TimR

I have a loose plan. It won't be a function. Probably more a Jules Holland style thing where I sit in with various different musicians playing different styles. A bit of jazz, some pop, classic rock, heavy metal... Some disco music on the iPod for in between sets. A bar. It takes no real planning other than booking the hall and sending out invites, asking people to play and booking a buffet.

[quote name='EliasMooseblaster' timestamp='1473165751' post='3127552'] . Even with an original artist playing something incredibly twiddly and technical, there will be some innate fascination in watching them execute these feats of noodly technicality, and so if you have to choose between two such groups, then the group who can apply a little more showmanship to their technoodlesome execution is more likely to be the one that gets your ticket money. (Though conversely, I often wonder if the one thing worse than a shy band is a band that's too arrogant and just gets on the crowd's nerves. Is a hostile atmosphere worse than no atmosphere?) [/quote] I went to see a friend play at an originals night. They were second on of three. The first band were excellent the venue was full. They pitched it perfectly. Musically and showmanship. My friend's band were also superb. Musically and showmanship. However about half the audience left as soon as the first band had finished. Once my friend had finished the audience halved again but we stayed to watch the last band. Musically they were competent, they could play their instrument, but the tunes were terribly written. People started leaving. The singer/guitarist was getting more and more agitated as more people left. Eventually launching a tirade of abuse at the audience about not recognising good music. We left after that. Aside: I once went for a meal at a restaurant's opening night. Halfway through the meal a band started up. It was a small restaurant and the band were loud, people were there to eat. They were playing original songs. We complained to the restaurant several times about the volume level. Eventually the singer came over and told us we didn't know anything about music and it had to be loud when playing live. All 10 of us looked at her and burst out laughing. We were having a band night out with the 10 piece function band.

[quote name='RhysP' timestamp='1473153265' post='3127343'] For lots of people the music is all the "interaction" they need from a band, they don't want or need any more "entertainment" than that. I'm one of them. [/quote] Certainly. However, people come to see a band, not necessarily to listen to a band. I suspect that people who are not interested in being entertained will come back whether or not te band are entertaining, whereas those who do want to be entertained will not come back if you don't entertain them. So you will lose part of your audience by only playing and not performing the songs. If, as in the OPs case, you actually like playing to an audience, the performance part of the music is quite important.

It have 4 LED par cans. They're DMX but as mentioned above set them to sound to light. I think mine are the DJled ones and 2 are 48 and 2 are 64. Stuck on two small tripods behind the PA speakers light the band really well.

It's difficult to know without actually having been there. Know the area. Know what the rooms are like. Know what kind of bands he lets rehearse. I'd not be too worried about power off an locking up. I'm not sure I'd be totally happy with checking lifts are empty. Depends what the 'lifts' actually are. I've been left in charge of all sorts of buildings. It's not really a big deal.

[quote name='RhysP' timestamp='1473097878' post='3126922'] This very much depends on the genre. I wouldn't expect to go & see a death metal band, or somebody like Steven Wilson, & have them smiling & throwing cheeky winks at the crowd, or telling crap one-liners in between songs. [/quote] Indeed. I'm still not convinced a death metal band who stare at their shoes all night would be a particularly enteraining act. Presumably they interact with the crowd in some way.

Is he the owner or just a key holder? If you're uncomfortable with it just say no. The only problem is if you don't lock up properly. He's responsible and didn't ensure it was locked it's his problem as far as the insurers will be concerned. Whether or not he comes after you is another question entirely.

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1473084676' post='3126727'] I don't think that songwriting is the problem. There's at least a couple of decent songs in every originals band. And remember that very few "signed" bands are much better. How many albums (that aren't greatest hits/best of) do you own where every song is a classic, and how many times have you bought an album on the strength of a great single only to find that is the only good track on there? The problem most bands have is that they simply don't have the ability to perform those songs in a way that is entertaining to an audience. The number of times I've seen bands struggle to project beyond the edge of the stage or simply play as though they are still in the rehearsal room and the audience might as well not even exist. And with the "product" now being the live performance it should be easier than ever to be able to hone your act so that it entertaining on stage. After all you just need to use your rehearsal room time properly. That's relatively cheap compared with what you used to need in order to make a recording that could compete with what was in the charts. [/quote] Yes. People come to see a band to be part of the atmosphere and part of the action. Why should they come if you're not making them part of what you do? Talk to them at breaks, be friendly, make eye contact and smile during the show. Basically perform and draw them in. .

I'm pretty sure more than three men and their dog listen to Mahler.

