Al Krow

There are going to be winners and losers when change happens. It's the way of things. The nimble see opportunities, others see crisis. We're about to embark on some major changes as a nation, that's not in dispute; no point screaming at the tide not to come in.

That's good to know on the train front. But this whole thread is about economics ie the fact that the cost of visas is going to be a deterrent to the itenerant bard.

Correct. We've essentially traded that right for the right to have a say who our neighbours here in the UK are going to be, in the broad sense, and to give equal opportunity to both Kiwi and Croat. Seems fair enough.

So how long does a return trip by train to Germany take? I find it hard to believe it's going to be cheaper than Easy Jet? Another factor to consider if this is boiling down to economics.

Exactly the same point should be made about flying around Europe to play gigs or EU musos coming to the UK. Using local artists is good for the environment.

Ah well...c'est la vie.

Given it's outstanding tracking and easy tweak-ability without needing any recourse to a PC, is that going to get it over the line in making it a keeper for you?

That would be nice. I understand Finland are about to bring that in 😉

Congrats - and a great price! Mine was £269 and even that's £20 cheaper than many. Hate to say it, but at £227 there are a bunch of bass pedals that are equally or more expensive and gonna be a lot less fun! How / what are you planning on using it for? Are you saying absent bananas, Rob doesn't? 😁

There will be another vote for Scottish independence, for sure. But will the vote then keep being repeated ad infinitum until the Scots give the "right" answer (which btw is exactly what happened with EU referenda - ask Ireland and France)? I think the position will be very interesting in 12 months time when Scotland has her fisheries back and is then asked whether she wishes to give up control of these back to EU, adopt the Euro and also cut spending so that their deficit reduces from 7% to 3%. That will make austerity look like a cake walk, compounding an already not well managed education and health service up there (or so I understand). I'm not sure that a vote for an independent Scotland will be a slam dunk. But another vote will happen, no question. And worst of all, will Scottish musicians have to pay £240 per head to play in England? (See what I just did there to keep it thread related! ) 😄

Good luck to them.

Lol. Bit of an extreme reaction to visas? But you're right it really is that important a reason for such a break up. 😂

Yeah perhaps they should. It's just that the Scots had a "once in a generation / lifetime" vote on independence only a couple of years beforehand and decided they wanted to be part of the Union. Democracy eh?

Haha! To keep things fair, maybe also about time the English were given a vote on independence then too? They might decide that if they were of the view that £12 billion a year subs to the EU was too much, then keeping the £19 billion a year subs to the Scots might be even better! They could then provide free visas to all English pro-musicians to travel all round the world (and free tuition fees for all English students for good measure) 😂

H - you might want to merge this thread with the already existing one on the same topic...

Helped I suspect by us continuing to treat others' legitimately held views with respect. Always a good thing, when it can be pulled off! Quite enough of that, isn't it about time you pushed off abroad? 😁

Talking of economic activity, lunch break over, for me. This particular son of immigrants (who sorted out their visas) needs to get back to work 😁

But let's take worst case and say that this doesn't happen. Are we really saying that the opportunity to generate £10s billions of economic activity is going to be passed up because EU artists are going to stop coming over. Are there really no UK artists to take their place (e.g. all the pro-musos looking for work who are not moving to Dublin)?

Again I'm struggling with your numbers. How many artists are coming over to the UK to generate £10s billions in small amounts? What are you considering to be a small amount, and we can work backwards to the number of overseas artists coming to the UK each year.

And that's where I'm struggling with the economic analysis. If its worth £10s billions then frankly some enterprising half wit is going to spot that it's worth sorting out visas. It's either worth a lot of money, in which case visa costs and effort are worth it, or it's not?

Our joint love for music trumps politics every day of the week, buddy 😉

Yeah but your use of filter pedals live more than makes up for it 😁

True and the pro-muso small club scene is worth diddly squat over here, as folk have already pointed out. What is worth £billions is film and computer graphics. We're doing brilliantly on that score as a nation.

Tbf the 3M+ from the EU and the other several million from the rest of the world only up sticks and are prepared to leave their homelands and communities because the economic prospects are better over in the UK - assuming that they are economic migrants, of course, which the vast majority are / were (my parents included). So if there is a bigger pot of gold elsewhere and the opportunity to take go for it! You have my admiration sir! It does take a LOT of get up and go to leave the place you've grown up in; the reason why we have such capable EU and rest of the world citizens doing so well over here (and who often get first dibs on unskilled work) is that so many of them were folk with exactly that "get up and go".

So should UK pro-musicians worried about a loss of livelihood from EU work be prepared to get off their backsides and move to Europe, while they can before the 31 Dec this year and FoM is still available, in the same way that 3 million+ EU citizens have been prepared to up sticks and move to the UK in search of work? Dublin would be great place to live, for example, and there are plenty of others!