting scaffold etc, all of which we can use to our advantage. the main preoccupation for us will be generally tidying up and generally making the space nice for opening.
My Focus in all this is the Studio. I will be in charge of that end of things, running the studio and teaching music technology, and regular sound engineering as well as running sessions with bands etc, etc.........
I have a small amount of gear at present, comprising the usual DAW, (mac/logic/plugins etc) as well as an analog console, and various vintage kit, 2 studer a80 machines, one 16trk and one 2 trk. i also have a collection of cheapo mics, ihave some nice backline, valve guitar amps, good old 70's drum kit, and various odds and sods........
My question is this.....I need to raise funding to get some nice equipment together, because at the moment i only have less than half a studio........i need outboard, i need good mics, leads, acousitic treatment and decent monitors. Can anyone give me any advice on who i could approach for funding?
I'm in the UK BTW. (South West/Devon)........
Would it be worth approaching proaudio companies and manufacturers? Has anyone on this board created a project such as this themselves? and how did they raise funds?
This is a well credible project, there's nothing like it in this part of the UK, and the area we're doing it in has the usual problems of culturally undernourished areas......(teenage drinking/drugs/ crime/ pregnancies/ delinquency etc) but the local youths are well into music and many have been attending a rock school set up by one of my collegues for well over 2 years and this has had a major impact on the local youth community, spawning various bands and gigs since it's inception........
So to cap it all, any advice anyone could give me on possible funding ideas and approaches would be well appreciated. I think i'm going to aproach it in stages, intially i am going to go for 10 to £15'000 (UK pounds) for mics and outboard, leads and pre's).......later i will go for bigger money as i want to acquire a decent large format console, but of course thats real money..........do you think this is a good plan, doing it in stages? or should i just go for the biggie from the outset?
please lend your advice and support.......

all the best........

[warmer]

Hi, i've been south west for a couple of years now, these sorts of projects need to be outside of the major cities too, people (and talent) still exist there!

is there a way to do visible sponsorship? A permanent advert is worth some money. You need to outline how this works for the company giving some funds or equipment, £10-15K isn't much money to raise really.

And speaking from a company who would sponsor this sort of thing, you really need to be able to show how this project will last and not just fold under huge debit!

[drezz]

Originally Posted by warmer

Hi, i've been south west for a couple of years now, these sorts of projects need to be outside of the major cities too, people (and talent) still exist there!

is there a way to do visible sponsorship? A permanent advert is worth some money. You need to outline how this works for the company giving some funds or equipment, £10-15K isn't much money to raise really.

And speaking from a company who would sponsor this sort of thing, you really need to be able to show how this project will last and not just fold under huge debit!

Hi,
Thanks for the reply. Yes i think there would be many ways of approaching visible sponsorship, certainly this project is attracting plenty of press interest locally already, having full backing of local authorities and institutions, and certainly because of it's uniqueness in our part of the world. We fully intend to garner as much support and coverage from the media, both locally and nationally as we possibly can. The interest in this venture so far has been extremely positive and the encouragement we have received has been well appreciated by the collective working towards this. We already are in talks with a friend from the country's leading rockschool for young people, who are sponsored by Roland UK about possible sponsorship for our project, they seem to be very interested. Also, off the record, we have spoken tentatively with a very well known industry icon, who lives locally and takes an avid interest in the local scene, about possible involvment in the project, as his studio has an involvment in teaching and training through south devon college........early days on that one, but he seems keen to forge connections, and seems like a thoroughly great guy.
Your mail is very positive, and may i ask what your scene is and i quote you on......."speaking from a company who would sponsor this sort of thing"........what exactly is your buisness? your post certainly is intriging!!

As far as "how this project will last and not just fold under huge debit"........well all i can say is, we have a very close knit and fantastic core team of individuals who are all expertly equipped to deal with they're own specific areas of the project, and we have been relatively succesful in raising funding for certain areas of the project thus far, although it's a very difficult and laborious process which is a lot harder and intensive than it looks when one first starts..! But, we have set ourselves a goal of building the project up to be completely sustainable within 2 to 3 years, which seems realistic, and we have been very succesful in getting ourselves a very good deal on the lease of the space we are using and the building insurance and associated overheads, as well as overwhelming support from the local council and police who've made things very smooth for us and helped a lot, and who want to see us succeed in what we do.
I would love to arrange a meeting with you if your serious about taking an interest in the project and laying out the plans to you in detail to see what you think............

[equallyscrewed]

I'm assuming you've applied to the arts councils and various trusts for grants? Also isnt your local council wanting a hand in this? They have an arts budget and if you have to make a project like this, i cant see them spending it anywhere else.

If there's full disabled access you may be able to apply for lottery funding too.

hope that helps

xcx

[drezz]

Thanks for your replies guys, they have been helpful.............
Any more ideas? Keep 'em coming.........cheers......