cowberto wrote:There are a couple of venues but you are expected to bring a big crowd and get a small share of the door takings.
Still the fairest way for band and venue although it depends on the percentage of the door that you get. It is YOUR choice whether to play the gig or not.
As for a crowd, what's the point of any venue putting on a band if they're not going to bring a crowd? There's still a lot of bands out there who seem to think that they should be paid just for turning up.
The venues tend to get blamed for everything but they get ripped of by as many bands as bands do by venues with bands promising big crowds and then only a couple of their mates and girlfriends turn up.
Unfortunately there's always some wee band desperate for a gig who will play anywhere for nothing which doesn't help the situation for anyone else. Certainly for covers bands, why would a venue pay out when they can get the same thing for free?
This situation exists everywhere in the Scottish music scene and I think is part of the problem of why standards are so low at the moment. People are scared to turn out and pay money to see any bands that they don't know. There's also the internet now as well. Anyone seeing a band advertised just has a look at the relevant web page - amateur webpage and photos, don't think they'll bother risking their cash. In the (good) old days people had to turn up to see what a band was like - now they've got it all available beforehand.
The days of where only the better bands attracted a crowd and were paid appropriately ended when Tennent's started putting on any wee schoolboy band in a multitude of unsuitable venues and thereby diluting the market and destroying the competition.
After this period of venues getting bands for free they were reluctant to change. It is a very difficult situation that doesn't seem to have any solution other than another dodgy corporate sponsorship scheme.
The thing is either your band has a following or it doesn't. If it does it's always better to self-promote anyway and play your gigs on your own terms, keeping all the revenue. If anything it teaches the bands the economics of promotion and that the promoter doesn't necessarily make any money after they've paid for venue hire, PA hire, lighting hire, staff and advertising.
Ask anyone who runs a pub how much profit they make from selling drink? It's pennies per pint and even a packed venue doesn't make enough from drink sales to cover promotion costs. That's why they also need door money to try and make ends meet and if the band can get anything at the end of a wee pub gig then it's a bonus.
It's a sad fact that only wedding and club bands can make a living out of playing regular gigs in smaller venues.
Certainly I don't know of any unsigned bands in this day and age who make any sort of profit (or even break even) from gigging. At the end of the day if you don't have record company or management backing, playing music in pubs is a hobby that YOU have to pay for just like any other.
morley
