Playing Pubs.....

[spongebob]

My covers band is trying to fill the diary for 2011. We've got some re-books from this year, but trying to get new venues....phew!

I appreciate pubs get overrun with demos, but for the most part, their attitude stinks. I can't believe how rude and off-hand so many are!

There just must be an easier way to get a gig....once you're in, that's fine, but it's the getting in at first!

I'd love to try a different approach.....but what? Maybe an agent or something, but I wouldn't have a clue where or how to go about it.

We were thinking of doing some originals in the new year, but some places I spoke to actually asked if we were an originals band - and if we were, forget it!

Really looking for some advice for others on this and how you get on securing bookings in this climate.....help!

[Jacqueslemac]

[quote name='spongebob' post='1021719' date='Nov 12 2010, 05:35 PM']My covers band is trying to fill the diary for 2011. We've got some re-books from this year, but trying to get new venues....phew!

I appreciate pubs get overrun with demos, but for the most part, their attitude stinks. I can't believe how rude and off-hand so many are!

There just must be an easier way to get a gig....once you're in, that's fine, but it's the getting in at first!

I'd love to try a different approach.....but what? Maybe an agent or something, but I wouldn't have a clue where or how to go about it.

We were thinking of doing some originals in the new year, but some places I spoke to actually asked if we were an originals band - and if we were, forget it!

Really looking for some advice for others on this and how you get on securing bookings in this climate.....help![/quote]

I'm subscribing to this thread in the hope of soaking up some good tips! (No pun intended.)

[icastle]

[quote name='spongebob' post='1021719' date='Nov 12 2010, 05:35 PM']My covers band is trying to fill the diary for 2011. We've got some re-books from this year, but trying to get new venues....phew!
I appreciate pubs get overrun with demos, but for the most part, their attitude stinks. I can't believe how rude and off-hand so many are!

There just must be an easier way to get a gig....once you're in, that's fine, but it's the getting in at first!

I'd love to try a different approach.....but what? Maybe an agent or something, but I wouldn't have a clue where or how to go about it.

We were thinking of doing some originals in the new year, but some places I spoke to actually asked if we were an originals band - and if we were, forget it!

Really looking for some advice for others on this and how you get on securing bookings in this climate.....help![/quote]

Here's a few ideas for you:

1) Forget giving out demo disks to pubs - they get ignored, forgotten, thrown out with 20 others and really don't work like they used to.
Get the landlords e-mail address and e-mail them an MP3.
The rationale behind this is that a CD needs them to both find time and remember to listen to it - send it by e-mail and they're a) already sat down and can get on with something else while they listen.
To make it dead professional, in the e-mail mention in passing that you can supply them with a CD if they particularly want it in that format.

2) Word of mouth is the very best advertising you can get, so make sure you do everything you can to keep the landlord "sweet" - they all know each other and they all talk. I've lost count of the number of £700+ wedding gigs that have been booked purely on word of mouth recommendations over the last year, and we're getting a couple of calls a month from places we've never played at before asking if we can sort them out a date.

3) To bolster up the word of mouth approach, get some short reviews from previous customers and pass those on to the landlord so they can see what their fellow landlords have to say about your performance.

4) At the end, when the audience is (hopefully) clapping - get them to give the landlord a clap as well ("for being a great landlord and making us feel so welcome tonight" or some such thing) - I've seen the hardest landlords turn to jelly after a public "thankyou" like that.

5) Agents "cost" and in my dealings with them over the years, don't add a huge amount of value - do you really want to go down that route?

6) Covers or originals - probably an unpopular statement I'm about to make here, but in this current economic climate, as you have discovered, pubs are generally not interested in putting on originals bands.
It's tough but if a landlord has a choice between a band playing originals and selling 50 pints of beer or a band playing covers and selling 200 pints of beer then the choice is pretty clear.
They want stuff that people know, feel at home with and will drink along to (and who can blame them!?!).
If you are treating this as a business orientated exercise then you need to supply what your customers are looking for.

There is most definately a place for original music within the pub circuit, but now is probably not the time for it.

