Before you hand over cash to a promoter... read this!

In light of certain developments where a promoter is about to make a killing off bands I thought this sticky was pertinent. I welcome contributions to this.

Pay to play is unfortunately, a fact of life in Ireland. You generally have to book a venue, pay a deposit on the venue, promote it yourself and hope enough people turn up to cover costs.

There are however, alternatives:

1) Buying tickets off a promoter
This is a scam.

One more time:
THIS IS A SCAM

If you have to buy 30 tickets at a tenner each that makes 300 quid.
If there's only 3 bands doing this that is 900 euro.
Most venues charge around 450 quid to rent out.
The promoter puts the information in The Event Guide, some flyers, maybe in the Herald (If you're lucky).
So, in essence you're doing yourself out of 450 quid.

And before you say, "its about the exposure"
Ask yourself this; "How many times have you gone to a gig, not knowing who the band are, but knowing who the promoter is?" There are exceptions to this rule, for example U:Mack and Forever. Two promoters who only put on shows they want to see.
Do you think these ticket selling promoters excercise anything in the way of quality control?
Of course not! The only thing they care about is getting the ticket money off you. They don't care if your mammies and daddies are the only ones there. They've covered their costs and made a sweet profit as well.
One more thing on this: The reason that these promoters can defend themselves is that they say, they do a job, and they expect to get paid. Fair enough, if you do a job, you should get paid. However in a normal set up of a band you are talking an average of 4 people. Thats 12 people between 3 bands. Not counting friends/relatives that can help. Are they telling us, that what they do is so great, that 12 people between them can't do it? I find this farcical.

2) Going to a promoter that won't pay you
But you don't have to pay them. That is a big difference. I am a supporter of this for new bands just starting out. There's major advantages to this.
You get to find your legs onstage
You find out in which order your setlist works out best
They're fun gigs, not to be taken seriously
When you're at the stage of driving down to Cork to do a support slot to an established band knowing you won't get paid, you'll be used to it
These promoters take the events more seriously. They know that if they don't get heads in the door, the fee is going to come out of their pocket. So they try their best to fill venues, so they can make money.

3) Co-operative promotion
This is what I did when I was promoting gigs. It's an idealistic way of looking at things, but I chose this way. I book a good line up, with a strong main band, a strong 2cd band and a band to open that might not have that much experience onstage. I had a friend design the posters and fliers, print them at a budget print shop and give them to the bands to hand out/stick up as well as myself.
When all expenses are met, (printing, hire of room etc.) all profits were then split equally with each band an myself as one unit. For instance if it was a three band bash it would be 25% + 25% + 25% + 25%=100%. If there was no profit, I took the hit out of my own pocket. That is the risk and is the challenge in booking acts.

Putting on a gig is not a hard thing to do. For a new band starting out, or anyone for that matter, there is a wealth of information to be had on this board. Myself, Miju, Doctor J, raindog.promo and others are always glad to help. Just ask.


"A fool and his money are soon parted"
So wise up!

the_barfly1

Great post Papa!

And very true.

If you hand over money to a promoter before you play a gig, it removes any motivation for him/her to do their job - PROMOTE.
As papa mentioned, these guys do minimal advertising and expect the bands to do all the work for them, while they sit back and take your money.

Remember, the onus is on The Promoter to advertise a gig and get people in the door, the band are hired to perform the event. Mates of the band members will go anyway, which does absoltely nothing for the band's reputation or exposure whatsoever.
Its just "preaching to the converted" to coin a phrase.

DerKaiser

Nicely put o' smutty one

This is an age of recession, and possibly depression, in this time venues and pubs will need bands to fill their dingy establishments, so do not sell yourselves short.......

Pubs want bands, blab and do the hard sell to get the gig, as long as you put on a good show you'll get paid, if everyone does this we'll put the promoters to the sword, it's also during times of depression that "scenes" are started,

Gigs are going to be easier to get than jobs shortly, so tell the sleazy promoters to psis off, unless you do not have to pay to play, great as was pointed out for fledgling musicians, it's all about experience, but don't get into ticket scams, it's better not to play those gigs, you're just being ripped off, call up pubs, you'd be surprised how many gigs you get with a bit of bullshi*ting about your repertoire

Royale with Cheese

I have to agree that promoters do fuck all actual promoting. The onus is usually on you to bring your own crowd, and if you don't then you'll find your gigs drying up fairly rapidly.

