Promoting a gig night. Anyone done it?

[radiophonic]

I live in a small town in the Midlands. There are loads of pubs that seem like they are basically empty during the week. The only live music night in our town is the Folk Club (which is run by a bunch of characters straight out of The League of Gentlemen - traditional music for traditional people / what is this electricity of which you speak? / Judas! etc). I was thinking of trying to get something more lively going. Maybe a band with an open mic support. Anyone done it and care to talk me out of it? PA etc wouldn't be an issue, it's more the promotion that I'm not sure about. I've played a few of these things and they can be great or terrible. A few things that I've already thought of are:

1. Location - If its in our (small) town, expecting people to come from very far out is probably an error. Promotion will have to be locally targeted.
2. I'm willing to bet that there are a lot of people who can/would play an open mic, but getting bands might be more difficult. There will of course be a metal band.
3. Early in the week is a waste of time - the best ones I've been to have been a Sunday night but with an early-ish start.
4. People go to the pub to drink and talk. A band is only a bonus if you can still do both of these things whilst the music is playing.
5. Most of the pub clientele in my town (except Wetherspoons) is older. Young people either have kids and cant go out or save their money for the weekend and hit the city. This probably rules out experimental weirdness, even if I'd be quite happy listening to it.
6. I won't be able to pay the notorious 300 quid a night for two hours of classic rock. Our band would play, obviously. We know other bands who might and none of us are used to raking it in, but what's the best way to monetise it? It would need to be self sustaining.
7 Approaching someone in one of the grubbier bits of Nottingham might be better - but raises similar issues of niche promotion, willingness to travel, night of the week etc.

Any other thoughts / experiences?

[ROConnell]

I think that they best way to pitch it to a potential pub, to avoid paying them; would be to have a clear plan about how you can grow the night, and how therefore, it can benefit them in increased revenue. Having some objectives for growth might convince them to let you set this night up in their empty pub. I think the first step is making it clear that it's a project, they won't be getting 300 extra quid worth of beer sales the first Sunday it's on. They need, and you need time to let it grow and gain a reputation as a quality music night, so I would say that any pub who want instant results aren't the one for you.

Additionally, for monetising it, as a jam/open-mic night, you cannot really charge so I would simply encourage donations to keeping the 'jukebox' as such, playing.

Best of luck! Live music needs more people willing to stick a leg out!

[cheddatom]

I play the Black Market Venue in Warsop (not far from Nottingham but pretty small) fairly regularly, and for the right bands, people really do travel. I think the fact that it has a car park and seems to let people stay over night in their campers there helps the numbers.

[Lw.]

Build it & they will come!

There are plenty of people out there that want to go to a gig but often there just isn't a good enough one available to justify the effort.

So long as you don't spend too much money trying to over-reach yourself I don't think you can go wrong with booking your own band plus, say, two extra ones I don't think you can go wrong - just keep things nice, simple & cheap! I've played lots of these types of gigs & they often turn out quite good.

[radiophonic]

[quote name='Lw.' timestamp='1486564049' post='3232809']
Build it & they will come!
[/quote]

... If they know about it. Promotion is key, I think.

The odd things is, that in the mid 80s that's exactly what we used to do. Book gig, photocopy up a load of flyers, wander round the music pubs at chucking out time the weekend before, get busy with the wallpaper paste in the bit of town where everybody else flyposted. Bingo, an audience would be present. CCTV, heavy policing of city centres, late bar licences, fragmented music scene, regulation of live music in pubs, NYNs etc have all acted against this approach. All very regulated. All very dull.

I'm still torn between the local and the in-grotty bit of town approach.

[Low End Bee]

I've done a fair few. As long as you are prepared to put in the graft, have endless patience and very low expectations you should be alright.

Not sure about mixing bands with an open mic thing. Potential to detract from both. I'd put two or three bands on and keep the open mic seperate.

As long as everyone on the bill buys in it can be a lot of fun.

[Happy Jack]

The thing about open mics / jam sessions is that the audience will comprise almost entirely musos waiting to play. In most cases that means that they'll be nursing a soda & lime, so even if the place is full there'll not be much to show for it from a landlord's POV. For an open mic to be viable, you'll probably need to attract local musos who might in due course become regulars at the pub on non-music nights.

Whether you go open mic or bands, the key will anyway be the promotion. Posters, websites, gig listing, social media, you name it. And that never stops. Ever.

[BigRedX]

My band has done it and it was pretty successful too.

This is what we discovered:

1. Anything other than Friday or Saturday night is a complete waste of time, money and effort, unless you have a suitable venue and enough money to be booking bands who are well known enough to entice people out on a school night.

2. Pick a format that works for you and stick with it. Decide whether you want covers bands, originals bands or an open mic night, if you are looking to build up a regular audience, because IME there is only a little crossover between the three.

3. Start small and grow carefully. There's a point at which something which is doing a turnover of a few hundred pounds an event suddenly turns into something that requires a lot more financial risk if you want to carry on expanding. Don't get too over-ambitious.