Edited November 12, 2010 by icastle

[Cat Burrito]

By and large I agree with icastle here. Why bother with demo tapes? A link to myspace even in an email is all we use. Also allocate one person to deal with all the crap if you can. It was always me but in my current band it's the singer. He's spent 7yrs building his contacts.

Again it's really about getting people to like you. Always thank the soundman and the landlord / landlady. After all you are working with them so you want to get on, right?

[risingson]

icastle hit the nail on the head here with some really sound advice.

We get practically all our gigs through word of mouth, we started off a few years ago playing a bar near us and then the manager set us up with gigs in his other bars locally, then people started to come and see us from the Midlands and further afield and started booking us for weddings, functions and all manner of well paid stuff. It's all about having a good rapport, and most of all being prepared with business cards at the end of gigs and being punctual with replies to gig offers and emails. Nothing sets you up better than being an organised band. Think about it: turning up on time, being set up when you're told and giving them a hell of a gig will mean that the chances of you getting recommended to play again are very high indeed.

Finally, some people think they can mess bands around and put them on the back foot because they feel because they're giving you a gig they're somehow doing you a favour... but as long as you're drawing them a crowd, it's YOU that's doing them a favour. Don't waste your time with pubs that feel as though they can take the piss, there is money to be had elsewhere. It's worth while remembering the gigs worth doing and the the ones that aren't.

[NickH]

My current (all covers) band is starting to get some word-of-mouth round our local area after a "personnel reshuffling" sorted some of our issues.
We also signed up with an agency and so far they've been great. The gigs we get from them pay 2-3 times what we'd get from a pub gig, the venues tend to be nicer - definitely worth their 15% off the top. In particular the November - December diary is chock-a-block with agency gigs all paying a ton of cash, because if a club or company wants a band for their Big Yearly Booze-Up and Dance, they're more likely to go to an agency.

On the other hand, we've definitely had to raise our game for these higher class gigs. Got a band 'look' sorted out, got the gear PAT tested, public liability insurance, really polished the songs til they shine, and learnt some more diverse material. All good things (which to be honest we should have done anyway, ahem) but this really motivated us to get the band acting a lot more professionally than we had been.

[icastle]

[quote name='risingson' post='1021835' date='Nov 12 2010, 07:19 PM']It's all about having a good rapport, and most of all being prepared with business cards at the end of gigs and being punctual with replies to gig offers and emails. Nothing sets you up better than being an organised band. Think about it: turning up on time, being set up when you're told and giving them a hell of a gig will mean that the chances of you getting recommended to play again are very high indeed.[/quote]

Absolutely.
Business cards are essential and definately worth spending a few quid on - don't be tempted to have seperate one's for each member - it get's confusing, agree amongst yourselves who is best placed to be able to answer calls during the day and use that persons number.

Have a band diary so that all planned holidays and booked gigs are there in black and white, all band members update this at weekly rehearsal so it stays up to date - this save's a lot of mucking around using deps (I get loads of dep work because people don't do this so I shouldn't really complain...). The person taking the calls needs to manage the diary so they can give a fast "yes" or "no" to gig requests.

As for setting up, the question we always ask is "what's the earliest we can get in there to start setting up?"
If we're playing a Saturday evening wedding reception we are generally loaded up at 8am, at the venue at 8.30am and fully setup and soundchecked by midday. We then all go home and meet back at the venue about an hour before we are due to go on.

A couple of us also go to the venue a few weeks beforehand to ensure that we know:
1) Who the venue contact is and get them on side.
2) Size\shape of the room so we know where we are going to setup and decide what kit we need to take with us.
3) Location and number of mains sockets available.
4) Work out rough cabling routes and check we have appropriate cables to do the job.

We don't do this for pub/festival gigs, but wedding gigs we stick to a "uniform" - black trousers, white top - cheap, easy to manage for everyone and despite my initial resistance to the idea, it does look very professional on stage.

Have two encore songs available and make sure they are good ones - not leftover tunes that didn't make the main set.
Once you have done the encores... STOP - if you go back on again and play a rubbish last minute thing then you will be remembered for that, not for being accomodating.

