My music magazine is going to fall under the pop-punk/hardcore genre.

Potential ideas for the contents page of this magazine are:

  • Main double page spread of an interview/feature on a band
  • Live photography
  • Features on upcoming festivals and tours
  • Gig guide/gig listings
  • Features on new and upcoming bands
  • Letters page
  • Posters
  • Stickers
  • Live reviews
  • Competitions
  • New album and single reviews
  • Free downloads and sample CDs of new tracks
  • Small sample of merch available from Impericon, for example, and an order slip
  • General new music news
  • Top local bands around the country this month
  • Social networking page – the latest tweets, tumblr posts and facebook statuses from bands and their record labels
  • New vinyl releases and reviews
  • Charity related/fundraising adverts and features that are endorsed by the bands (for example PETA or the Kenadee Lucker education benefit)
  • Feature where fans get to interview their favourite bands
  • Band members’ tattoos and fans’ tattoos inspired by bands/music
  • New ranges and offers from band members’ clothing lines
  • Views of fans at festivals/gigs/on the streets about new music and gigs

I feel that these features would be most appropriate for my specific target audience of teens and young people from the ages of around 15-25 due to the wide range of content that is appropriate to this specific music genre of pop-punk/hardcore. The diverse type of content included, that ranges from posters and stickers to in-depth live reviews and photography is useful as it means the magazine can appeal to a larger age category and that there are features suited to everyone.

My target audience are arguably the most involved music lovers that invest the most time and interest in the music that they are interested in, meaning they will be attracted to a magazine that contains a vast amount of information and news on new tours, new album/single releases, new and upcoming bands and general music news to keep them up to date and frequently in-the-know.

The inclusion of information on vinyl releases is appropriate for those who appreciate the hardcore and pop-punk genres as these bands and their labels tend to release a lot of their albums and EPs on vinyl and also regularly combine the material of two of their bands together to create a 7″ Split, for example Run For Cover records offers its listeners and fans the opportunity for a “Split subscription” allowing them to pay a fee that enables them to be sent new split releases as and when they come out.

I also feel that a feature on new, upcoming and obscure local bands would be greatly appreciated as publicised music should not just be about the more mainstream bands, and I feel that my target audience would be greatly interested in hearing about new and exciting smaller bands that have a unique sound, cheaper show tickets and cheaper merch. The excitement of being able to get in there first and become a fan of a potentially fantastic band during their early stages is something that can really appeals to my target audience.

The inclusion of features on charities/fundraising is highly useful as it is very important for music fans to be able to give back and understand the importance of real life issues, and the knowledge that their favourite band members and artists are in support of such charities and fundraising campaigns and events will be a great encouragement for them to get involved themselves. For example, as Mitch Lucker is greatly respected and adored by many music fans, a feature on how they can raise money for Kenadee Lucker’s education benefit would be very appropriate to include in the magazine.

Photographs are also a highly important element of the magazine; after conducting a survey to gather information from my target audience using Survey Monkey, I discovered that 63.64% of my target audience would prefer the magazine to have a higher ratio of photographs to text. I feel that the reason for this is because of the age of the audience; many people of a young age would rather look at an aesthetically pleasing and attractive magazine with a wide range of large posters, photographs and live gig photography of their favourite bands, with minimal text to read, and for this reason I have decided to include one or two photo pages in my magazine and also to make sure photos are the main part of my feature pages.