How was your gig last night?

[Bluewine]

Just now, Bluewine said:

 

You guys know I get worried about ticketed events. We're not that kind of band. We do fine when we stay in our lane, festivals and fairs.

 

Anyway I got a text from our band leader yesterday. 

 

" Hi guys:) It’s looking like Thelma is going to postpone the show Friday🙁 not enough tickets sold. I’ll keep you posted but wanted to give you a heads up. I’m emailing with the event coordinator.

 

We sold 13 tickets, doesn't seem like they have a built in crowd. I'll confirm when they give me a 

 

Daryl

 

 

Update:

 

I just received this text from the band leader. 

 

"If Thelma leaves it up to us, how do you guys feel about playing to a small crowd in a big venue?"

 

I'm opting to do it. I don't have anything else to do. Lol

 

Daryl

[dmccombe7]

29 minutes ago, Bluewine said:

 

 

Update:

 

I just received this text from the band leader. 

 

"If Thelma leaves it up to us, how do you guys feel about playing to a small crowd in a big venue?"

 

I'm opting to do it. I don't have anything else to do. Lol

 

Daryl

Paid rehearsal Daryl. ?

We were due to play a Ladies Day charity event on Sun afternoon but the woman who was organising has been in hospital until few days ago and when she came out she found out no-one had advertised the event and ticket sales were virtually zero. We had been advertising on our own page but not much good to the local area of the venue if they don't follow us. Now cancelled too. Shame as i was looking forward to that one. Nice big venue with a decent sized stage.

Dave

[Bluewine]

On 01/05/2024 at 10:48, dmccombe7 said:

Paid rehearsal Daryl. ?

We were due to play a Ladies Day charity event on Sun afternoon but the woman who was organising has been in hospital until few days ago and when she came out she found out no-one had advertised the event and ticket sales were virtually zero. We had been advertising on our own page but not much good to the local area of the venue if they don't follow us. Now cancelled too. Shame as i was looking forward to that one. Nice big venue with a decent sized stage.

Dave

 

Hi Dave,

 

No paid rehearsal. The organisers have officially canceled the show.

 

I'm bummed too. This was a classy room with a beautiful oversized bar.

 

I was concerned about this gig as soon as I found out it was not apart of their outside roof top summer live music series. 

 

Is there anything to be learned here?

 

Daryl

Edited May 3 by Bluewine

[martthebass]

2 hours ago, Bluewine said:

 

You guys know I get worried about ticketed events. We're not that kind of band. We do fine when we stay in our lane, festivals and fairs.

 

Anyway I got a text from our band leader yesterday. 

 

" Hi guys:) It’s looking like Thelma is going to postpone the show Friday🙁 not enough tickets sold. I’ll keep you posted but wanted to give you a heads up. I’m emailing with the event coordinator.

 

We sold 13 tickets, doesn't seem like they have a built in crowd. I'll confirm when they give me a definitive."

 

 

The same organization has a roof top summer music series. Every Thursday night they have a band, food trucks, booze vendors and it's free. Now that gig has a huge built in crowd. That gig would be in our lane .

 

Oh well, I guess it goes with the territory. 

 

Daryl

I get your drift on ticketed gigs. We also avoid; unfortunately last year we ended up doing one in a large venue, we didn’t know it was going to be a ticket job so accepted the gig at a set price. Night of the gig it was clear tickets hadn’t been flying as the venue was half empty. Organisers complaining at us as if it was our responsibility……took us 3 weeks to get paid. Won’t be repeating, that’s for sure.

[Mickeyboro]

1 hour ago, martthebass said:

I get your drift on ticketed gigs. We also avoid; unfortunately last year we ended up doing one in a large venue, we didn’t know it was going to be a ticket job so accepted the gig at a set price. Night of the gig it was clear tickets hadn’t been flying as the venue was half empty. Organisers complaining at us as if it was our responsibility……took us 3 weeks to get paid. Won’t be repeating, that’s for sure.

We are looking for ticketed gigs since we find people pay more attention to us when they e paid for the privilege!