Biggest and most important thing though is to have fun and interact with the audience - get them on side and you've got it made - WOM and repeat bookings will start appearing...

Edited November 12, 2010 by icastle

[stingrayPete1977]

Im not a big fan of agents but we have one at the moment getting us some decent gigs and all he charges is £10 from each band for each gig, He has quite a few venues on the go so I suppose he does alright and we wont miss a tenner for the donkey work. That said this is the first time we have found one that does what he says and is not a total tosser and getting in the loop in the first place is not easy and only takes bands he likes and knows wont mess him about which is fair enough as there are 2 sides to the coin.

[lojo]

We got into a few local pubs, and initially said pay us X but if takings are good pay us more, and 2 on first night £50 & £70 more than X, we are back for the 4th time in one of them in Dec

Also landlords know each other, if you have a good night in one, make sure you ask who else in the trade they can recommend you too, everyone loves to recommend, be it a band or an honest plumber



I've not played originals for 15 years (hope to again sometime), but I remember the circuits venues being very different

Most of the pubs we play now have real party atmospheres with the covers, we slip a few rare things in, so based on that I guess you could get away with a few originals in the set

But a whole set of unknown material in the places we do would not produce the atmosphere that gets the beer pumps and wine flowing making the landlord happy



We have enough gigs as we cant do loads, but if we did wish to push it I guess its easier for someone to click a link for 10 seconds than mess around with a CD, so I guess we would make a website, is that the done thing these days?

[icastle]

[quote name='lojo' post='1021881' date='Nov 12 2010, 08:09 PM']I've not played originals for 15 years (hope to again sometime), but I remember the circuits venues being very different[/quote]

Yes totally different.
Most of those venues have developed their own "niches" and a roots band playing in a bikers pub just wont work regardless of how good a bunch of musicians you are.
[size=1][i]At this point I'm expecting 20 people to tell me that they play in Peruvian folk bands and play in thrash metal bikers pubs every weekend...[/i][/size]

Three of us from the covers band have started working together as a stand alone folk/roots band playing a lot of originals and are picking up a fair bit of work on that circuit, so it is "doable" but the market is pretty limited.
Has to be said though that we use the covers band for income and the folk/roots/originals thing for pleasure.

[quote name='lojo' post='1021881' date='Nov 12 2010, 08:09 PM']We have enough gigs as we cant do loads, but if we did wish to push it I guess its easier for someone to click a link for 10 seconds than mess around with a CD, so I guess we would make a website, is that the done thing these days?[/quote]

A website is a good idea - we've been talking about one for a while now but haven't got around to it as yet so we're just using a couple of e-mailed mp3's and a well written and mutually agreed mail.

Edited November 12, 2010 by icastle

[Chris2112]

I have to say, I am completely done with the pub circuit. It used to be better, but now it seems to have died a bit of a death, and is is tougher on musicians than ever before. With the increasing prevalence of pay to play, it's just awful.

I'm lucky in that as far as band playing goes now, it is 100% studio based for me now. As a band we've retired from the live scene as it's just too much hassle and fuss for what you get back from it. I'm fortunate that one of the guys I play with has an amazing home studio where we can relax, drink a few beers and jam. Once we've got something on tape we can play it back and adjust/mix it at our leisure as there are no studio fees!

If I was going to go back to playing live it would only be on the hotel/wedding scene as you are pretty much guaranteed to have appreciative and accomodating organisers and customers.

[charic]

Only thing I have to add is if you phone up: you're the band manager, you are not the bassist in a band looking for a gig. Instant attitude change

[icastle]

[quote name='Chris2112' post='1022152' date='Nov 13 2010, 07:51 AM']I have to say, I am completely done with the pub circuit. It used to be better, but now it seems to have died a bit of a death, and is is tougher on musicians than ever before. With the increasing prevalence of pay to play, it's just awful.

I'm lucky in that as far as band playing goes now, it is 100% studio based for me now. As a band we've retired from the live scene as it's just too much hassle and fuss for what you get back from it. I'm fortunate that one of the guys I play with has an amazing home studio where we can relax, drink a few beers and jam. Once we've got something on tape we can play it back and adjust/mix it at our leisure as there are no studio fees!

