Acoustic Soloist Yarra Valley- How To Plan A Downsized Event

Ms Lexi & Celestial Band is an exclusive and small music band group. It comprises of under ten of the best musicians and singers in Melbourne.

What sets Celestial Band Apart?

Essentially all the musicians at Celestial Band are multi-instrumentalists. What this means is that pretty much everyone sings and does vocals on the gigs. This is quite unusual for modern day cover bands in Melbourne. Mostly in bands you’ll see Keyboardists that just play keyboard. You’ll see Bass guitarists that just play… erm Bass guitar. Not so at Celestial Band. The formation of the band is this. Everything is led by Lead Vocalist and keys player Lexi Ross. Lexi then has a couple of right-hand men who are known for being great Lead Guitarists and Lead Singers. Then there are two singing Bass Guitarists that alternate on gigs. Then there’s two singing drummers that alternate. Finally, we have the one world class Saxophone player Pete, and let’s hope to god Pete never gets sick. Coz we like working with Pete. We’ve trialled other Saxophonists, and it didn’t go very well. But all those details are surely for another blog….

So, without further ado, let’s get into our top tips for planning a downsized event in Melbourne or the Yarra Valley….

How to Plan A Downsized Event..

• Choose A Great Location

There are lots of venues around Melbourne and the Yarra Valley that would be sooo happy to facilitate a downsized event for you! Whether it be for a wedding or another event you are organising. Yes, there’s always going to venues that want to charge a premium rate, like tens of thousands of dollars, but if you look around there are plenty of other options. You could even use your home as the venue, or hire are marquee and have the event in there. A massive white tent/ marquee actually looks amazing. As a band, we’ve performed at massive weddings, where they had hired a very large marquee. They even built a proper stage for the band, inside the marquee!

• Discover Your Catering Options

If you’re venue is not doing the catering for you, then it’s time to think of some creative ways you could have the food for your event. Food trucks and grazing tables are enormously popular these days! Our personal favourite way to do event food at the moment is grazing tables. Hopefully your supplier will have some ideas about how to make the grazing table all COVID safe if you choose this option!

• Hire The Best Acoustic Soloist Yarra Valley, or Even An Acoustic Duo If Your Budget Allows!

Music is so important for an event. You want the best that you can get! Consider hiring Lexi Ross to play keys, sing vocals and use beats! Or you can hire one of the male Lead singer/ guitarists at Celestial Band for the same price. When you hire Lexi as your Acoustic Soloist Yarra Valley, you’ll get access to her full song list. You’ll be encouraged to pick some songs you really want to hear on the day, and some you would prefer not to have played at your wedding or special event. She then takes extra song requests, to learn vocally and on the keys, ahead of the event!

• DIY As Much As You Can

If you’re planning a downsized wedding, then DIY is definitely the way to go! There is a really good DIY Brides Melbourne group on Facebook that you can get heaps of good ideas from. The brides there have DIYed their own signs and made really pretty signs from Office-works. They also DIY their own flower arrangements, sometimes using fake flowers. Or even borrowing wedding flowers from other brides that have their weddings around the same date as them.

• Make Sure You Understand Your Vendors Terms and Conditions

Contrary to what some believe, you can still go ahead with planning and hiring of your event suppliers in the current Covid climate. Our top tip is to familiarise yourself with your vendors Terms and Conditions before putting down your deposit. For instance, when you hire Lexi as your Acoustic Soloist Yarra Valley OR her entire band for your event; you still only pay a $300 booking fee. This booking fee is essentially your deposit.

In the short form, this is what our Terms & Conditions say: Essentially the $300 booking fee is non-refundable, as that covers the cost of reserving your date. However, if you need to postpone due to covid we’ll move your date for free. Its only if you book us for your event, and then decide to cancel the event, or cancel us out of it, then we retain that small $300 booking fee. In the instance that you had paid you’re balance; we would of course refund your balance to you! We want to be as flexible as possible for clients. Whilst also protecting our interests as a small live music business in Melbourne. Unfortunately, we can’t block out a date for clients, spend time learning songs, and do all the client liaison all for free. To then simply return the booking fee on a change of mind.  If we did that, this little business would go broke.

To see more of our band videos, and what we’ve been getting up to lately, check out our YouTube page! Live music in Melbourne and the Yarra Valley is our absolute jam. We live and breathe it! We practice and learn new songs every day, to put on an amazing live performance every time. Whether you’re after an Acoustic Soloists, a duo or a larger band ensemble, we have the live music for your wedding or special event covered!