I'm not saying you can just not tell anybody about the gig and expect a crowd to be there, but most promoters have no interest in booking the best bands and getting a crowd to turn up to see what they know will be a great gig. I'd love to see how many people go to the usual dublin promoters' gigs who don't know any of the bands on that night. Very few I'd say.

jarain

All you have to do is take a trip downstairs in the likes of Eamonn Dorans or the Voodoo when it was around on a Wed, Thurs night and you'll see how well these gigs are attended by Joe Public, but then again 99.999% of people don't even know the gig is on through lack of advertising and promotion, which to me should be one of the main focuses of a promoter.

Bands should get to know each other and help each other out. Gig Swap, shared gigs, support slots and advise should all be freely traded.

I've found it's always been beneficial to every band involved as new fans are gained, costs are reduced and it's generally a lot less hassle!!

It's a tough business and bands get screwed enough without adding to it ourselves...

garytuohy

There should be a list started of approved promoters


Ill begin - my own Muzzlemusic
www.myspace.com/muzzlemusicrecords

Gigsmart
www.gigsmartireland.com

dubund

all very true and defo some good advice here for new bands.

but remember before you drive the knives home that the whole pay to play thing exists simply coz people put up with it. sitting on the fence and watching someone getting a beating is as bad giving the beating in my book. i always hear a lot of talk from people about how things should be done, but very few people tend to actually follow up on their ideas. criticising is always easier than doing. its same reason pubs get away with charging a fortune for beer, coz we keep paying for it! it only takes a few "ethical" promoters to offer an alternative and the more ruthless promoters who are only in it for the money and have no real interest in music would quickly find themselves out of a job.

but having that... while i'm defo not a fan of pay to play, i'll say straight up that we use tickets for our Whelans/Village gigs out of necessity. it's too risky not to do this for gigs in venues such as these with hefty rental fees and high expectations of the numbers bands will bring. all you gotta do is fck up once with these venues and you're struck off. for bands wanting to get their foot in the door with established venues, there's not really any other way around it. for our part, we only run gigs in these venues coz bands have asked for them, and most bands are happy that selling some tickets in advance is the trade-off for playing in likes of Whelans. and for those who dont think its worth it, they stick to the non-ticket gigs we run in likes of Dorans, Radio City, McGruders etc. either which way, bands who play for us know we'll always give a cut of the door to any bands who've brought in a good crowd. and for those not interested in making money, they can opt for discounted adm fee for their support instead.

as a "promoter" (tho i dont like the term, it’s something of a dirty word amongst bands! i'd use "gig organiser" to better describe what i do), i often wonder why bands dont organise their own gigs. i got into this end of things originally by accident when we'd to cancel a bunch of our own gigs in my old band, so i decided to contact every band i knew to see if they wanted to take our gigs instead of just cancelling them. and while it was at times a bit too stressful organising the gigs and playing aswell, i thought it was worth it. the main thing is making sure everyone chips in and that one person doesnt get left doing everything. if a bunch of people got together and shared out the work, its not that difficult. plus you can personalise all the promo to your own band specifically and you should be more motivated to promote your own music.

and just to throw my tuppence worth in as regards to why there are so many promoters out there, and its actually for a simple enuf reason. venues dont really care if the bands playing are any good or not, all the venue is interested in is ensuring theres plenty of people in drinking lots of beer. at the end of the day, like most other things in life, its all about money. if it took 10 smurfs playing volleyball on the back of a large singing mushroom or a britney speares karaoke night to fill their venue, they'd be quite happy to do that. the reason promoters exist is because venues know that, on average, "promoters" tend to be far more reliable to deal with than bands when it comes to getting people in because the promoter's livelyhood depends on it, and that dealing with bands (particularly new or unknown bands) can be a massive risk for a venue's booking manager. a "promoter" is all but name an employee of the venue that they're promoting. they're promoting the venue, not the bands. its an important distinction to make. but as someone mentioned above, if you wana circumvent promoters altogether then you can chance your arm, talk yourselves up and really work your asses off to make your first gig a success (remembering that success to the venue = many people drinking lots of beer!), then you've every chance of being booked again by the venue so long as you keep bringing in the numbers.

but in the meantime until you decide to set up your own gigs... we 've plenty of slots going most months and are always happy to work with new bands. just drop an email to dub.und@gmail.com if you're interested.

Eegorbishcan

What is the usual rates bands pay promotors in Dublin? Surely its an un-necessary expense for a young band to pay if there are so many places that are free to play?