[dmccombe7]

Have to admit almost all of our Glam band gigs are ticketed these days with some pay at the door drop ins if all tickets haven't been bought.

I'm not so keen to accept these charity gigs tho but drummer says we should take a deposit when its a charity event and that way we get 50% payment if cancelled

Venues need to realise that when they don't advertise and a gig gets cancelled because of it then we lose the opportunity of a gig on that day and its a loss of income for us. We could have probably had another gig somewhere else.

Dave

[dmccombe7]

4 hours ago, Bluewine said:

 

Hi Dave,

 

No paid rehearsal. The organisers have officially canceled the show.

 

I'm bummed too. This was a classy room with a beautiful oversized bar.

 

I was suspicious about this gig as soon as I found out it was not apart of their outside roof top summer live music series. 

 

Is there anything to be learned here?

 

Daryl

1. Always take a deposit and that way you still get some form of payment.

2. be more careful on what gigs you accept. Do the research

Dave

[peteb]

4 hours ago, Bluewine said:

Is there anything to be learned here?

 

 

Just that these things happen, especially in these uncertain times! Generally, we (the Zep tribute) play ticketed shows, but the last gig was for a fixed fee and was sold out. We probably should have asked for a bigger fee. The two gigs before that were ticketed and drew a healthy crowd, so we made decent money. The gig before that only got 35 people and lost money! 

 

It is difficult times for many people and there isn't a lot of money around for the average punter. We certainly have had shows cancelled due to low ticket sales, but the next venue might be sold out. It is a bit hit and miss these days and sometimes be difficult to sell enough advance tickets to make a gig viable. 

 

[taunton-hobbit]

Let me cheer you up  Jimmy Ruffin, 'Brokenhearted' at no2, 60% of the door = £65.00  nuff said ?

 

😎

[peteb]

4 minutes ago, taunton-hobbit said:

Let me cheer you up  Jimmy Ruffin, 'Brokenhearted' at no2, 60% of the door = £65.00  nuff said ?

 

😎

 

To be fair, that song was a hit in 1966 and the £65 he got would now be worth £1,225 - not great for a chart topping act, but more than most of us get for a gig these days...! 

 

[Stub Mandrel]

3 hours ago, Mickeyboro said:

We are looking for ticketed gigs since we find people pay more attention to us when they e paid for the privilege!

 

Not ticketed, but aside from festivals our biggest crowds have been pay at the door events rather than free ones.

[Bluewine]

6 hours ago, martthebass said:

I get your drift on ticketed gigs. We also avoid; unfortunately last year we ended up doing one in a large venue, we didn’t know it was going to be a ticket job so accepted the gig at a set price. Night of the gig it was clear tickets hadn’t been flying as the venue was half empty. Organisers complaining at us as if it was our responsibility……took us 3 weeks to get paid. Won’t be repeating, that’s for sure.

 

Thanks Mart,

 

We have a thriving local live band music scene here. However it's all free. It's not 1980, people are not going to pay to see local bands no matter how good they are or how much you promote and advertise. 

 

Daryl

[Bluewine]

2 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

 

Not ticketed, but aside from festivals our biggest crowds have been pay at the door events rather than free ones.

 

Most of our fairs and festivals are free. And that will include multiple stages

(some nice and some not so nice) several local bands and a known signed headliner national act every night. Most major festivals are atleast 3 days.

 

Daryl

[Bluewine]

3 hours ago, peteb said:

 

Just that these things happen, especially in these uncertain times! Generally, we (the Zep tribute) play ticketed shows, but the last gig was for a fixed fee and was sold out. We probably should have asked for a bigger fee. The two gigs before that were ticketed and drew a healthy crowd, so we made decent money. The gig before that only got 35 people and lost money! 

 

It is difficult times for many people and there isn't a lot of money around for the average punter. We certainly have had shows cancelled due to low ticket sales, but the next venue might be sold out. It is a bit hit and miss these days and sometimes be difficult to sell enough advance tickets to make a gig viable. 

 

 

Cool, I'm a huge Zap fan.

