College Battle of The Bands(free slots still available)

billybenner

Think You're the Best Student Band?

Prove it, Live and Unisgned Dublin are giving you a chance to play great venues and win amazing prizes like days recording, and lots of TV exposure for the winning band!!

We've still a few free slots available formthe 17th of February competition

Its free to enter free to enter, but we do require each band/musican to bring at least 10 fans to the gig on the night to enter the competition.

There is a prize giving at the end of each night for the best band eg(get to play live and be interviewed on a new music show on City Channel).

First round takes place upstairs in ''The Grand Social'' Dublins newest venue.

There are 6 competitions throughout the country, after this the winners go through to the grand final then where the overall best student band will be nominated with even further prizes such as days recording, media write ups and TV Exposure.

There will be a film crew at the first competiton, taking a few clips of the night and also doing interviews!!

RULES

At least one key member of the group must be enrolled at a college or University
All genres of music are accepted and encouraged including musicians or
solo artists, rappers, electronic programmers, instrumental musicians
Over 18' s Only

Pm us here if interested or contact www.myspace.com/liveandunsigneddublin or liveandunsigneddublin@gmail.com

off.the.walls

So if a band doesn't bring at least 10 people they wont be allowed play?

billybenner

off.the.walls wrote: »

So if a band doesn't bring at least 10 people they wont be allowed play?

thats the rules

off.the.walls

So its basically pay to play then.

NukaCola

billybenner wrote: »

Its free to enter free to enter, but we do require each band/musican to bring at least 10 fans to the gig on the night to enter the competition.

off.the.walls wrote: »

So if a band doesn't bring at least 10 people they wont be allowed play?

billybenner wrote: »

thats the rules

So its not free to enter? How much are the tickets for your 10 "fans"......

billybenner

Its very simple lads, if you want to play in this competition for FREE, we require you to make sure 10 of your fans come along to the gig

We dont give you any tickets to sell!!

Its €6 in at the door!!

If you ask anyone who has all ready played at any our previous competitions, they tell you they really enjoyed playing, as the sound is good and theres always a big good crowd to play 2, resulting from everyone bringing 10 fans or more with them on the night.

So do us a favour, stop complaining, as were giving lots of bands the chance to play to big crowds and win decent prizes all they have to do is bring 10 people to the gig, its not alot to ask!!

off.the.walls

billybenner wrote: »

Its very simple lads, if you want to play in this competition for FREE, we require you to make sure 10 of your fans come along to the gig

We dont give you any tickets to sell!!

Its €6 in at the door!!

If you ask anyone who has all ready played at any our previous competitions, they tell you they really enjoyed playing, as the sound is good and theres always a big good crowd to play 2, resulting from everyone bringing 10 fans or more with them on the night.

So do us a favour, stop complaining, as were giving lots of bands the chance to play to big crowds and win decent prizes all they have to do is bring 10 people to the gig, its not alot to ask!!

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056170574&highlight=off.the.walls

Like i say in here its Not the bands job to bring people to a show its YOUR JOB AS THE PROMOTER TO PROMOTE THE SHOW. Like what happens if a band is only starting and only 8 of their friends show up i suppose they just get told "hey your not playing?".

This attitude is what is ruining the irish music industry the idea of the bands bringing the crowd. Its the bands job to entertain the crowd that the promoter brings not to bring the crowd.

PS MODS i know this seems like i'm always a nay sayer but i'm just sick of people like this trying to put pressure on bands.

billybenner

off.the.walls wrote: »

Like i say in here its Not the bands job to bring people to a show its YOUR JOB AS THE PROMOTER TO PROMOTE THE SHOW. Like what happens if a band is only starting and only 8 of their friends show up i suppose they just get told "hey your not playing?".

This attitude is what is ruining the irish music industry the idea of the bands bringing the crowd. Its the bands job to entertain the crowd that the promoter brings not to bring the crowd.