Does the likes of Dorans / Radio city etc pay any of the bands on the bill, or are they all playing for nothing?

dubund

Eegorbishcan wrote: »

What is the usual rates bands pay promotors in Dublin? Surely its an un-necessary expense for a young band to pay if there are so many places that are free to play?

Does the likes of Dorans / Radio city etc pay any of the bands on the bill, or are they all playing for nothing?

bands dont pay promoters directly, but they may have pay for X number of tickets in advance to play, and then need to sell those tickets to make their money back. sometimes this is a good thing (if they're getting a cut of the tickets sales), other times its not as they're not seeing any of the money. in general bands shouldnt play a gig unless theres a possibility of making money if they're bringing a decent crowd along themselves. with the possible exception of their first gig in/getting their foot in the door of an established venue such as Whelans etc.

none of the city centre venues pay bands for playing original music as far as i know. except The Mezz, and possibly the The Porter House? tho plenty of pubs pay acts for playing covers, mostly outside the city centre. for city centre venues, the promoter or headline band usually pays X amount to use the venue, then hopes they make enough back on the door to cover the venue rental & other costs such as door staff, promo, paying bands etc.

raindog.promo

Anyone remember or have a link to the lengthy thread that caused this sticky?
I've looked, but can't find it.

blacon

I think you all need to realise that promotors are not ALL bad.

Yes, the ones that make the band sell tickets are actually giving the promoting job to the bands, and not doing it themselves, so thats bad.

BUT, a lot of promotors pay all the expenses of the gigs themselves and only earn their money back if they draw a crowd, in which case they will work their asses off to fill the venue. I dont see how bands dont like this. Promoters give bands a chance to play to new people. Without them, the bands will only have their mates there.

Some methods of promoting i dont agree with, but in general i think having a promoter involved makes it better for everyone, including the band, the venue, the crowd, and the promoters themselves.

blacon

blacon wrote: »

I think you all need to realise that promotors are not ALL bad.

Yes, the ones that make the band sell tickets are actually giving the promoting job to the bands, and not doing it themselves, so thats bad.

BUT, a lot of promotors pay all the expenses of the gigs themselves and only earn their money back if they draw a crowd, in which case they will work their asses off to fill the venue. I dont see how bands dont like this. Promoters give bands a chance to play to new people. Without them, the bands will only have their mates there.

Some methods of promoting i dont agree with, but in general i think having a promoter involved makes it better for everyone, including the band, the venue, the crowd, and the promoters themselves.

I believe i said that, however, would you like to give examples of such promoters?

General Zod

A word of defence on behalf of some "pay to play operations".

I used to do gigs for Garageland 8 years ago, and back when they were doing it gigs were promoted, and through playing gigs with other bands we got other people there who would like our music, and got more gigs through that.

Fewer and fewer venues are looking for live bands, and few of those that are are willing to pay out cash.

Garageland supplied the backline, they supplied the sound engineer. we never felt ripped off or exploited.

Maybe we were lucky, but the worst that happened to us was that we broke even. We never took more tickets than we knew we would sell, and it was a good set up for getting a band started and through my time there I made a whole load of contacts which still stand me to this day.

there are pros and cons to the set up, and if you're hard working and lucky enough to be able to get gigs up and running without needing a promoter, then well done.

It's worth having both sides of the story if you want to make an informed decision. Not all the promoters who run "pay to play" are terrible.

ninwilky

Just on the point of advertising. Someone was saying that its bad to rely on your mates to buy tickets....

BUT

i may be wrong, but i doubt most people will go see a unsigned band gig unless the band is well known or its your mates band [or has been reccomended by someone you know]

Usually you get maybe 3 or 4 bands, or the likes of the underground gigs where you have loads of bands on the bill, and you expand your fan base by playing to the fans other bands bring.

Im very weary of unsigned gigs cause of the explosion of local indie and pop punk bands [which isnt my thing at all even though some are reasonably good] so you never know what you're gonna see. this can be a bit of excitement to people but personally if im paying into a gig i want to know that ill like at least one band. I've only ever became a fan of a band that played alongside a mates band, played in fibbers, or played the DIT battle of the bands.


Like i said it could just be me but i think bringing your mates to gigs is essential. its up to the band to always spice up the setlist and their live act to keep their fans interested

sydsad

Great thread.

