Pay To Play gigs

Deijavoo

Fuck Pay To Play: 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-12607737?SThisFB

digitalscream

How odd. The BBC site appears to be down.

EricTheWeary

...been down all morning.

thomasross20

Didn't they do this on Sunset Strip in the 80s. You pay and you get a cut of ticket sales or somesuch? 

Now we've got a demo and another drummer hopefully coming on board, we've made more enquiries but it looks like the max we'll get for 3 hour pub gigs is £180 between us (6 of us). Got to admit, it does suck... I'm almost thinking I should be spending all my time on work and the album, not on maintaining 50 songs with the band for that paltry sum! 

Deijavoo

Also, fuck bands that just assume they can book a show, do nothing to promote it and expect to be famous just because they all confirmed they would attend said gig on Facebook.

mellowsun

Screw pay to play. Do open mic nights instead, and once you get some sort of following, book your own gigs.

ElectroDan

I suppose it depends on the position being offered, the band the support slot is with and the financial commitment the band is being asked to make.

I know fundamentally paying to play seems wrong and at a regular pub, club or small festival gig it probably would be. But if you are struggling to get exposure and believe that getting heard will get you where you want to be, then it may be worth a shot so long as it's the right crowd.

Even huge bands have to market themselves.

In the corporate circuit, there are showcases ( Keeping it Live for example ) where bands and artists pay a few hundred pound for a ten minute slot in front of the right people that book act's for cruises and hotel/holiday chains.

Regularjohnny

I dont get why the bbc are only reporting on this now. This shit has been going on for years, i lived in Manchester about 6 years ago and it was rife even then, and prob before that. I have since moved home and been in a band since doing so, and im thankful for the fact that any scene in NI or ROI is as diy as it can be, with promoters looking out for bands and audiences alike.

I get that bands starting out, in certain areas, feel that this type of show 'opens doors', but it does not, the only thing it opens is a negative balance in said band's cashflow. Fuck pay to play. DIY or die(as a band).

Phil_aka_Pip

Regularjohnny said:

I dont get why the bbc are only reporting on this now. This shit has been going on for years,

... and the MU has been campaigning against it for years

Regularjohnny

Phil_aka_Pip;918142" said:

Regularjohnny said:

I dont get why the bbc are only reporting on this now. This shit has been going on for years,

... and the MU has been campaigning against it for years

... and yet it continues to happen.

Deijavoo

Deijavoo said:

Also, fuck bands that just assume they can book a show, do nothing to promote it and expect to be famous just because they all confirmed they would attend said gig on Facebook.

http://thehardtimes.net/2015/01/06/huge-monday-night-show-draws-almost-every-band-member/

Regularjohnny

Deijavoo;918180" said:

Deijavoo said:


http://thehardtimes.net/2015/01/06/huge-monday-night-show-draws-almost-every-band-member/

Lol @ "..the band's drummer, is still a maybe for the event."

In all seriousness though, the fact that bands like this do exist, in abundance, makes it very difficult to stop these type of shows/promoters.

Deijavoo

Exactly. I'm yet to hear a really robust alternative for small venues with no other source of revenue than gigs. My mate's venue is doing well and they ask for bands to sell tickets but they don't have to pay or anything if they don't sell. They'll likely just not get asked back if they are either shite or not pulling people in. They have always given every new/young band going a chance, several chances in fact so they are very fair. 

It just keeps coming back to less people going out and taking a chance on new bands. At least that is right locally here. 

Regularjohnny

It does seem to be getting tougher for bars/promoters to get punters in the door, but i think bands need to get together and create more of a diy scene, help each other out with promotion of shows and releases etc.
It may not solve the problem entirely, but would definitely be a start.

thomasross20

Is there any sort of legal requirement for venues to pay bands, say, a third of takings?

Regularjohnny

Dont think so, there's really no legal requirement at all unless an agreement has been signed, as far as i know. Obviously tho, a verbal agreement is the standard fare, and most promoters/bar bookers honour that, in my gigging experience.

lloyd

It's tough isn't it? I can see the venue/promoters side, as an originals band I just think the live market is completely dead. A venue will lose customers putting on live acts IMO. people will sit and listen to an acoustic act, even more so if they're doing covers but people are just not interested in live original bands these days, certainly not enough to punt a couple quid on a door fee to see a few bands. It's a shame as there is talent out there but.....it's saturated and there's a lot of shit bands out there. The vast majority of people you play to are other bands and friends/family. You can promote the life out of a night and people still aren't interested. To satisfy the venue and the band ie get a bit of a crowd to watch you it needs to be free entry-bar takes some cash, band gets a crowd. Best gigs we've done-strangers buying CDs, liking Facebook and coming to future gigs etc have all been freebies, you can't expect a payday doing originals unless you have a following or put a night on yourself, which turns into P2P as you need to cover the hire of the room.

Deijavoo

Wisdom indeed.

lloyd

Deijavoo said:

Wisdom indeed.

This is something that pisses me off (not here, more on the other fb pages) a lot of gigs get advertised as no pay and the comments come flying in-comparing gigging to a plumber-you wouldn't expect a tradesman to work for "exposure" type shit. No you wouldn't, but then again fuck off. A better analogy IMO is comparing your band to a 5 a side football team, it's a hobby, it's fun it costs money etc but my office mates that play on a Monday evening don't try to sell tickets to watch them play and brand it as entertainment....people will pay to watch the premier league but not a kick about on the local park. Too often the differing standard of live music is comparable to PL footy and 5 a side shit. I think we as musicians get pissy as it's an art form, we spent ££££ and many hours to put a gig on but let's be real, it's fucking great fun. I've said many times here that if I didn't play in a band I'd rarely pick up my guitar, that's just the way I feel at the minute, I wish it was otherwise but there you go, and also if I never gigged again I would still meet up with my band every week to write, jam and have a good time. The gigs are fun yes, but they are a fucking tiny fraction of what being in a band is about (for me) if you're in it for the money, fame and blow jobs then 99.9999% of you will walk away dissatisfied.....those big bands that got lucky and "made it" would still be jamming with their pals and playing for fuck all in the dog and duck had they not had the fortune and talent to be in the right place at the right time.

Deijavoo

So this Fretboard gig at the Thirsty Scholar, I was only in as I thought we were all paying each other in said blow jobs? I'll settle for a glass of tap water. :-)

stickyfiddle

Coming up 10 years since the one and only pay-to-play I did and it wasn't a new thing then. For us it worked as we wanted a one-off show before a tour and had a shitload of mates in London so knew we could shift the tickets. But it's still bollocks. 

Reminds me of the "Surface Unsigned Festival" around the same time - nationwide battle of the bands with text voting and shit. As you'd expect the organisers were guaranteed a 50k profit before a single note was played, plus whatever they got for ticket sales (bands had to pay for 20 tickets for round 1, 50 for round 2, etc). Complete fucking joke.