Connecting students to the Parkville campus through the magic of music

AFTER HOURS is a music series featuring an eclectic range of musicians performing at iconic locations around the University of Melbourne‘s Parkville campus.

The Video and Media team wanted the University community, especially students, to be at the heart of the AFTER HOURS project. The idea aligned with  the University’s 2022 Campus Reactivation initiative and their primary goal was to entertain students and staff with homegrown talent on locations that would remind them of their vibrant campus.

The music industry faced challenges post-pandemic and the AFTER HOURS team saw an opportunity to provide financial support and promotion for the Melbourne musicians who had been isolated and unable to perform for a few years.

They sought out University students and alumni to be part of the series, as well as local acts, and pulled together an eclectic range of music including doom metal, chamber singing, instrumental covers of contemporary rock, Chinese folk music and traditional singer-songwriting. Across the six episodes, the series celebrates a diverse range of performers from First Nations, LGBTIQ+, Australian-Chinese, and other multicultural backgrounds.

The AFTER HOURS crew made full use of iconic University spaces in innovative ways. They drew on their technical expertise and collaborated with other professional teams across the University to tackle the challenges of recording performances in locations that weren’t built for loud music!  A recurring theme in the feedback for the series was people asking if the performances could be watched live, which indicated a keen desire to return to campus and experience these locations for themselves.

Working closely with APRA AMCOS (music rights management), the team negotiated an agreement that ensured episodes could be published across multiple University social media channels, allowing the artists to share their AFTER HOURS performances via their own online networks.

The social media campaign for the series garnered a huge response locally and globally. The content was shared across multiple University of Melbourne platforms, including on Chinese social media, and has achieved 1.7 million video views and 125k engagements as of mid-2023. The highest amount of engagements featured students and student artists were also heavily featured in the top-ranked posts by impressions, thus boosting their profiles and connecting them with new audiences.

“We’ve definitely seen an increased amount of engagement from people on social media and many people have reached out to say how much they loved the episode. We’ve also since received lots of enquiries saying they came across us through the AFTER HOURS episode!”

- Jin Long, Invictus Quartet

Beyond the metrics, there has also been positive feedback from within the University’s staff community, including enthusiastic praise from Vice-Chancellor Duncan Maskell.

AFTER HOURS was a unique initiative that opened up our campus to a unique pool of artists and showcased them to a global online audience, helping to redefine how the University connects, engages, and thrives as a post-pandemic community.

• This project won an Award for Professional Excellence and Innovation in the 2023 Melbourne Excellence Awards.