Is it the Venues fault or yours?

[Dave Vader]

[url="http://diymusician.cdbaby.com/2012/02/why-music-venues-are-totally-lost-an-open-letter-from-a-professional-musician/?utm_source=DIYNews&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=022212"]http://diymusician.c...campaign=022212[/url]

Have a read of this, some very interesting points he raises, most of which I actually agree with.


:edited cos oi carnt speel

Edited February 23, 2012 by Dave Vader

[Lozz196]

Think most of that is spot on.

Many people don`t travel nowadays, as factor in the cost of a taxi, the cost of a few pints, it`s expensive. So following a local band about just doesn`t work for a lot of people.

If a venue gets a band that generates good takings over the bar, it doesn`t matter "who" brought those people in, it`s still a higher amount of money for the venue. One place my old band used to play at, the bar takings would be close to £5000. Many of the people who came to see us there, never came anywhere else to see us, but also, rarely went to that venue to see any other bands either.

[thepurpleblob]

Yeh - I've never played in bands that regularly play the "pay to play" venues but it sounds about right. The odd one or two that I have played have been dreadful holes. I wouldn't have been there "on my own time" - no chance!

[gafbass02]

Very good points all. It's immensely short sighted and frustrating. Which I find is the case of many things in 'business'.

[MacDaddy]

I wish Old Git was here to comment on this

[TheRev]

I agree 100%.

I had a very similay argument with the new owner of a pub that my band played regularly. He didn't want to pay us any more than £100, even though we were popular and the regulars were asking him when my band was going to play again.

I was about to accept his £100 when he said 'how many people can you bring?'
I replied that the venue has customers and it was my job to entertain them.
'you got to bring at leat ten people, or it's worth me paying you £100'

I said that if we were the sort of band that carried their fans around wherever we played, we'd put our own nights on at a better venue, charge on the door and pay ourselves a lot more than £100.
As he was clearly more interested in having ten people in his pub than having entertainment, I then offered to take his £100 and bring ten mates to his pub on Friday night. I woud then give each of my mates £10 of his money to spend over the bar. At very least he would get his £100 back and probably more as my mates are very thirsty people.

He said this was a ridiculous idea - why would he give me £100 to bring my mates to his pub? I pointed out that paying my band £100 to play on the condition we brought in 10 people was exactly the same thing except I'd be drinking instead of playing.

[BigRedX]

The responsibility goes both ways. However too many bands think that the venue/promoter needs to do all the work, while too many venues think it's all down to the band(s) to get people in through the doors. In reality both the band and the venue should be doing everything that they can to maximise the audience. You can also look at it from another angle - too many venues are deeply unpleasant places to be in from both a band and audience PoV and too many bands are simply not entertaining enough to warrant people coming to see them.

Both venues and bands need to lose their out-of-date thinking that seems to be rooted in the 70s and 80s.

Venues need to realise that there is little point in getting a band from out of town to bring an audience with them. What's the point of the band playing to same people just in a different city? They would be better off staying in their home town where they can pick a much more pleasant venue and have far more control over the show. Plus everyone gets to go home at a sensible time.

Promoters/bookers/venues need to realise that a gig will be much better if they put on bands that have at least some musical common ground rather than just putting on the next 4-5 bands that ask for a gig. If the audience that has come to see one band is likely to like the others then they will stay for the whole evening and spend more at the bar. Everyone wins. The venue increases their bar takings and the bands get some more fans.

Bands need to be both entertaining on stage and have a visible presence off-stage. It's no good turning up playing and immediately leaving. Unless you were the most fantastic band in the world (you weren't) no one is going to remember who you were. Have stuff to sell and/or give away to the audience so that they'll go away remembering you. Get people to follow you on Facebook etc. and sign up for you mailing list (and then make sure that you actually have emails to send them). The internet gives you so many opportunities to reach people who would otherwise never know about your band, so make use of them. Social networking means that if you connect with a few people they will start to spread the word. However you do need to get the ball rolling in the first place.

[xilddx]

I think he makes a lot of sense. But it is simplistic and more relevant to his type of genre, jazz, than it is to mine - original music. I think he missed a point in that he has only written from the perspective of the music being interactive wallpaper, rather than the main attraction. His type of band should be paid a certain sum to perform, not get percentages of the door, bar takings, or be expected to bring an audience. The venues he talks about are multi-function, a place where people want to go to meet friends, talk, drink eat and listen to 'good' live music. They should be paid properly if the club owner hires them to fulfill his vision of the venue, just like any other service should be paid for. In this sense, he is dead right.

Most of the pub/club venues I play at with Kit operate similarly to the way he suggests is a good model, however, the promotion is usually handled by the external promoter putting on the 'night'. It's a combination of the reputations of the promoter and of the venue that gets the punters in, the influence of the bands themselves on the size of the audience appears to be quite small. Nevertheless, we almost never get paid, but we are doing it to build a reputation and an audience, hopefully dividends from our investment will be paid in the future. The promoter and the venue are giving US an opportunity to play to an audience. We are not a wallpaper band, we want the audience's attention on US. The venue and the promoter's reputations benefit by the bands hopefully thrilling some people with our music and performances. It's symbiotic until the there's a significant change in reputation of one of the three parties involved.