And this is what we actually did:

We made it work by using a venue that was already putting on bands although so they were already set up with an in-house PA and a roster of people to work it. We got a once a month Friday night slot with a percentage of the bar takings that was used for publicity and to pay the bands. We put on bands in a very specific genre rockabilly/psychobilly/garage rock so that over the months people knew what to expect and we could be a little more daring with our choices of headlining bands once we had established an regular audience.

We started off by booking reasonably well-known up and coming bands from out of town (such as Pussycat & The Dirty Johnsons, The Franceens, The Ricochets), with our band plus another popular local band as support. That way we could maximise our audience for the evening.

We called in a lot of favours from people we knew for poster design and general publicity, as well as having proper DJs to play music between the bands rather than just relying on an iPod playlist.

It helped that we made it into a proper themed evening, where it was more than just a few bands playing in a pub. After the first 6 months people could simply show up even if they hadn't heard of any of the bands before, but know that if they had enjoyed it last month, they were going to enjoy it this month as well.

Good luck!

[Monkey Steve]

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1486569836' post='3232882']
My band has done it and it was pretty successful too.

This is what we discovered:

1. Anything other than Friday or Saturday night is a complete waste of time, money and effort, unless you have a suitable venue and enough money to be booking bands who are well known enough to entice people out on a school night.

2. Pick a format that works for you and stick with it. Decide whether you want covers bands, originals bands or an open mic night, if you are looking to build up a regular audience, because IME there is only a little crossover between the three.

3. Start small and grow carefully. There's a point at which something which is doing a turnover of a few hundred pounds an event suddenly turns into something that requires a lot more financial risk if you want to carry on expanding. Don't get too over-ambitious.

And this is what we actually did:

We made it work by using a venue that was already putting on bands although so they were already set up with an in-house PA and a roster of people to work it. We got a once a month Friday night slot with a percentage of the bar takings that was used for publicity and to pay the bands. We put on bands in a very specific genre rockabilly/psychobilly/garage rock so that over the months people knew what to expect and we could be a little more daring with our choices of headlining bands once we had established an regular audience.

We started off by booking reasonably well-known up and coming bands from out of town (such as Pussycat & The Dirty Johnsons, The Franceens, The Ricochets), with our band plus another popular local band as support. That way we could maximise our audience for the evening.

We called in a lot of favours from people we knew for poster design and general publicity, as well as having proper DJs to play music between the bands rather than just relying on an iPod playlist.

It helped that we made it into a proper themed evening, where it was more than just a few bands playing in a pub. After the first 6 months people could simply show up even if they hadn't heard of any of the bands before, but know that if they had enjoyed it last month, they were going to enjoy it this month as well.

Good luck!
[/quote]

+1 to all of this - a club night with bands will always get more people through the door than just having band playing, and it's far easier to get people to part with their money for entry

they key is finding the market, catering to it and promoting the hell out of it. Emphasis on the promotion.

I've helped mates organise gig nights and have seen the extremes, from almost empty rooms above pubs with tumbleweed blowing across the stage to rammed pubs with people being turned away at the door. And the difference was always how well the nights were promoted. A poster taped on the pub window a week beforehand isn't going to bring any extra punters in, it's only going to scare off the regulars who don't fancy that sort of a thing. Use local listings, free ads, whatever you can, and target similar events for flyers, etc.

Also agree solidly with the "pick one or the other" suggestion - jam/open mic nights are the same crowd of musicians doing the same songs every week - I have seen very good ones where they encourage bands to come and play sets, but half the crowd are still stood at the bar clutching their guitars waiting for their turn and nobody extra ever came just to see the bands. If you are going for jam/open mic nights then I suggest you do a bit of local research - what other nights are they on (and make sure they don't clash - there are only so many musicians to go round), what do they do well/badly, do they cater for a specific crowd and ignore another (for instance if it's a load of old white fellers polishing their strats and waiting their turn to do Lay Down Sally then you might want to try something different, say a metal jam night)

One other tip - look for bands who will get a crowd in. By which I don't mean a band who already have a following and expect to be paid very well for bringing them (although if you can pull a favour or two and swing that, great), but see if you can find a band of local teenagers who will promote the hell out of it on social media and bring all their mates because they've never played live before. Not for the whole line up (they may be terrible and if the locals have to listen to three awful bands playing every Friday they're probably not going to come back for very long)

Edited February 8, 2017 by Monkey Steve

[BrunoBass]

Yes, and I loved it. I was promoting a monthly night of mostly solo performers and duos or small groups for a couple of years until about 18 months ago. I'd book a feature act which was normally someone who had maybe released an EP or done a bit a press that would maybe attract a few fans or followers, and then three local acts who might bring some of their mates.

I loved every aspect of it, from sorting out fees, PA etc to doing the posters, which I made to resemble classic record labels. I'd promote the hell out of the nights on social media and get the acts to do so on theirs, which they were happy to do. Local radio and a couple a local music blogs supported us and consequently we were always well supported.

I never made a lot of money at it, but that wasn't the point. It was more about just putting the nights on and the joy of pulling everything together.

Then one day the landlord left the pub and the brewery turned it into a tapas bar. If I could've continued I would have, and if I find another venue I'll do it again for sure.

Edited February 8, 2017 by PaulGibsonBass