Steve Browning

I was slightly generalising. Food sold above ambient temperature becomes a service of catering and standard rated. Everything else is food and sold according to the Law That's why chocolate Nesquik is standard rated and strawberry isn't. 😂

I should add that a supermarket cafe charges VAT on catering in exactly the same way as a pub/restaurant.

Tim is wrong. The reason is in my answer. A pub provides a service of catering. That is why it is standard rated. It doesn't sell food. A supermarket doesn't prepare it, cook it and serve it. It doesn't pay staff to do those jobs either.

False on both counts. I can see a pub with a brewery attached getting charged Duty directly. Otherwise, it's factored into the price paid by the pub (or by us at the supermarket). I can see the difference if you are talking about certain foodstuffs, but that's pretty niche. A pub doesn't sell any food, it provides a service of catering (as does a restaurant). That is why all such polaces charge VAT on meals etc. That's nothing to do with beverages though. I( recall the furore when VAT was put on takeaway food (as a service of catering).

It's an interesting question, and possibly one of those where the answer is what you are happy with. In general, I would work on the principle that your level of pay is directl;y related to how seriously the payer takes you (taking into account market forces). Here in Pompey, the level of pay for pub gigs is pretty much what it was 40 years ago. There's something inherently wrong there. In certain circumstances I am more than happy to pay for nothing, and do regularly. A commercial enterprise should not expect me to entertain their customers for nothing.

Very true.

Of course Brian May has been using a single 30 watt amp on the biggest stages for about 50 years now.

32% would last me days if it wasn't for Basschat!

The guy who has the highest stake in the business (majority shareholder in the topco) is listed as having the occupation of investor).

Known as 'phoenix syndrome'.

A look at the topco filed consolidated accounts shows losses for the last two years. Store told the local paper they were closed 'for maintenance'. £30m t/o in GAK.co.uk Ltd. £6m operating profit after cost of sales.

Yes. I found you have to slightly turn off your bass player head to play arranged bass parts.

Then work up to some Sammy Nestico big band bass parts!! 😄

No. I've used them for years without issue. I was fortunate to have a trip round the factory and watched them being made. The level of care was very impressive. I should note that I'm a Rotosound artist.

I would say they're not immediately as smooth as some other makes. They are also quite bright to begin with.

It occurs to me that each dmx channel is like a mic in a PA mixer and the lamp unit itself is a separate sub group (comprising those channels). You set each channels level and the sub group is the fixture (whether a single light or all those using the same channel numbers).

Yes. My lighting bars are wireless. I originally used both with one controller but that wasn't bombproof. Then I tried master/slave with the master wireless and a cable to the slave. That wasn't too bad but you are stuck with the options on the bar itself. I wanted a bit more control and went wired with a foot controller. My bars can operate with 20 channels (5 for each lamp) and so I intend (because of the limitations of the foot controller) to be able able to program lights 1 and 4, and 2 and 3 separately (so that the lighting is symetrical on stage). I want to make things a bit more sophisticated and have 3 fixtures instead of 2. Lamps 1 and 4 will be fixture 1 and lamps 2 and 3 will be fixture 2. The other two will become fixture 3 and will need to be assigned to channels 21 to 25. I believe it will work but we'll see!

This is a journey I have been on. I have a pair of lighting bars (of 4 lights) and two other lights. These are controlled by a foot controller. Dmx is actually fairly simple. The lighting bars allow 4 different functions and so channels 1 to 4 are assigned on the light bar. The same 4 channels are assigned on the foot controller and I can control the amount of red on 1, blue on 2, green on 3 and overall brightness on 4. The other lights have 5 available channels and are assigned channels 5 to 9. The 5th channel is for white light. The bars are fixture 1 and the other 2 are fixture 2. This enables me to create scenes that are selected by the foot controller. It took a bit of a sharp intake of breath to jump in but it turned out to be pretty straightforward if a little tedious. Hope that helps.

Hadn't heard of them but just had a look at their site. Very impressed and could well be replacing the late Studiospares for some requirements.

I had one experience when a Hi-Mass bridge practically doubled the acoustic volume of a bass but others haven't been so spectacular. Unless on an old Fender, I have fitted Gotoh bridges because they have 7 screws and tracks for the screws. Perfectly happy with those.

Excellent news. Thanks for the update.