If I was going to go back to playing live it would only be on the hotel/wedding scene as you are pretty much guaranteed to have appreciative and accomodating organisers and customers.[/quote]

I can't work out whether Zootopia is in the North or South of the country but reading through various threads in BC it does seem to be different in different parts of the country.
I was talking to the landlord of my local about Pay to Play earlier this week and he was astonished that people actually went for that and was of the opinion that if he tried to put something like that in place he'd never get any one to play at his pub and get a sh*t reputation - "those bloody southerners" (add your own gruff Derbyshire accent and mix for the full effect).

Edited November 13, 2010 by icastle

[Mog]

[quote name='icastle' post='1021820' date='Nov 12 2010, 07:03 PM']Here's a few ideas for you:

1) Forget giving out demo disks to pubs - they get ignored, forgotten, thrown out with 20 others and really don't work like they used to.
Get the landlords e-mail address and e-mail them an MP3.
The rationale behind this is that a CD needs them to both find time and remember to listen to it - send it by e-mail and they're a) already sat down and can get on with something else while they listen.
To make it dead professional, in the e-mail mention in passing that you can supply them with a CD if they particularly want it in that format.

2) Word of mouth is the very best advertising you can get, so make sure you do everything you can to keep the landlord "sweet" - they all know each other and they all talk. I've lost count of the number of £700+ wedding gigs that have been booked purely on word of mouth recommendations over the last year, and we're getting a couple of calls a month from places we've never played at before asking if we can sort them out a date.

3) To bolster up the word of mouth approach, get some short reviews from previous customers and pass those on to the landlord so they can see what their fellow landlords have to say about your performance.

4) At the end, when the audience is (hopefully) clapping - get them to give the landlord a clap as well ("for being a great landlord and making us feel so welcome tonight" or some such thing) - I've seen the hardest landlords turn to jelly after a public "thankyou" like that.

5) Agents "cost" and in my dealings with them over the years, don't add a huge amount of value - do you really want to go down that route?

6) Covers or originals - probably an unpopular statement I'm about to make here, but in this current economic climate, as you have discovered, pubs are generally not interested in putting on originals bands.
It's tough but if a landlord has a choice between a band playing originals and selling 50 pints of beer or a band playing covers and selling 200 pints of beer then the choice is pretty clear.
They want stuff that people know, feel at home with and will drink along to (and who can blame them!?!).
If you are treating this as a business orientated exercise then you need to supply what your customers are looking for.

There is most definately a place for original music within the pub circuit, but now is probably not the time for it.[/quote]

I'll agree with that.
Also you have to look/act as professional as possible WRT set up, start/finish times etc. In and out sharpish. Set duration ( I dont understand why bands who play two sets with a 15min break in between, all you do is loose the momentum ).

Scope out as many pubrock bands as you can and DO NOT play what everyone else is doing. I swear if the band in my local tonight play Kings of Leon, Lady Gaga, The Killers or Journey i'm gonna go mental! Theres plenty of great tunes out there. What I used to do was go to the bars when there wasnt a band playing and write down what was played on the jukebox over an hour and a half.

Volume is key. If your band is using 4x12 guitar cabs its overkill. As is an 8x10 bass cab. The bar staff dont want to be shouting over the racket all night.

Work the crowd, dont stand there looking at your feet. The owner wants people having a good time. Fun = more beer sales.

STAY AWAY FROM AGENTS!!!

[icastle]

[quote name='Mog' post='1022340' date='Nov 13 2010, 01:05 PM']Scope out as many pubrock bands as you can and DO NOT play what everyone else is doing. I swear if the band in my local tonight play Kings of Leon, Lady Gaga, The Killers or Journey i'm gonna go mental! Theres plenty of great tunes out there. What I used to do was go to the bars when there wasnt a band playing and write down what was played on the jukebox over an hour and a half.[/quote]
Yep - very good points there.
We tend to have enough material to do sets from the 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's and 00's so we tend to have a quick lookaround beforehand and see what age group we have and bias it towards them with just enough other decades covered to keep everyone else interested.