PS MODS i know this seems like i'm always a nay sayer but i'm just sick of people like this trying to put pressure on bands.

1. If a bands turns up and they only have 8 fans through the doors, they will still get to play, they just wont be entered into the competition.

2. We put pressure on all the bands to bring at least 10 people so as to create a decent crowd and atmosphere at the venue while the bands are playing.

resulting in the bands being happy as they get to play to big crowd and gain fans, also with a chance of winning a decent prize, all for what? bringing 10 of their friends to the gig, we get an average of 150 to 200 people to these gigs so every band has a great chance of gaining lots of new fans.

We obviously still do our own promoting but you have to realise that most of the bands playing at these gigs are unknown so our promotion alone is going to create the big crowds, so we use prizes for the best band on the night instead to help, and it works really well, everyone who plays is happy, so please give us a break ''Off The Walls''

NukaCola

billybenner wrote: »

1. If a bands turns up and they only have 8 fans through the doors, they will still get to play, they just wont be entered into the competition.

2. We put pressure on all the bands to bring at least 10 people so as to create a decent crowd and atmosphere at the venue while the bands are playing.

resulting in the bands being happy as they get to play to big crowd and gain fans, also with a chance of winning a decent prize, all for what? bringing 10 of their friends to the gig, we get an average of 150 to 200 people to these gigs so every band has a great chance of gaining lots of new fans.

We obviously still do our own promoting but you have to realise that most of the bands playing at these gigs are unknown so our promotion alone is going to create the big crowds, so we use prizes for the best band on the night instead to help, and it works really well, everyone who plays is happy, so please give us a break ''Off The Walls''

So basically you need 10 people to come to a gig to be in a competition. Tickets costs 6 yoyos. So its 60 quid to enter the competition.

Also, you do your own promoting, but you need the bands help to bring people, presumably because your not very good at it because its hard to promote unsigned bands?

Its not pay to play which is fair enough IMO...however it is pay to enter a competition.....

billybenner

Look its not easy orgainsing all the bands, trying to creating a crowd, renting venues, getting good sponsor and prizes but we pull it off well

We pack out venues with 100's of people a couple of times a month

The nights are run very well and well promoted, and we get unknown bands names out there

The bands are very happy playing to big crowds, always congratulating is on such good organisation

Then at the end of the night, the best band gets a decent prize.

To me thats sounds like like everyone happy.

As I often played loads of gigs in my life where there was only about 15/20 people in the venue. I always wanted to play to big crowd and would of loved if there was somebody organising regular gigs like we do where I could play to a guaranteed big.

So if you dont want to play that fine, just give us a break!!

Midnight organ

Fair enough you have to make your money,and it can be a big effort to organise a sucessful night like this.But what i dont agree with is this pay-to-play thing,a promoter is someone who's job it is to set up the event,book the bands and advertise it and the wage for this should come from the owner of the venue,not the people providing the entertainment.By right its the bands that should be getting paid and the necessity of bringing a certain amount of people in order to play/compete takes the good out of it,putting unfair pressure(The fact that pressure even comes into it is ridiculous IMO) on people who are unsigned/unkown,hence do not have "fans" but have to ask their friends to pay an admission fee to see them paly. Ive just seen this too many times and it saddens me because the music should come first.

greensocks13

I play in a student band in galway and we've been giging for a year. We would love to enter the competion but getting a crowd of 10 people to dublin aswell as all the gear we need isnt an easy task. I just think that if you want to go for a national competition your making it a bit difficult for bands outside of dublin to enter. Just my opinion. But at the same time, fair play for running competitions for unsigned bands and giving unknown acts a chance.

billybenner

Hey Greensocks, sorry you feel that way but its just the way we run the competition, if you look at it this way, if we had 6 unsigned acts playing at our competition, which we had to put lots of time and money into, and none of them bring any fans along, the bands would be just playing to them selves and it would be a **** night atmosphere wise, plus we would able to afford to do it like that with all our outgoing costs, so we ask people to bring 10 fans, as it isn't really alot.

