Pay to Play

[DogHammer]

Recently I have been trying to find a few gigs in London.

Being an original Rock/Pop outfit from Oxford, we always gig in the same places around our home town. Its good to branch out and London is only a short trip for us.

We have secured the odd gig, one coming up on the 20th of September supporting another band in a Pub/music venue.

But the main problem we face is the damn pay to play promoters. Even the big ones do it for all bands outside of London.
The old 'You buy 25 tickets from us to sell to your fans before you play' malarky.

For them to be doing this I presume a lot of bands actually take the gigs and try to hock this ticket allowance out, just for a chance to play a gig in a London venue?

Does anyone else have any experience with these damn pay to play promoters? am I being to negative about it? Anyone got any tips for getting gigs in London when your not from the city?

[JTUK]

Time honoured 'scam' where you fill a pub on a dead night typically.
There may be costs on the night and a lot of these gigs have house engrs and P.A's
which can be a good thing but basically, I view it as a job for the boys type exploitation
and this pays the rngrs and promoters for setting it up which can be a lot of work.
The pub/venue LL will 'sub' out his venue to someone who is going to fill that night
when he still has fixed costs whether it is full or not...

Don't do it unless you are confident you can sell the ticket allocation.
It can work for you but my cynical take on it is you pay to fill an empty pub.
Consider the figures..
4 bands at 25 tickets each is 100 tickets. Sell them at £5 = £500.
LL/Venue might get a slice and promoter and engr certainly will...
If you sell those 25 tickets what do you get from it..%-wise..?? probably
£25 petrol..?? so there is £400 potentially to be split up ..?
Not so bad money on a wet tuesday night.

The promoters don't so much promote ...they organise it. You ( the bands ) provide the bulk of the audience.

[Lw.]

Tell them where to shove it - there're plenty of venues in London you can play that do not employ this kind of rubbish, I'd say it's a sign of places to be avoided.

I've done it a couple of times in the past when I was younger & didn't know any better - never again.

[zero9]

You have to ask yourself why your doing this. I know from experience that it's hard to get gigs playing originals, and it will cost you to play a gig. If you're likely to get good exposure with a fair chance of getting more gigs, then it's worth doing imo. If it's just to fill a promoter's pub, I'd say you're wasting your time (at your own cost).

Edited August 22, 2014 by zero9

[flyfisher]

Playing for free is one thing but paying to play is a step too far, for me anyway.

I've also heard of schemes where bands get a slice of the ticket money but only after a certain number of tickets have been sold, so it's a paid gig but you could end up with zero pay. But at least that doesn't mean you're actually out of pocket (well, apart from the usual travel and equipment expenses).

I guess there are lots of schemes out there. I wouldn't call them scams as long as the 'rules' are clearly understood and are handled fairly. We're all grown ups and should be able to decide for ourselves.

[RockfordStone]

in my last band we used to say "ok we'll sell 25 tickets" or whatever, then show up having sold none and played, we never got turned away.

i was approached by a venue recently who wanted us to sell 25 tickets, and then for every ticket after 25 we'd get a pound per ticket.... i politely informed them to shove it

thing is, there are lots of bands who will accept these terms.. the sooner bands stop doing it the quicker it won't be a viable scheme.

i'll happily play a gig for free, but pay to play shows are a no no for me

[joeystrange]

There's a reason promoters keep offering pay-to-play gigs... Because bands keep accepting them.
If bands stop going for it it'll stop happening and we might get back to a point where we actually get paid for playing gigs.

Plus I'm fairly sure selling tickets comes under the umbrella of promotion. Which is usually done by promoters.

Edited August 22, 2014 by joeystrange

[Dave_the_bass]

Local venue, for us, has just introduced a variant of the ticket scheme which seams quite fair!

When you sign up to play a gig there, no matter where on the bill you are, they ask you how many tickets you want in your allocation. They then give you a direct web link to pass on to fans, friends, family etc.

For every ticket sold on that weblink you earn £1.

For us, as a new band, low down on the bill it means we'll get a few quid towards expenses.

It encouages newer bands to promote themselves and get paid. The more well known bands will stop playing there as "promoting the gig is the promoters job".

[BigRedX]

London promoters (and some bands apparently) need to wake up to the fact that there is no longer anything special about playing in London especially if the band is from out of town. The days when the venues of Camden (or wherever was hip before) were regular haunts of record label A&R men are long gone. Unfortunately these days London is just another place place to play, and there is absolutely no reason to pay for the privilege, when most bands would be just as well off playing somewhere that will PAY THEM.

Having said that there are paying gigs available in London for those band who are suitably entertaining.

[ambient]

It maybe makes more sense to befriend bands in London that play similar music to you, and support them.

Maybe return the hospitality.

You could also find which venues don't charge for you to play by doing this.

A lot of bands from my uni play at the Good ship in Kilburn, I don't know if they charge you to entertain their audience, but it'd be worth finding out.

[icastle]

I've never done it and I never will.

The venues will all expect a 'professional' performance to please their customers.

I don't expect the garage to pay me for fixing my car, so why should a venue expect me to pay to entertain their customers.

[bertbass]

We won't play in London anymore. Congestion charge, emissions charge, no where to park the van, it's not worth the hassle.

[ambient]

I played the Pink puffin or purple parrot or some such place in Camden a few years ago, pretty nice venue, and I'm pretty sure that wasn't pay to play.

[Roger2611]

I really don't understand the logic of this pay to play culture, so they want you to bring your own crowd to an otherwise empty London Pub......what exposure is that giving the band...it's already your crowd they've seen you before (without paying for a ticket and travel to London) so who else are you playing to?