I have been in many bands before just doing gigs here and there but i am in one now called No Dead Space. Finally we are getting a bit of momentum and getting gigs alot this year. Were trying our best to get as many gigs as possible all around the country.

Reading this thread has opened my eyes a bit. Nice on man.

Spineryan

Hi all,

I have been in bands for years and now work in the music industry in Ireland but have worked in the UK and a bit in the US.

On of the over riding issues is that the majority of Irish people don't go to gigs to discover new music. They go to get pissed and have the crack.

The pay to play situation is an old model that has slowly killed the live scene here. Young bands do not have the means to pay 100, 200euro to Lets call a spade a spade here, pay a 3rd rate so called promoter a wage.

In London there is a huge amount of bookers and promoters. You get a gig paid or unpaid based on, Do you have a fan base? and how relevant your act is to the music scene at that time. The reason for this is the promoter wants to fill the venue and needs to book the acts that will do this. They also promote the shows via e-mail list, boards, poster and you'll see them doing flyer drops on the day of the gigs. I have never seen a poster nor have I gotten a mail. As for a flyers sorry but NO again.

Bands starting out, like all trades, start at the bottom run of the ladder and do support slots. Their goal is to land their own headline slot.

What would need to happen is the venues would have to pay someone a wags to book the best and most relevant acts for their venue. In turn thebooker would need a budget for each show to promote the event and if possible pay the act a fix fee or a cut of the door. The cut should always be in the bands favour 80 / 20% split. But this won’t happen because the venues are creaming it off the bar/door and are getting the bookings sorted by the 'Promoter'.

Don't know if this makes any sense but I know what I am trying to say in my head.

Lauragoesmad

Spineryan wrote: »

the US.
The pay to play situation is an old model that has slowly killed the live scene here. Young bands do not have the means to pay 100, 200euro to Lets call a spade a spade here, pay a 3rd rate so called promoter a wage.

Totally agree. Most promoters don't know anything about the music scene or even have many contacts. Ususally they work out of one or two small venues and think they're bigshots.

stevood

Spineryan wrote: »

What would need to happen is the venues would have to pay someone a wags to book the best and most relevant acts for their venue. In turn thebooker would need a budget for each show to promote the event and if possible pay the act a fix fee or a cut of the door. The cut should always be in the bands favour 80 / 20% split. But this won’t happen because the venues are creaming it off the bar/door and are getting the bookings sorted by the 'Promoter'.

I agree with your point but there are 2 flaws.
Firstly the amount of bands in Dublin looking for their own slot is huge. A lot of the top venues whelans, village, crawdaddy, button factory are booked up till the new year so why would a venue bother having somebody to promote when they charge a rental fee and can hire the venue without one.

Also there are "promoters" (and i use this term very loosely) booking out venues and putting on their nights of which the venue owner may think that this is the type of person of which you speak, promoting with flyers, emails, posters etc.

This has been my experience anyway!!!

gav_neonstars

. get on the forum and introduce yourself.. get down to the gigs and reap the rewards..

A group of absolute gents.. if it wasnt for them i would have lost all faith in promoters long ago.. an organisation worth they'r weight in gold!

Madramusic

yoyo

Our band Madra have played with dub underground and garageland. We organised our own gigs before and got three other bands who we said would have to bring 12 plus fans each but they only brought three each so we were out of pocket plus we tried poster campaign no randomers came. Think we need to book a more well known venue any recommendations other than the usual Dorans, Whelans, The Pint ( who wouldnt give us back our deposit) etc

elhombre

the band i play in just had our first experience with one of these "pay to play" promoters. We were referred to him by the band who was headlining a prominent venue, and were talking to him about a support slot. Which he offered us, once we paid him 250e for 25 tickets. He was getting 2 support bands in and pocketing himself 500euro before he did any work. And all to play a half hour support.

We obviously refused the gig - but it's disgusting that there're "promoters" like this still trying to exploit bands for their own financial gain.

iamhunted

play gigs online instead - **** promoters

Malice

iamhunted wrote: »

play gigs online instead

How would that work? Get the band together to play in front of a web cam or something?

