First Avenue Master Class

UX/UI Design | Web Design | Creative Direction | Branding

Goals

  1. Create a sub-brand to add value to an iconic venue and provide an educational opportunity for music students during a global pandemic.

  2. Identify a new target audience to generate a new source of income sustainable beyond a pandemic.

  3. Redesign an iconic brand with a modern theme that is member focused, offers multiple opportunities to engage young audiences while providing a unique experience.

Images courtesy of Unsplash

Overview

A mobile & desktop case study explores modernizing an iconic brand and introducing a new target audience to bridge virtual musical education with master musicians during a pandemic. As a nationally recognized music venue and thriving staple in the Minneapolis music scene, First Avenue shuttered its doors as the world faced a global pandemic.

Identify & Discover

In March of 2020, venues worldwide were closed indefinitely ending all in-person live concerts everywhere. At the same time, schools adopted distance learning as the pandemic raged on. Band rooms, studio equipment and one-on-one lessons with their teachers were unavailable. Performances and interaction with their band was also absent from daily routines.

First Avenue also needed a brand refresh since it hadn’t been changes from its black and white one-column staple in years.

My role was to research and build a new target market, refresh a website or mobile app and find a way to generate revenue for an iconic venue closed to the public while in-person concerts were restricted. A global problem, a business problem and a music education problem all rolled into one. My goal was to adjust an iconic business’s main revenue stream to survive during unprecedented times and find a way to educate young students and bands virtually in a new fun way.

My research and observation of current trends emerging through the pandemic helped generate the idea of Master classes being offered by the legendary First Avenue. Social media was becoming even more popular and a standard source of daily entertainment, engagement and fresh content. People were experiencing cabin fever with no clear end in sight. Instagram, Twitter and Tik Tok were becoming a phenomenon. Famous musicians, actors, athletes and other influencers where interacting with their fans, common people across the world in a new way. It was personal, it was authentic and could provide a new sustainable option to generate growth for First Avenue. The social and digital aspects were a small part of the iconic venues offerings. It seemed obvious it was time to change that. There was not an app for even selling their own tickets to shows, or residencies, listening to music. Basically it was siloed to selling their own merchandise.
Key findings revealed some table-stake needs for a new app and a sub-brand:

  • Popular influencers want to connect with their fans, let them by offering Master Classes with them

  • A single app for First Avenue could provide members access to multiple opportunities

  • Virtual music lessons filled a gap for a young market and could offer live, recorded, scheduled and on-demand options

  • Workshops and residencies are great ways to provide additional content and revenue that gave musicians revenue generating opportunities

  • Target audiences of children to young adults aged 8-24 can be sustainable members for years to come, as many surveyed people had been members of First Avenue for over 15 years.

  • Parents were willing to pay for lessons and embraced the idea of virtual bands, iconic artists engagement and supporting First Avenue

  • Using the existing membership of parents could help with payments and to develop a sub-brand easy to connect and log into with existing credentials that would appeal to the young demographic

Define & Deliver

Research of the competitive landscape of music education helped to establish needs of a young audience. Viewing music instruction websites for top schools provided the basics for determining learning objectives. Since this was a first time initiative, it would be beneficial to start by offering three instruments of instruction and add more as time when by. And surveys and interviews with users aged 10-24 helped to identify needs and preferences for musical education. Lead guitar, bass and drums were chosen as the most appropriate for the iconic rock venue. The artists who played at First Avenue were most likely fluent and available to teach these instruments. And the pitch to “Become a Rock Star” would be an easy sell to young audiences. An audit existing site revealed the need for an update and I was able to then generate new architecture for sub-site of Master Classes. Sketches for both mobile first and desktop provided the roadmap to build components and UX patterns to start to design wireframes in Figma. After building out initial layouts in mobile, I created user journeys and personas and began to test prototypes. And I created a home page for desktop to define the new sub-brand look and feel.

View the Mobile Prototype

Check out the prototype app Website

I was able to refine designs for tablet, desktop and mobile to meet user needs and set up a viable product. UX/UI components were assembled and branding for the new Master Class app too shape. Multiple screens were created to appeal to a young demographic including not only music instruction but also upcoming workshops with musicians, streaming concerts, artist residencies with exclusive content, the return of Band Camp, and even a new Youtube channel. A Master Class app and a website refresh could help elevate the existing brand into a new opportunity of sustainable revenue and demographic even after the pandemic.

View the UX Design Guide

Deliver Solutions

A connection between the students need for virtual instruction and First Avenue’s battle to stay open in a new capacity provided an opportunity to align the needs of both to solve each of their problems. First Avenue Master Class was created to offer new services to an untapped student market that brings two groups together utilizing the iconic reputation and connections of 50 years of music that only First Avenue offers. Musicians who cannot play live concerts and students who need musical training. The brand loyalty First Avenue holds is invaluable. The numerous connections are literally written on the outside walls. It is a trusted industry leader in providing quality musical entertainment. Now it offers quality musical instruction.

A multitude of diverse artists and industry pros will offer virtual workshops, lessons and live streaming performances. Programs and events are tailored toward students aged 10-24 who most likely would be life-long members. Master Class introduced a new sub-brand that embraced digital and social trends to offer new ways to learn virtually. Students could utilize existing memberships, which would make it easy for parents to buy lessons, subscriptions, virtual programs, attend mini workshops or purchase passes to live streaming concerts. Content could be made available at multiple touch-points including on the new First Avenue Master Class YouTube channel, through the app or on the website. Members will be able to easily book guitar, bass and drum lessons with just a few clicks making it an easy app to navigate.

And during the pandemic, the First Avenue venues because they were large and unoccupied by crowds, could be retro-fitted to become a place for artists to utilize the sound system, cameras and recording equipment to live stream workshops, lessons and performances with a social distancing protocol in place. The venue is also well suited to divide up into individual studio spaces for lessons and socially distant band practices until large crowds and school bands can safely gather again. The ability to continue offering the Master Classes could be a sustainable revenue option for years to come.