The letter is good, but only really relevant to small-time working jazz bands and lounge acts who are there to augment the ambience of eating and drinking establishments.

Edited February 23, 2012 by silddx

[chris_b]

This guy is right.

We are not talking about internationally famous bands filling the Albert Hall. Any bar, club or pub that thinks it can survive and prosper solely on the audience a band brings has a bad business model and is doomed to failure. Lazy and incompetent promoters imposing "pay to play" will kill good live music at a local level.

I’m playing in Bury tonight for the first time. That’s 228 miles away from where I live so it’s the promoters job to fill this gig not mine. We’ll give his audience a great show and people will go away happy (having bought the CD) and they’ll come back, if he rebooks us.

Tomorrow’s gig in Yorkshire is sold out! That’s a good promoter doing a consistently good job every week.

This comment summed it up for me: [i]"...would you expect the chef’s friends and family to eat at your restaurant every night?..."[/i]

[musophilr]

[quote name='MacDaddy' timestamp='1329991401' post='1550809']
I wish Old Git was here to comment on this
[/quote]

I was Old Git in someone else's chat room but I'm sure you're not referring to me!

I read the original spiel a little while ago. He makes perfect sense.

[xilddx]

[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1329994956' post='1550909']
This guy is right.

This comment summed it up for me: [i]"...would you expect the chef’s friends and family to eat at your restaurant every night?..."[/i]
[/quote]

The chef is part of the establishment whose team works there everyday, the kitchen is infrastructure and part of the business. It's not a good analogy. There are no analogies to the role of the entertainer in these venues, that's why they get f***ed over so often, and the fact that they are being undercut by their own kind. The biggest threat to entertainers is from themselves, they are all competing for the same scarce resources and there is no effective legal structure to protect their income.

[gafbass02]

No our own Old Git is still sadly and sorely missed.

[pietruszka]

We had this in Soul Technique many times. one promotor had told us we had to bring 50 people in by selling 50 tickets (we would get £1 for every £4 ticket we sold!), promote the night were playing and not gig a week either side of the particular date. All this for a 30 minute support?
Our singer was a bit put off by this and asked for advise;
"Tell him we've been asked to play a support slot, not promote the night and sell tickets for a band our fans don't want to see. He can give us £50 or we won't play."

Guess which option he went for? Yep, the latter.


I hate pay to play venues and that bloke has the argument nailed.




Dan

[BigRedX]

[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1329994956' post='1550909']
I’m playing in Bury tonight for the first time. That’s 228 miles away from where I live so it’s the promoters job to fill this gig not mine. We’ll give his audience a great show and people will go away happy (having bought the CD) and they’ll come back, if he rebooks us.
[/quote]

IMO It's the both the venue/promoter and the band's responsibility to get as many people in as possible. It's not the band's responsibility to bring an audience with them. There's no point as I said in my last post. However they should let people that they know who live in the area where they are playing that the gig is happening.

[Norris]

From the 'pub covers band' point of view, the number of venues offering live music in Leicestershire has dwindled considerably over the years. The handful of places that survive are those that regularly put on [u]good[/u] music and pull in [u]local[/u] people. Few people will travel very far to a pub these days, pub drink is more expensive than that stuff in your fridge at home and people can easily get into the habit of not going out. The way to thrive is to ensure the locals know that on a Friday night they can pop down to the Basschatter's Arms and have a great night regardless of which band is on.

This of course makes it difficult for any new venue that wants to put bands on. They need to accept that they are probably going to run at a loss for the first 6 months and promote like crazy until they are wedged firmly in the local subconciousness. Even that is no guarantee sometimes.

[JTUK]

I'll jump straight in here and admit I've merly skimmed a few posts so far.

Round here, a venue/pub will know they have to painstakenly build up a venue..and that takes time. Some people have these guts, others don't.
Quite a few pubs have cut down to one a month..which defeats the previous point, but that is their decision.

Every bar wants a band to bring in more people than it will get itself on its own terms..otherwise why would a bar/pub pay £200 plus
for a bar with no 'benefits'

The simple economics as explained to me is..that a known venue will want the band to bring 20 people along.. as that will be a decent enough night for the bar to keep
the gigs going. Same bar also said that gig nights were keeping the pub going in these times. Beer is £3.30 per pint, typically, which is above average round here.
Shep pubs prices are less that £3.00 typically and they 'sponsor' an awful lot of music nights/pubs in Kent.
I don't mind paying those prices for the beer..but I also drive so no real money is made out of me. There will be a couple of us, at least so the others make up for it.