DeBunny

Imo, the only reason pay to play works in Dublin is because there is a constant stream of new bands. In other words people who don't know any better. They'll try it once or twice and then cop on, but there's always a steady supply of fresh meat to keep the pay to play lads in business. Dublin probably has the highest percentage of new independent bands in Europe.

miju

Malice_ wrote: »

How would that work? Get the band together to play in front of a web cam or something?

something like that yeah Believe it or not though there are 1 or 2 service providers in Ireland offering a hosting / ticketing service for this exact kind of thing

I've not offered my opinion on pay to play yet and I wont go into the ins and outs of it now cos I've not got time but suffice to say I wouldnt be in agreement with Papa Smuts views.

mod fight , mod fight, mod fight

maccored

Malice_ wrote: »

How would that work? Get the band together to play in front of a web cam or something?

http://macrogrizzly.blip.tv - we've tried three webgigs so far, with chat and skype - we're averaging around 50 viewers a gig plus its all helping develop a bit of community in our online 'shed'. you do need a decent audio setup which runs back into the computer and then replaces the audio feed from the camera. Plus we'd use HD cameras rather than basic webcams.

It *does* work, especially for underage bands (check out LWAP - they supported us in Decembers gig and they're on there somewhere).

The indo done a piece on us and webgigs a while back:

http://dayandnightmag.ie/2009/12/11/diy-band-aid-how-to-stand-out-in-an-ocean-of-noise/

maccored

miju wrote: »

something like that yeah Believe it or not though there are 1 or 2 service providers in Ireland offering a hosting / ticketing service for this exact kind of thing

I've not offered my opinion on pay to play yet and I wont go into the ins and outs of it now cos I've not got time but suffice to say I wouldnt be in agreement with Papa Smuts views.

mod fight , mod fight, mod fight

dont waste money on 3rd parties - use livestream.com for free and it'll pick up your camera and audio and spits you out a handy player to stick online. If anyone wants any advice on how to do a webgig, drop me a PM.

miju

maccored wrote: »

dont waste money on 3rd parties - use livestream.com for free and it'll pick up your camera and audio and spits you out a handy player to stick online. If anyone wants any advice on how to do a webgig, drop me a PM.

it's not wasting money if you turn a profit on the venture. also I wasn't talking about free web streaming I was talking about online ticketing & basically a PPV setup which provides all of the above which is an entirely different thing than the likes of livesteam.com

maccored

im talking about bands putting on hassle free (and free) gigs, not promoters trying to earn a quick buck - wheres CPU these days? is it coming back?

miju

maccored wrote: »

im talking about bands putting on hassle free (and free) gigs, not promoters trying to earn a quick buck - wheres CPU these days? is it coming back?

OK I get ya now CPU is being rebuilt last time I was talking to the lads , but thats been going on for quite a while now

EL_Loco

agreed OP, don't let the "glamour" of a big city venue fool you into a pay to play situation. Can't say I've never done it, was helping out a band who did a few pay to play gigs (on a saturday afternoon) here's my previous post which was about getting paid, but touches on pay to play also:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=60018063&postcount=10

If you're a young band trying to get started I'd recommend a few support slots. Generally what happens when you start out is that you get a good turn out of friends etc. So if you feel you're going to draw a big crowd, even if you are at the early stages, get some sort of agreement with the headline act as to some sort of payment.

(Live bands) NEVER, ever, ever, EVER, play as part of a line up with more than 3 acts. The only acception is a festival. If you're playing with more than 3 acts, then it's bad news. You've either a greedy or stupid promoter, or headline band who are trying to maximise their odds of turning a profit at the expense of a decent slot of each act.

Get agreement as early as possible. On all things, equipment, payment, transport, time on stage, anything you can think of. Of course on the night things will stray a little, but harder for someone to pull a fast one. Example: Was playing with a band who were a little older than us, probably thought they were better too, anyway, we had agreed the line up, they were on 2nd of 3, we were headline. Night of the gig the singer of the 2nd band starts kicking up wanting to headline. I very quickly told him he had agreed 3 days beforehand at the sit down all 3 acts had that they would go on 2nd. End of arguement. Imagine that clown trying to pull that if you had no agreed slot list. Nightmare. Unfortunately music seems to attract the difficult ones

If you're using other people's equipment respect it. Saw a fight start after the support decided to go rock star with the equipment, kicking over the drum kit etc.

Give people a chance, but only 1. If you get burned by someone going against the agreement, take it on the chin, but don't deal with them ever again. I've 2nd chanced people way too much. Trust me, people don't change. If they did it when they were 21 they'll still do it when they're 25. As much as you'd like to think differently they are who they are.

anyway, that's about all I can think of from the world of the small time, trying to make it music scene in Ireland.