[quote name='4stringslow' timestamp='1473075597' post='3126572'] That's an interesting point, but what would be an alternative measure of quality? In a band context, isn't the most important thing entertainment, in which case popularity would seem to be a good metric? I've no doubt we could have a very worthy academic discussion about the 'quality' of a piece of music but if a three chord ditty is enjoyed by more people then what's the point? [/quote] The point of Pop music is it is Popuar. That's by definition. People can't complain on one hand that they're playing arty music and popularity doesn't matter. Then complain that no one comes and listens. I appreciate that it may be different people. But surely you want to make music that people want to listen to. Seems a bit odd to me.

[quote name='luckydog' timestamp='1473068179' post='3126474'] Oh, I think we can. Now where shall we start ? There is: by definition it is fresh and unique. So it has to jump significant extra hurdles of familiarity and reputation. Agree it needs to be particularly worthy of interest to get a following. But one has to run it up the flagpole to see who salutes it ! LD [/quote] Maybe that's the problem? I see lots of bands trying too hard to be fresh an unique. I also see lots of bands just copying their heroes. You have to find the middle ground. An originals band that sets out to attract members with the advert "<insert genre here> <insert influences here> looking for <insert very specific type of musicain here>" is to be avoided really. Generally people are attracted to something familiar. Try to depart too far from that at you've got a lot of work to do. Music tends to evolve rather than suddenly make massive jumps and departures from the norm. Even electronic music and punk were based heavily on what has been before. Take a diverse group of musicians and put them in the melting pot. .

I like 4string's approach. A lot more relaxed, play local gigs. If the music is good people will come. Ultimately it's about letting people know you are playing and when and having a massive network of friends in all your other areas of life. If all you do is band and the only people you socialise with are the band or close mates of the band, you're restricting the size of your network. I'm a member of a local running club with 200+ members. Last local gig I had 20 of them down, they're spreading the word amongst themselves and more are now interested in coming down. Next time they'll bring more friends. (Caveat - they all race on Sunday mornings so if our Saturday night gig is before a big meet, they all leave halfway through the second set. At least I know that's legitamte. ) Unfortunately I work in London and there is zero chance of anyone travelling out to see us from there (we play covers, I don't wear jeans though, I'm not f....g Jeremy Clarkson!)

Yes. Spend a little bit more.

[quote name='4stringslow' timestamp='1473017651' post='3126140'] That's a fair point, though in our case it's more casual networking than being a proactive. A pub we've played many times is the 'local' of our singer. He once mentioned he was in a band and was then invited to come along and play, which we duly did and have been asked back many times since. So I take your point that gigs don't arrive out of thin air, but equally it's not as if we're out there all the time delivering flyers to every venue we can find. We don't even have a demo CD or a web presence . . . although it's something we keep talking about and have have made a few recordings in preparation. Trouble is, I never think they're good enough and always want to improve them before burning loads of CDs, meanwhile the rest of the band loses interest and we make no progress. [/quote] Get a live video done using a fixed camera and a mate with a video camera. Edit the two together using an iPad with iMovie. It's very powerful. Upload to YouTube. No CDs required, no one listens to them. You can take your iPad to a venue and play the video there and then. Put it on FaceBook etc. No website required. In all honesty it really doesn't need to be perfect. It's a disposable commodity. If you can actually get him to watch, the booker will watch it once, maybe not even all the way through. He'll know within about 30secs whether you're what he is after. People are spending too much time and energy in the wrong areas. All that casual networking is actually what's getting the gigs. It's not a hard sell. It really depends on who you are approaching.

[quote name='4stringslow' timestamp='1473020979' post='3126194'] At the pub and other small venue level, what percentage of the audience has actually travelled specifically to see ’your' band rather than just turning up to see whatever live band that happened to be playing at that time? In other words, how often does the audience come to band rather than the band coming to the audience? [/quote] This really depends who you are and how often you've played there before and how well your casual networking skills have been when you played before. If you've a decent Facebook following you will get quite a lot of locals coming specifically to see your band. We used to go to The Turrets in Frien Barnet in the 80s. We would find out which bands were playing and only go to see certain ones. We didn't have to travel far. It was 5 stops on the tube, but it wasn't just dropping into the local for a pint and a band just happened to be playing. I do similar now with Lemon Rock. If I'm free on a Saturday I'll look to see who is playing where and chose. I'm not sue how typical I am though. That's a sample size of 1.