If you don't pull people in, then don't expect any gigs round here. It isn't enough to be a very good band, you have to play the numbers game.
As I said before, there are bands that are frankly awful, filling pubs and they will get gigs.
Even indie bands can get gigs if they put on a show with 3 bands... fill the place and the landlord shells out .. this is done on a trust thing, so you need to have a straight landlord
or have the deal sorted.
Other bars want a max fee of £100.00 and you can have 10% of the takings that night. No takers there, certainly from us, and the pub is still doing music...so either
people have agreed to this or they have not stuck to that policy.

At the moment..and this is a bone of contention for me..we don't do many pubs...even as a loss-leader and have moved onto private parties.
I don't say functions as I have no intention of playing a function set and basically we play a pub set for 2x1 hr sets. This has doubled our money we get from pubs...at least.
We charge £400-£1000 for this this year.

I still think we need to keep pubs dates in the book... as this perpetuates the other bookings and gets us around and more known.
But if we also do ticketed ghigs..you can't really water this attendance down by being a regular pub band.
Whether our audience from the pubs sticks with this and pays £8 a ticket, we will have to see.
For our part, I think we need 3 sets.
A pub set to hone our stuff
A party/venue set with a stage show..and therefore a cut above the pub set
and a function set...as you just know someone will throw a good sum at you and you can't ignore it.

FWIW... I want the band to be popular doing what we do... and that is a hard thing to juggle if you don't want to pander too much
and do the numbers every other band does.
Most popular round here in pubs in the 70-80-90's gtr set...but then I'd argue that is what the punter has pretty much rammed down their throat.

I guess time will tell

[thisnameistaken]

I only do originals, but certainly it's hard to get an audience out for new music these days and the promoters won't pay because they know it even better than the bands do. As for cover bands, I don't know the economics of that, I don't do it.

I'm putting a new band together at the moment and I'm tired of the routine of having to be the first people at the venue because they said they wanted to soundcheck at 5pm but they don't turn up until 6:30pm, or the headline band are late, and they want you to bring 30 people in return for some warm Carling, and they want all the other bands to use your backline... So I think I'm going to concentrate on recording for now and see if I can't find an audience before we start gigging, rather than going gigging in search of an audience. I'm sure it can't be any harder doing it the other way around. I have other chances to go gigging so I won't miss it.

[Lozz196]

I think a lot of places are now doing the percentage bit, rather than set fee. Makes sense to both parties really. Of course, when you first play at a new venue, your fee is likely to be lower than you`re used to, but it should make you play to your best - tho in my opinion you should always do so - and encourage those who are there to spread the word, and get larger audiences.

[TheRev]

[quote name='silddx' timestamp='1329993392' post='1550866']
The letter is good, but only really relevant to small-time working jazz bands and lounge acts who are there to augment the ambience of eating and drinking establishments.
[/quote]

This is a good point - there is a world of difference between the politics of playing pubs and playing proper music venues.

[flyfisher]

[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1329994956' post='1550909']
That’s 228 miles away from where I live so . . . .
[/quote]

The taxman allows 45p/mile to run a car, so a 228x2 miles round trip will cost £205.20. Factor in the cost of equipment and I can't see how any but a tiny minority of people can ever make a living as a musician. Basically, they need a 'proper paying' job in order to subsidise their hobby.

[BigRedX]

IMO venues don't really have audiences. Bands do. There's plenty of music venues here in Nottingham, but the only time you'll ever see me in one of them is if either my band are playing or another band I want to see are.

[JTUK]

The best pub gigs round here have a very good selection policy..in that they police their line-up carefully.
That way, you find many turn up every week and they know the criteria and standard is good enough.
In that sense, the venue has the audience already..the bands bring along theirs..and you get a rammed pub.

It works.

[xilddx]

[quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1330008846' post='1551338']
The best pub gigs round here have a very good selection policy..in that they police their line-up carefully.
That way, you find many turn up every week and they know the criteria and standard is good enough.
In that sense, the venue has the audience already..the bands bring along theirs..and you get a rammed pub.

It works.
[/quote]

Exactly, that's what most of my Kit Richardson gigs are like. The variables are the day of the week and the time you play that affect audience size. But the venues are known for quality live original music.

[derrenleepoole]

100% agree with that article. I'm very lucky with my band in that the the singer does most of the bookings, and he's very strict and level headed when he does this. A minimum fee for the band or get someone else, end of. I'm sharing that link

[RockfordStone]

my view is that there needs to be give an take on both sides, the band has to endeavour to get people there, but the promoter has to promote and not just hire a room and expect others to do the work, especially if the band is from out of town

an example we had was a gig in leicester we played, we came from cambridge so its about 2 hours ish journey?
we got to the gig we were headlining and played to the promoter and barman (and i'm not even joking), as the promoter hadn't promoted and assumed we were bringing a crowd.

its one of my major bug bears with venues and promoters, when they expect you to either pay to play, or bring people to get the gig.

i will promote the sh*t out of a gig, but i expect the same from the person putting it on, and who is most likely to be making the money off it