 

Yeah, I'm going to chalk it up as one of those "shot in the dark" gigs. This one didn't work out.

 

Daryl

[Bluewine]

3 hours ago, peteb said:

 

Just that these things happen, especially in these uncertain times! Generally, we (the Zep tribute) play ticketed shows, but the last gig was for a fixed fee and was sold out. We probably should have asked for a bigger fee. The two gigs before that were ticketed and drew a healthy crowd, so we made decent money. The gig before that only got 35 people and lost money! 

 

It is difficult times for many people and there isn't a lot of money around for the average punter. We certainly have had shows cancelled due to low ticket sales, but the next venue might be sold out. It is a bit hit and miss these days and sometimes be difficult to sell enough advance tickets to make a gig viable. 

 

 

" These Things Happen "

 

That's what my Dad told my Mom when he came home loaded at 3am with our new car smashed up beyond recognition  in 1966. Lol

 

Daryl

[dmccombe7]

Better clarify that altho most of our gigs are ticketed we get a fixed fee for most of them. The venue takes the profit from the tickets. We play a few venues that we get an 80/20% split fee on the tickets.

Dave

[Mickeyboro]

1 hour ago, dmccombe7 said:

Better clarify that altho most of our gigs are ticketed we get a fixed fee for most of them. The venue takes the profit from the tickets. We play a few venues that we get an 80/20% split fee on the tickets.

Dave

The ones we have done ticketed have been a 50-50 split and 65-35 after deduction of costs which probably comes to about the same thing.

 

So there are rewards, but in publicity terms we had to work hard to get them.

Edited May 2 by Mickeyboro

[tvickey]

My gig wasn't last night, but rather last weekend when on Friday we opened up for Subhumans at The Drill in Lincoln (a 550 person venue, but I heard that around 300 tickets were sold).

 

I'm a huge Subhumans fan, have been ever since I was about 13 or 14 years old (I'm in my late 40's now).  Fortunately I met them once before, otherwise I would have been completely geeking out.  There is a Subhumans cassette tape that I have had since the late 80's / early 90's, which I used to just leave in the tape deck of my car for a long while... I brought it on to stage with me when we opened for them.

 

The Drill is a really impressive venue, and the organization in advance was superb.  It was the largest stage that me or any of my bandmates had ever played on, and we felt a bit out of our league (in the same way that you might feel flying business class when you normally travel economy).  We certainly enjoyed the experience, but at the same time we were playful and laughing about how unusual certain aspects of the show were.

 

I had brought my Mesa 6x10" cab specifically for this show, but sadly the main sound engineer did not want to mic it (he mic-ed the Subhumans bassist's cab, and commented it's only done for the headliners).  For me he used the post-eq DI on my amp... oh well!

 

We had one dedicated sound engineer just for monitors.  He seemed very attentive during soundcheck, but when we played our set in front of the audience he seemed to forget my request to kill the vox in my monitor.  This threw me off a bit at the start, and our songs came fast and furious... I was only able to communicate the problem to him on the fourth song of our set, which starts with the bass and gave me the opportunity to briefly pause. 

 

We had a dressing room complete with mirror and large round bulbs, a couch, fridge, and the wifi password.  Beers and other drinks were provided.

 

My family came along, and my son ran the merch desk.  He did really well on sales!  He sold 5 tees, 6 CDs, and 3 cassette tapes during the show.

 

We played really well, and someone who had seen a lot of our performances commented that it was the best show yet.

 

Most of us stayed overnight in Lincoln, and I went around the town the the fam for some sightseeing the next morning.  We didn't stick around too long however, as we had to hit the road and head to Boston.  There we were headlining on Saturday, but given a lot more time for our set.  We played every song that we had, and I honestly think that the Boston performance was the very best show yet.  They get better and better... 