[quote name='luckydog' timestamp='1473017144' post='3126130'] Hey, you must be doing something right then, so keep on doing it. if you know it's good, and others get it, so you're basically on. Don't know how many times you've been round the block, but assume you know the score. My 2p worth : keep writing strong material and don't compromise, only take bookings likely to be successful, only play bills with same genre bands, make bonds with those bands for mutual support, know the demographic of your supporters, time gigs for when your audience has money (monthly paydays, grants etc), play gigs when your audience is around (term times, weekends, early/late eves), book dates well in advance, get local reviews, go see other local bands of all sorts and they'll see you, social network, choose a promoter who likes you, don't worry about making money, play short sets, be nice to everyone esp venue engineers, and be lucky. Phew ! LD [/quote] This, in spades.

[quote name='ians' timestamp='1473017200' post='3126131'] Done only two live gigs in the past 10 yrs but here's a couple of observations. A local originals band would always struggle to pull in the punters until established, goes with the territory...bin there done that,. I honestly don't think I could stomach playing to a modern audience with them all either looking at there phones or holding them up videoing the band. Weird. And thirdly. I think we live in a new era.. where live entertainment is going to die and be non existent in 10-20 yrs time. I thank my lucky stars that my best gigging days were in the late 70's early 80's where I was out five nights a week doing originals, covers, holiday camps etc....feeling rather sad about it all really. [/quote] Don't be. It won't. People have been playing electric guitars for 85 years. It's not going to stop.

[quote name='arthurhenry' timestamp='1473016661' post='3126122'] ??? Girls wearing T-shirts? Hanging? That would certainly create a spectacle. [/quote] I need to have another look at the autocorrect on my iPhone. It's making up all sorts of things. "Young". Since the latest OS upgrade It goes back and changes words in sentences even after I've written them correctly.

[quote name='4stringslow' timestamp='1473014470' post='3126093'] We don't have a promoter but we've played that music festival for about the last five years. I think we got our foot in the door from playing the 'Sunday Live' gigs at Hertford Corn Exchange (a series of Sunday afternoon gigs during the autumn/winter months). Unpaid gigs with no entrance fee and an audience of about 30-40 out for an afternoon drink before Sunday dinner and an opportunity to play on a decent stage with a good PA and sound guy. 50 minute sets of mostly original songs with a few covers thrown in to keep the audience awake . We also got a support slot for Neville Staple (Specials) through the same route, just because we had a couple of ska-ish songs at the time. Actually, that was a paying gig, in theory, but because we're useless at promotion only a few people said they'd come to see us on the door so we didn't 'sell' enough tickets. Still, we didn't care and had a fun time anyway [/quote] I suspect you have a leader who is actually a pretty good salesman. You just don't realise it. You don't just walk into a venue with your gear and start playing. Somewhere along the line someone has had to persuade someone to let you play. How many venues that have been completely empty have you said afterwards "We should play there more often, it was great fun"? and how many venues would you play if you knew there would be no audience? I suggest the person who books your gigs does actually do some homework, you just may not be party to it. Our band leader works very hard behind the scenes booking gigs. I've done it myself, it doesn't just happen and really most of the band don't need to know or understand that side of things. .

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1473016025' post='3126114'] People are funny with gigs, if you can sell them a ticket a few weeks before for £2 they'll travel half way around the world instead of losing that £2! [/quote] Yes. See my argument on the other thread.

[quote name='RockfordStone' timestamp='1473014180' post='3126086'] to an extent i agree, to another i disagree of course a band has to promote itself, that goes without saying, and with social media it is made a lot easier almost to the point bands have become lazy with promotion. but if you are to believe some of the comments on another thread (you know which one i mean), bands are being exploited by promoters when they agree to play for free with the promoter taking the money. if that's the case, surely it's in the promoters best interest to promote the show to get people in so they can make money off the bands they are exploiting by getting them to play for free? [/quote] It's not a mutually exclusive situation. My guess is if a band has a big following, the promoter makes his money more easily, promotes the band more as it's a more productive use of his time. Just like its a more productive use of the bands time, effort and money to stay at home and practice, than it is to carry all their gear two hours up the motorway, set up and play in front of no people. (Of course they didn't know this when they left their houses, but judging by a few comments on this thread, had they asked here what the venue was like before travelling, they may have been in a better position to chose the right option.) If the band has a small following, not much in the way of promotional material and isn't proactive in promoting themselves, it's a much harder job for him. .

