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News May 2014

Published on 03 June 2014  | Download | back to previous

I am often complimented (well once) on how you look forward to our monthly news/drivel so as a special treat I have asked one of our oldest customers to give you an insight on how TCRM helps him achieve his deranged business objectives.

Peter Phillips (Porthcawl Elvis Festival, Tedfest, Et Tu Elvies, International meringue throwing contest, Spaghetti Western Festival, Welsh Rockabilly and Burlesque Festival), over to you.

PS. All but one of the above events are real!

"When the BBC’s IT department evicted a friend of mine during the Great Clearances of the Noughties, and with him having no realistic chance of finding proper employment, I reluctantly gave up a couple of hours in order for him to buy me beer in return for listening how he was planning to forge a new life riding the dot.com boom that had recently come to an end.

Ironically, in order to pitch a documentary at his former employers, I had set up an Elvis Festival in Porthcawl and at odds with every Luddite bone in my body resigned myself to the fact that the event needed one of those new-fangled websites. Kevin ‘Yosser’ Jones half convinced me that he could launch the event into cyberspace and agreed that he was doing himself a forward thinking favour by allowing me to be pro-bono guinea pig for his wild fantasy. The alternative was finding an eleven year old and paying him in Pokeman cards. What transpired was an interesting learning curve for us both. I began to concede that there may be a small possibility that the earth was not flat and Kevin slowly gained experience of dealing with people who were not being paid to listen to him.

He now claims credit for the fact that the Porthcawl Elvis Festival has grown to be the biggest event of its kind in the World and as I do not have any alternative inkling why, I humour him. Ten years, and many websites later, TCRM have gradually introduced me to other facets of the white heat of technology such as Facebook, Twitter and e-commerce. In return for giving Kevin his break in life he takes my phone calls in the middle of the night when I want to know if www.disabilityscootergumballrally.com is available and happily gives up his Sunday morning to send out press releases. I am beginning to live with the annoyance that in a technical argument he tends to be right and his lack of deference when telling us that had we done something the way he said I would not have been sued. 

Festivals, events and stage shows are no different to any business. You have to maximise revenue and minimise expenditure. Websites in general do not necessarily achieve either of these. The old advertising maxim of half of what I spend works - but I don’t know which half, applies in this brave new world. We recently had to get two tenders for a website in order to satisfy the terms of a public grant. It was an eye-opener to have to deal with a large website provider who were trying to sell us one of their off the shelf jobs at a ridiculous price. The exercise made me realise that we have been right to keep all of our website eggs in the TCRM basket. But please don’t tell Kevin."

Please note: Many of the facts as presented are totally fictitious and the result of a deranged mind!