Gigs you should never take

[Spock]

This is a subject that a lot of people don't find out about until they have taken a nightmare gig.

I've never been part of one, but a battle of the bands is rarely a good idea. The only winner is the club owner that hosts the event. The only way you "win" is to constantly have a bigger set of your friends to "vote" for you than the other bands. Let's think about it for a bit. If you can always pull in a good crowd, then you should be able to walk into any club and on the size of your draw get a paying gig.

So you show up for the first week after begging everone you know to come vote for you. This along with 4 or 5 other groups, none of you get paid. The club owner gets more people in than normal and cleans up on the door and the bar. The next round it's the same thing all again.

And if you want some other ideas why it's not a good idea, read some of Bob Olhsson's comments for promoting a band. Always headline, and don't play a place you can't fill.


OK your ideas on poor ideas for gigs.

[bunnerabb]

Gigs that "don't pay, but are a good promotional opportunity". Bullshit. Promote yourself to whom? Is the whole fucking A&R staff from Sony / BMG there? Fuck you. Sell your beer on somebody else's back.

Outdoor private parties at somebody's home. The electrics will be shit, the pay lousy, the food worse and the cops WILL arrive and shut it down.

Pay to play gigs. 'Nuff said.

[floodstage]

The gigs I won't take anymore are bars that are trying to change the style of music they have. (from country to blues for instance) That never works. The old regulars hate you and there are rarely enough new people. Think "Blues Brothers at Bob's Country Bunker". It sucks.

An outdoor party in the country can be an awesome gig.

Outdoor gigs in subdivisions without organization and neighborhood backing are a recipe for a meeting w/the cops.

[Spock]

An outdoor party in the country can be an awesome gig.


So true.

We did a big private outdoor event back in June. Some type of scholarship foundation. They were not that far out in country, big open area, they built us a stage and put and put a tent over it, pulled power for our use. Had killer food, a big bonfire. They paid way better than bars and with the announcements they needed to do over the night, the amount of playing time was way down.

So in the long run we made more money for less effort, we had a crowd that danced their asses off, and they booked us right away for next year.

A win-win.

[st robert]

most gigs in roller skating rinks don't seem to pan out...

but the outdoor private party can be amazing if the host invites the neighbors. we played a birthday party for a lady thrown by the husband. great food, great drinks.

the host was pointing me to the bathroom and i caught sight of his bar and the bottle of reserva de familia tequila there. "that is wonderful stuff", i says. "yes it is", he says. then he opens it up and off we go, killing half the bottle and shooting the shit with the other guests. i wish they were all like that.

i also keep bugspray in my keyboard case since. veeery important.

rob

[G. Hoffman]

Never, EVER, take a gig with a 5:00 A.M. call time on a golf course.



I swear, I killed 10,000 mosquetos just running my hand down my arm.



Gabriel

[pounce]

a soundmand friend of mine specializes in all of those kinds of things. sound for golf tournaments, car races, bike races, etc. events where power and sound is weird. he seems to do ok with it, but boy what a weird gig.

[mixervixen]

Never, EVER, take a gig with a 5:00 A.M. call time on a golf course.

Gabriel

That sounds too early for me -- but I did play outdoors at a driving range at 5:30 p.m. -- next to the freeway, it was too cold and windy for the mosquitos!

[Mixerpuppet]

most gigs in roller skating rinks don't seem to pan out...




Nooooooo!!!!!


I spent a good part of my teenage years going to battle of the bands at Skate King!!! 1980...sumthin


There still doing it!!!!


The sound was always good as well as the lighshow...


2 stages with back to back FOH in the middle of the mess...


Plenty of setup time that way...




A

s far as gigs...

Take no gigs as a substitute at the last minute.... unless there is good money...


or free kegs of beer...

[ggunn]

Gigs that "don't pay, but are a good promotional opportunity". Bullshit. Promote yourself to whom? Is the whole fucking A&R staff from Sony / BMG there? Fuck you. Sell your beer on somebody else's back.