[quote name='4stringslow' timestamp='1473009208' post='3126011'] That's not my experience over the past 10 years or so. We might give a gig a mention on our individual Facebook pages, but most of the time we simply apply to play at some event, like the Hertford Music Festival I mentioned in another thread, or get invited somewhere, very often places we've played previously. Sure, we're not playing to hundreds or thousands but I can only remember one gig where the other bands outnumbered the audience and 50 or 60 people in a small pub is generally enough to create a good atmosphere anyway. Again, I guess it all depends on ambition. We're quite happy with gigging once a month on average and we find that we don't have to actively 'compete' to get those gigs, so we're perfectly happy with everything. I'm sure if we were aiming to 'make it big' or were dependent on gigging income then we'd fail dismally, but we're not. We just enjoy writing and playing songs and feel lucky to be able to do so without having to put in lots of 'collateral effort'. The problem with discussions such as these is that a perfectly valid point for one band situation is touted as a general point for every band, which is clearly ridiculous. There are many different circumstances and therefore many different approaches. What works for one band may not work for another, but that doesn't mean either are wrong. I certainly wouldn't recommend our band's relaxed approach to anyone with serious ambition but I would suggest there is room for all. [/quote] I'm not talking about 'making it big', I'm just talking about being selective with the places you chose to play and making sure that your audience feel that they're missing out on something special if they don't attend. Hertford music festival has a reputation for good music. The promoters will be queueing up to get their bands on. Most of your work is already done and if the audience like you and you get asked back that's really good. On the other hand, if you were playing one-off gigs to small audiences it's a different game altogether. In the other thread we talk about being selective where you play and make sure that you make the most of every gig. In particular, if you're not being paid, make sure you get something out of it. It's very hard to have 'fun' if no one turns up. It's difficult for an agent or promoter to have a real interest in promoting you if you don't already have a reasonable following. My worry is if your 'fans' aren't following you arround then maybe you're not actually playing music they really like. We have a core of 12 people who follow us to practically every gig. It's only 12 but it's an indication that at least some people enjoy what we do. (We don't even play originals and they could see any band play 40% of our set in any pub) .

[quote name='skej21' timestamp='1473006733' post='3125982'] I think you're missing one of the saddest points made by your own observations... The 'next generation' will be more interested in music like electronic music or acoustic material and probably less interested in 'bands'/traditional musicianship. Covers bands 20 years from now will either be a guy with a laptop and a launchpad blasting out classic dub tracks or a guy with an acoustic and a looper covering Ed Sheeran. [/quote] That's what they were saying in the 80s. Sorry. It's never going to happen. .

[quote name='Roger2611' timestamp='1473006449' post='3125977'] I thin k you are probably correct on this, we do accept that age is against us and to be fair this project was based around recording the best music we could and if we got some decent gigs out of it then that was an additional bonus, so we didn't bring a crowd, no surprise (we actually stepped in last minute to fill a hole, so couldn't really promote it in advance, not that it would have made much difference if we had!) but we played with a young post hardcore band (whatever that may be!) on their first European tour who to some extent are relying on merchandising sales to fund the tour and a truly phenomenal Australian beat box performer who just blew my mind! It is not as if the event didn't have diversity and appeal. What does annoy me is people moaning locally that "you're always playing in Leicester" (20 miles away so hardly the other side of the world) so when we do play locally and invite those that moaned they still can't be bothered to get off their lazy asses and attend. I know I can play in a covers band and trot out the much hated Sex On Fire to our hearts content but what are the next generation of covers bands going to have to pick from if there is no one creating new music that anyone is interested in? [/quote] People are interested in new music. They're only interested in Sex on Fire because that's what they're used to hearing and lots of bands equate doing requests as giving people what they want. It's not very efficient playing your music to small crowds. I assume you pushed your Facebook page during the gig and you arrived a few hours early and had hung girls out in the area wearing T-shirts and giving out flyers for the gig. I presume you had a few hours notice of the gig. If the venue is regularly getting low audiences I'd look at the attitude of the management and then bar staff and the cleanliness of the toilets and general ambience. People have had enough of going to grotty venues with surly staff. May not be worth playing there of that's the actual problem. Plus. How does your music fit in with an Australian beat box and a hardcore metal band. That's just the wrong combination on my mind, it's not going to attract anyone for a whole evening.

[quote name='4stringslow' timestamp='1473001460' post='3125908'] I suspect you're right, which is why it's all about the music for me and not about the business. [/quote] But if you don't network and do the business type things to compete against the other highly financed businesses you just won't get noticed above all the noise. Like it or not you're in competition. Be that financial or just for an audience.