 

I had to take the fam to Manchester airport on Sunday afternoon, and Subhumans were playing at the Star & Garter, so I popped in for their show.  I caught the opening bands too, and between acts I went into the loo... I find Trotsky (Subhumans drummer) taking a leak next to me and he says, "Hey, what are you doing here?!?"  Funny.  I chatted with the Subhumans merch guy (he owed me a shirt from the Lincoln show, when I traded tees with Dick but they sold out of my size), as well as Phil the bassist (there are two flights of stairs at the S&G, and he said he was too lazy to carry up his bass cabs).

 

I'm honestly not sure that we'll ever play such a large show again... but who really knows?  Anyway, we enjoyed this weekend, which was awesome.

 

 

[Greg Edwards69]

9 hours ago, Bluewine said:

 

Thanks Mart,

 

We have a thriving local live band music scene here. However it's all free. It's not 1980, people are not going to pay to see local bands no matter how good they are or how much you promote and advertise. 

 

Daryl

In my neck of the woods, and I assume most the UK it depends on the gig. Covers bands in pubs are usually free, but tributes and originals in music venues are usually ticketed or on the door.

 

There was one pub we regularly played at years ago that refused to pay bands themselves and we had to charge on the door. I never like doing that. One of us always had to stand by the door collecting money and stamping hands and it was always tricky judging how much to price it.  I remember a few people turning away - they didn't want to pay £5 to go to the pub!

[BigRedX]

Both Hurtsfall and In Isolation played the Goth At The Brewery Event on the 27th as part of WGW.

 

This is a free gig at Whitby Brewery on the Saturday afternoon of the Goth Weekend organised by Dominique from the band Westenra and over the past 3 years has grown from being fairly low-key to one of the major events of the weekend, and for those who attend WGW for the music probably as important as the "main" event at the Pavilion as it showcases the current generation of Goth bands. It draws a massive audience made up of people who are there for the music rather than parading around town in their "costumes" and is now so well attended that the main doors of the room are opened to allow people outside in the courtyard to see and hear the bands too.

 

This weekend was a "Nottingham takeover" with Chaos Bleak also playing.

 

Hurtsfall were on first at 2.00pm. We probably had the best on-stage sound of the afternoon, but even so there were problems with the monitor in front of me which kept cutting out. However due to the nature of the band we are well used to playing under less than ideal conditions, so it wasn't really a problem, and everyone we spoke to afterwards (including several people whose opinions I trust) said the FoH sound was excellent. The audience appeared to enjoy it, and we sold a decent amount of merch afterwards.

 

This photo was taken at the beginning of our set just before Sam, our singer, got everyone to move forward so that more people could get into the venue. Even after that there were still almost as many people outside enjoying the gig as there were inside (and yes that is Whitby Abbey you can see in the background):

 

 

And two more general gig photos:

 

 

 

Chaos Bleak probably pulled the best crowd of the afternoon due to both their time slot and their reputation. And then at 4.00pm I was back on stage with In Isolation. By this time it appeared that all the foldback had stopped working - There wasn't anything coming out of the wedge in front of me, and unlike during Hurtsfall's set I couldn't hear anything from the other two. Still we powered through our set even though it sounded weird on stage. Again we were told afterwards that FoH the mix was excellent, but it was unnerving playing some of the songs with longish intros on the backing tack where they were barely audible on stage, so having no clue when our drummer was going to count us in! Also we discovered that playing last in the afternoon isn't the ideal spot as people tend leave before the end so they can get ready for whatever night-time event they are going to. Still there were a decent number who stayed all the way through our set, and we even had to sign CDs at the end - something which always bemuses me...

 

For some reason there are a distinct lack of photos from our set on Facebook and this one of me was the only one I could find.

 

 

 

 

Edited May 2 by BigRedX

[Mickeyboro]

Some smashing gig reports and stunning photos ; keep em coming folks!👏

[dmccombe7]

1 hour ago, BigRedX said:

Both Hurtsfall and In Isolation played the Goth At The Brewery Event on the 27th as part of WGW.

 

This is a free gig at Whitby Brewery on the Saturday afternoon of the Goth Weekend organised by Dominique from the band Westenra and over the past 3 years has grown from being fairly low-key to one of the major events of the weekend, and for those who attend WGW for the music probably as important as the "main" event at the Pavilion as it showcases the current generation of Goth bands. It draws a massive audience made up of people who are there for the music rather than parading around town in their "costumes" and is now so well attended that the main doors of the room are opened to allow people outside in the courtyard to see and hear the bands too.