Ah, yes, the "exposure" gig. Very common here in Austin.

[graveleye]

How about "pay to play". That actually got hot for a while.

There is a club here in town that does free-ticket night. You get a stack of tickets and give them to all your friends. The friends get in free, and you get paid according to how many tickets they collect with your name on them. Never works out to your benefit though.


I agree also that battle of the bands totally suck ass.

I'm not keen on open mic nights either in regards to getting a gig. IOW, you may play at our bar if you come do an open mic night on Tuesday. If you perform well, bring a crowd, then maybe you will be promoted to a paying Wednesday night gig. Well if your friends are lame and never come to see shows, then you are screwed into Tuesdays and Wednesdays forever.

[ggunn]

How about "pay to play". That actually got hot for a while.

There is a club here in town that does free-ticket night. You get a stack of tickets and give them to all your friends. The friends get in free, and you get paid according to how many tickets they collect with your name on them. Never works out to your benefit though.


That used to be a common practice here in Austin; maybe it still is. Homie don't play dat no more.

A friend of mine moved out to L.A., and he reported back that they had the same thing out there, too, except that they charged the band $250 for the stack of tickets. Chick-a-boom, chick-a-boom, don't ya just love it?

[graveleye]

I wonder though, if any of us here have ever been on the other side of the fence when it comes to booking bands for clubs..

just playing the devils advocate, look at what these booking agents go through. The phone rings all day, barely any pay, you got mad sucking bands beating your door down to play there, and fact is, a lot of them would be happy to smoke all kinds of pole just to play at the hot club for free on a sunday night.. to an empty house.

Many bands feel like its the club that will carry them to greatness, and not by their own efforts and talent.

Sometimes it seems like the bands themselves are the ones that have cheapened themselves. The clubs are just naturally taking advantage of them for the cheap or free entertainment.

[blackieC]

I see your point clearly.


Were that I were on the other side of the fence and lacked just a few more scruples than I currently do, I can easily see how tempting it would be to exploit those who not only choose to be exploited but will even pay for the disservice.


In my younger days I played a string of "Battle of the Bands" gigs, and now looking back I am both amused and annoyed by the memory of how violated I felt when I finally figured out that I had been used. Of course time has passed and apparently tought me little. Up until a couple of years ago I was still playing bar gigs for tips. Sure we would take the occasional private party for a grand or so, but mostly it was trying to figure out at the end of load out how to split twenty eight bucks five ways.


There will always be people out there who are willing to take advantage of the fact that there are people like me, and perhaps you, out there that are willing to accept table scraps and at times pay to go hungry because you are addicted.

The thrill of connecting to even just one person in a shit-hole southside bar has yet to be equalled by any drug I've taken. I've tried a few, but I'm not experimenting anymore. I know where the real highs are now.

You might consider me a live-music-twelve-stepper. I miss playing out. I crave playing out. I feel that I might succumb to my weakness and try to form another band.

[pounce]

we are on the much larger thread now, why are musicians such bad businesspeople? they don't understand very much (in general) with respect to money, law, contracts, etc. they have no idea how to present themselves to help minimize any taking advantage of. they presume music is just an excercise in hedonistic rock and roll glory. i give them at least half of the blame, opportunistic pricks on the other side of the table the other half of the blame. smart bands with some business sense have a lot fewer nightmare stories, or at least they only have to get burned once to learn their lessons. sympathy for the poor bands? i dunno, it's usually at least half their fault that they end up in weird situations. otoh, club owners are a lot that i dont' have any respect for by and large. a lot of them are of the lying crooks variety. i dont' know, other than that bands need to be a bit smarter to avoid that kind of thing. some exposure to the business and experience in this business will take care of that.

[floodstage]

we are on the much larger thread now, why are musicians such bad businesspeople?