[quote name='Mog' post='1022340' date='Nov 13 2010, 01:05 PM']Volume is key. If your band is using 4x12 guitar cabs its overkill. As is an 8x10 bass cab. The bar staff dont want to be shouting over the racket all night.[/quote]
Absolutely.
I've been known to walk out of pubs where the volume is too loud and I should theoretically be used t it!

[quote name='Mog' post='1022340' date='Nov 13 2010, 01:05 PM']STAY AWAY FROM AGENTS!!! [/quote]
I read that as GENTS

[warwickhunt]

re. the attitude of some bar managers.

I'm finding the same thing and I wonder if it is just the pressures of running a bar is getting to them, hence their attitude to bands is 'factious' or could it be the actual calibre of bar managers! If you think about it, a few years ago I'd likely as not have dealt with the same manager for years on end when getting bookings/rebookings (generally on first name terms and matey with them) however, now I'm lucky if it's the same manger that is in place 3-6mths after we have booked/played. IMHO the calibre of manager is woeful as it's likely that many good candidates are thinking that the bar trade is a dead-end and likely to failure, hence any old bod is getting the job regardless of experience or attitude... all just my opinion mind!

[Mog]

[quote name='icastle' date='Nov 13 2010, 01:26 PM' post='1022362'

I read that as GENTS
[/quote]

I've no problem using the ladies if its closer to the the bar

[icastle]

[quote name='warwickhunt' post='1022372' date='Nov 13 2010, 01:32 PM']re. the attitude of some bar managers.

I'm finding the same thing and I wonder if it is just the pressures of running a bar is getting to them, hence their attitude to bands is 'factious' or could it be the actual calibre of bar managers! If you think about it, a few years ago I'd likely as not have dealt with the same manager for years on end when getting bookings/rebookings (generally on first name terms and matey with them) however, now I'm lucky if it's the same manger that is in place 3-6mths after we have booked/played. IMHO the calibre of manager is woeful as it's likely that many good candidates are thinking that the bar trade is a dead-end and likely to failure, hence any old bod is getting the job regardless of experience or attitude... all just my opinion mind! [/quote]

No, I think you're spot on there.
I can't be a lot of fun being in an industry where 10 pubs a day are closing (or whatever the latest figure is).
As for the calibre of managers, absolutely - you'd need to be crazy to want to join a shrinking industry where the failure rate is as high as it is.

[icastle]

[quote name='Mog' post='1022387' date='Nov 13 2010, 01:45 PM']I've no problem using the ladies if its closer to the the bar [/quote]

LOL - Do you get many repeat bookings or does your ASBO forbid them?

[chris_b]

Set up a web site. Check out the opposition and get a list of all their gigs off their web sties, then start phoning. Don’t undercut other bands, be polite, don't take no for an answer and always call back if you're fobbed off.

[JTUK]

[quote name='chris_b' post='1023081' date='Nov 14 2010, 02:00 AM']Set up a web site. Check out the opposition and get a list of all their gigs off their web sties, then start phoning. Don’t undercut other bands, be polite, don't take no for an answer and always call back if you're fobbed off.[/quote]


This...and you make the venue come to you.....or if they will not do that, don't give them a chance to not need to book you.
And don't kid yourself this is much deeper than a purely financial deal.
You need to be worth it or getting the one gig..not so hard..will be all you get.

Personally we do try and vet venues for being the type of place we want to play and still tick along at around 2-3 gigs a month.
We tend to have decent relations with the venue or we wouldn't want to play there.

Oh and stick at it... it can take a couple of years to get onto and stay on a circuit, although circuit is too strong a word round here as that broke down years ago.
We just pick off a pub or two that suits us...which does indeed slow the progress somewhat.

If you aren'tr that well connected into the local 'scene' it might be worth paying a booker/agent who is.

A lot of our gigs come through the grapevine as one or two of us are known for being able to fill a date but it doesn't happen overnight.