We played the Bull and Gate in Kentish Town many years back, we brought about 20 People, the band that played before us brought about 20 people who all left as soon as their mates finished, our crowd all got back on the minibuses as soon as we finished leaving the headline band playing to the 20 people they brought along....not a lot of exposure really for a long day out traveling to London to play some grotty empty dive!

[discreet]

[quote name='ambient' timestamp='1408727574' post='2533040']
I played the Pink puffin or purple parrot or some such place in Camden a few years ago, pretty nice venue, and I'm pretty sure that wasn't pay to play.
[/quote]

Purple Turtle?

[fretmeister]

It's spreading though.

The Superbowl halftime show is also now pay to play

http://www.forbes.com/sites/willburns/2014/08/20/why-pay-to-play-will-ruin-the-super-bowl-halftime-show/

[BILL POSTERS]

Tell em to shove it...

Surprised anyone actually falls for that one. if you really want to play the venue, chat up some of the bands who play there regularly and offer to support them.

Edited August 22, 2014 by BILL POSTERS

[skankdelvar]

London pay-to-play promoters have been up to this old game for at least 30 years; first time I encountered this practice was about 1982 at The Rock Garden in Covent Garden. The lure for young bands was the fabulous myth that West End venues would be packed with A&R scouts on the hunt for the next big thing.

It was all bollocks, of course; the audiences were mostly Japanese tourists who'd sit at their tables nursing a half of lager top and clap politely between numbers. Other, less streetwise bands would tell us that the numbers would always fall [i]just [/i]short of the threshold at which they would be paid. Funny, that.

London's glamorous West End was - and still is - a complete snake-pit for 'hopeful' bands. Last time I gigged there we did a support for a mere £50 petrol money just for the fun of sharing a stage with a band who had been our 'major influences' back in the day. [i]Even then[/i] the promoter ducked me for an hour after the gig until I barged my way into his office past a rather camp 'security' guy and laid the matter out for the little reptile in forceful terms.

London pay to play? Forget it. If possible, spend the money hiring a room locally and promote one's own gig.

Edited August 22, 2014 by skankdelvar

[Jazzneck]

Wot Bill says above.

[BILL POSTERS]

[quote name='skankdelvar' timestamp='1408731877' post='2533085']
London pay-to-play promoters have been up to this old game for at least 30 years; first time I encountered this practice was about 1982 at The Rock Garden in Covent Garden. The lure for young bands was the fabulous myth that West End venues would be packed with A&R scouts on the hunt for the next big thing.

It was all bollocks, of course; the audiences were mostly Japanese tourists who'd sit at their tables nursing a half of lager top and clap politely between numbers. Other, less streetwise bands would tell us that the numbers would always fall [i]just [/i]short of the threshold at which they would be paid. Funny, that.

London's glamorous West End was - and still is - a complete snake-pit for 'hopeful' bands. Last time I gigged there we did a support for a mere £50 petrol money just for the fun of sharing a stage with a band who had been our 'major influences' back in the day. [i]Even then[/i] the promoter ducked me for an hour after the gig until I barged my way into his office past a rather camp 'security' guy and laid the matter out for the little reptile in forceful terms.

London pay to play? Forget it. If possible, spend the money hiring a room locally and promote one's own gig.
[/quote]

Its not just in London. That, and similar scams, like paying to use the rubbish house P.A have been going for years.

Years ago I heard of one Birmingham pub gaffer that turned out to have been getting money from the brewery to pay bands, then doing the 'Band gets the door money after the first £50 or so' thing for years.

[skej21]

Tell them to jog on. They just want you to do all the hard work and take all the money because they think you're happy with the kudos of saying 'I'm gigging in London'... Gigging in a sh!thole that rips you off is a venue to avoid no matter where it is located!

[bassninja]

As Frank so aptly put it, 'there's a big difference between kneeling down and bending over'.

I wouldn't do it.

[Lozz196]

Don`t do it. If you already know 25 people who will come to see you, organise it locally and then they can all have a much better time without transport/ticket costs, and whichever venue you do it in, because the crowd will no doubt be spending that extra money over the bar, should book you again, and hopefully pay you.

Promoting is a two-way thing. Ask these people (I won`t call them promoters as I suspect they don`t actually promote) what efforts they make to get equivalent numbers through the doors for each band. If they want 25 each from 4 bands on the bill, where are their 100 punters coming from?

Edited August 23, 2014 by Lozz196

[ricksterphil]

Interesting stuff and I like the we blink thing for tickets (I presume it's Eventbrite or similar)

The skill of self-promotion is key....and social media platforms make this possible if you're prepared to put the work in.
I guess if a band can build up a big enough following it's easier to demand more cash to play if you know you'll get 100 or so through the door

[scalpy]

[quote name='Roger2611' timestamp='1408730224' post='2533065']
I really don't understand the logic of this pay to play culture, so they want you to bring your own crowd to an otherwise empty London Pub......what exposure is that giving the band...it's already your crowd they've seen you before (without paying for a ticket and travel to London) so who else are you playing to?

We played the Bull and Gate in Kentish Town many years back, we brought about 20 People, the band that played before us brought about 20 people who all left as soon as their mates finished, our crowd all got back on the minibuses as soon as we finished leaving the headline band playing to the 20 people they brought along....not a lot of exposure really for a long day out traveling to London to play some grotty empty dive!
[/quote]

You must have been supported by the same band as us, exactly the same thing happened! My old band used to do the whole London thing a lot (before social media)How a promoter expected you to build your audience when the bill would be one band from Manchester, one from Norfolk and one from the West Country, I have no idea.