We get tired of playing for free so what do we do......

Quit the band and start a studio!!!

Out of the pan into the fire!

:icon_eek:

[Spock]

I started this thread thinking that some "rules of thumb" would be nice, hence the don't do a battle of the bands. That way even if someone doesn't have all the business smarts in the world, we could help people avoid the most common problems.

We could go on forever about a club owner being a crook. My point is they are just being/doing what comes natural to people, all people. Lazy and Greedy.

The club owner wants the best return on his money for the least amount of work. Think about it, don't we all in some ways.

The owner could constantly be up on the local music scene, talk to people about what they want to hear, search out the right bands. This is a lot of work, or he could book "Fred and the Farters" all the time because they at lesat bring in a steady crowd.

On the other hand I've seen bands that get all upset that they can't a return booking. "But we play better and sound better than any of the other bands they have in this place," you'll hear them say. Look if the guy is loosing money by having you, then what's the point. If you are not doing something to get people to come see you, then you are just being lazy.

To me a good business deal is one were both sides get something they want, a win-win. The trick is to find out what the other guy thinks is a win, and see what you can do to provide that with little cost to you. Sometimes you will run into some real scum. These guys try to measure the size of their win by comparing it to yours. They feel the best thing is if they win and you loose. These are the fools that try to get an extra discount on the super-duper sized vaule meal, even if they can't eat the whole thing. They are always looking for a way to make it a loose for you. Avoid them at all costs.

So maybe the title of this thread should have been "Business for Bands 101"

[Droolbucket]

I typed up a big long post about how being a great musician and being a great entertainer were two different things, and why a mediocre party band makes more money for a club than a bunch of virtuoso shoe-gazers, blah blah blah, but I wasn't logged on and lost it all.
Pretend I posted something really profound and enlightening, because I'm too lazy to type it all out again.:lol:

Droolbucket

[Johnny]

Hate the ticket scam. It's insult and injury.

I always look at what profit a gig can offer. There's obviously money. There can also be live playing experience (for younger guys and younger bands who need to gel as a unit), and there can be, though it usually isn't, some kind of publicity/building a following benefit.

If the gig can supply two of the three in real, tangible ways, I think it's worth it.

[dikledoux]

Two I can think of:

Never take a gig where there are more than 3 bands (including you) on the bill unless it's a VERY well organized and publicized event that's been successful once before. Go for no more than 2 if you can. (disclaimer: I'm breaking this rule in a week or so and going straight to rock-n-roll hell)

Never take a gig where the sound system sucks so much that ANYONE can tell it sucks just by looking at it. Unless you wanna bring your own.

I know it's blasphemy. Gotta start somewhere.

dik

[ggunn]

Two I can think of:
[LIST=1]
Never take a gig where there are more than 3 bands (including you) on the bill unless it's a VERY well organized and publicized event that's been successful once before. Go for no more than 2 if you can. (disclaimer: I'm breaking this rule in a week or so and going straight to rock-n-roll hell)
Corollary: If you must take such a gig, go first so you can be well out of there before the wheels come off.

[Statick]

hmm. many venues around here frequently put on 4-act shows most nights of the week, which work very well.

[floodstage]

4-act-nights work well for the venue because the bands alone drink enough to make the bar money!

However, those gigs don't have much appeal to the band, unless you love going on at 1:45, playing for 45 minutes, and getting paid $40 total for the band.

[Comte de St Germain]

Accapella gig at a deaf person convention.

I've done FOH at one, it was a very bad mix.

The deaf people were looking at four guys who looked to be yelling whilst wearing the same outfits and making the strangest faces.

It was a faux pas of the highest order.

[Statick]

actually most of the 4-band shows have 30 minute sets from each band with 15 minute changeovers, first act on 8:30

it can be hard to get crowds out for the small acts midweek, so nights like this are good to get a good crowd in - if each act pulls 30-50 punters then its a good night