 

This weekend was a "Nottingham takeover" with Chaos Bleak also playing.

 

Hurtsfall were on first at 2.00pm. We probably had the best on-stage sound of the afternoon, but even so there were problems with the monitor in front of me which kept cutting out. However due to the nature of the band we are well used to playing under less than ideal conditions, so it wasn't really a problem, and everyone we spoke to afterwards (including several people whose opinions I trust) said the FoH sound was excellent. The audience appeared to enjoy it, and we sold a decent amount of merch afterwards.

 

This photo was taken at the beginning of our set just before Sam, our singer, got everyone to move forward so that more people could get into the venue. Even after that there were still almost as many people outside enjoying the gig as there were inside (and yes that is Whitby Abbey you can see in the background):

 

 

And two more general gig photos:

 

 

 

Chaos Bleak probably pulled the best crowd of the afternoon due to both their time slot and their reputation. And then at 4.00pm I was back on stage with In Isolation. By this time it appeared that all the foldback had stopped working - There wasn't anything coming out of the wedge in front of me, and unlike during Hurtsfall's set I couldn't hear anything from the other two. Still we powered through our set even though it sounded weird on stage. Again we were told afterwards that FoH the mix was excellent, but it was unnerving playing some of the songs with longish intros on the backing tack where they were barely audible on stage, so having no clue when our drummer was going to count us in! Also we discovered that playing last in the afternoon isn't the ideal spot as people tend leave before the end so they can get ready for whatever night-time event they are going to. Still there were a decent number who stayed all the way through our set, and we even had to sign CDs at the end - something which always bemuses me...

 

For some reason there are a distinct lack of photos from our set on Facebook and this one of me was the only one I could find.

 

 

 

 

You have some cracking basses. Love the red and chrome bass. Looks amazing.

Dave

[Woodinblack]

1 hour ago, BigRedX said:

For some reason there are a distinct lack of photos from our set on Facebook and this one of me was the only one I could find.

 

 

 

Love the Gus basses - still keep wishing that one would turn up at some price I could afford at the time, but I suspect it won't.

 

Also shame I never got to the WGW. I was due to go in 1996, had the ticket for me and my girlfriend and everything but then me and my girlfriend had one of those not being together any more issues that stopped us going, then I moved to the states, so by the time I came back I was very out of the scene.

[BigRedX]

34 minutes ago, dmccombe7 said:

You have some cracking basses. Love the red and chrome bass. Looks amazing.

Dave

 

Thanks! The two in the photos are now my main basses.

 

I have second Gus 5-string in all black which is a back-up for the red and chrome one, and hope to be selling my other two Bass VIs in order to buy another Eastwood Hooky.

[BigRedX]

28 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

 

Love the Gus basses - still keep wishing that one would turn up at some price I could afford at the time, but I suspect it won't.

 

Also shame I never got to the WGW. I was due to go in 1996, had the ticket for me and my girlfriend and everything but then me and my girlfriend had one of those not being together any more issues that stopped us going, then I moved to the states, so by the time I came back I was very out of the scene.

 

Unfortunately I think the era of cheap Gus Guitars is long past, especially since the Prince connection. I was lucky enough to get my G1 guitar and the G3 black 5-string bass back when the new prices were a fraction of what they are now. The red one in the the photos was second hand and just under £1k, but it was in dreadful condition and cost me almost as much again to have it completely refurbished by Simon about 15 years ago.

 

If you were going to go back in 1996 that would have been in the very early days, as this October is the 30th anniversary of the original weekend in 1994. The weekend has grown beyond its tentative beginnings, and although it could appear to have been taken over by people parading around the town in "costume", there is still a very healthy audience for the musical side of things as witnessed by this and other gigs around the town. The fact that Whitby has it's up and coming own goth band in Westenra has most definitely helped to keep the music current.