in the near future we will be holding these competitions in Galway, so Ill let you know when we do, hope that ok for you

billybenner

Midnight organ wrote: »

Fair enough you have to make your money,and it can be a big effort to organise a sucessful night like this.But what i dont agree with is this pay-to-play thing,a promoter is someone who's job it is to set up the event,book the bands and advertise it and the wage for this should come from the owner of the venue,not the people providing the entertainment.By right its the bands that should be getting paid and the necessity of bringing a certain amount of people in order to play/compete takes the good out of it,putting unfair pressure(The fact that pressure even comes into it is ridiculous IMO) on people who are unsigned/unkown,hence do not have "fans" but have to ask their friends to pay an admission fee to see them paly. Ive just seen this too many times and it saddens me because the music should come first.

'''i dont agree with is this pay-to-play thing,a promoter is someone who's job it is to set up the event,book the bands and advertise it and the wage for this should come from the owner of the venue'''

Hi you have to understand that the bar does nt pay us, we have rent these venues from the bars for the night. So we have to make money back from the door

''By right its the bands that should be getting paid''
Its a competition, how many competition have you entered in your life, where they actually paid you to enter!!

''the necessity of bringing a certain amount of people in order to play/compete takes the good out of it''

I completely disagree with this, would you prefer to be playing to smaller crowds so? you have to be realistic, most unsigned bands wont be playing to 150/200 peopleon a regular basis, but organise the night so we get lots of bands bringing lots of people on average 150/200, so this create a great atmosphere and thus creating the best chance of gaining actual fans not just your mates who come to see you play.

''The fact that pressure even comes into it is ridiculous''
Look dude the music industry is ridiculasly hard, its never going to be easy, there will be lots of pressure, fights and fallouts, but my advice to you is play as many gigs where there is going to be loads of people as much as possible, and then at least you'll have a chance. there is no easy way!!
plus I would of thought it was the norm for most bands try to get there mates to come along there gigs especially when there is a prize even if we hadnt asked you.

''but have to ask their friends to pay an admission fee to see them paly. Ive just seen this too many times and it saddens me because the music should come first.''

Ok i'm I'm not sure have you played many gigs before by the sounds of this statement, Fact 99% of gigs you'll play in decent venues in Ireland, YOUR FRIENDS WILL HAVE TO PAY AT THE DOOR THERE 2!!

Furthermore, this is a well run competition, bigs crowds, a prize and a winner so thats why we charge the HUGE €6 entree fee!! lot s of places will charge €10 to €15 to see unsigned acts.

Sorry if you think i have come across strong in my answers, i dont mean to be insulting in anyway, just giving you the facts!!

off.the.walls

So you have to rent a venue everyone has to do that. Nothing different there the problem is the fact that you wont let a band compete unless ten of their mates show up to put some money in your pocket!

niall1976

Guys,

I've got to say this is getting a bit boring. We're all entitled to our opinion and within that we might agree or disagree with these type of nights.

But cmon, you have a choice. Go or don't go to the gigs.

If Billy can run it and break even or even make a few quid, fair play to him. At same time , bands get to play to a decent crowd and maybe get on TV.

If we've got nothing new to say then let's not say anything. I think anyone reading the thread knows without a doubt that some people don't like these nights and some people do.

Maybe it's time to move on to a new subject and all get on with putting that energy into making some great music

billybenner

off.the.walls wrote: »

So you have to rent a venue everyone has to do that. Nothing different there the problem is the fact that you wont let a band compete unless ten of their mates show up to put some money in your pocket!

I never saw they dont get to play if they dont bring 10 fans.

The rules are, if a band does nt bring the 10 fans, they still get to play but there not entered into the competition for the prize, so its worth while bringing the fans, 10 people is nt exactly alot of for a band to bring along for a one of competition!!

Malice

billybenner: Please don't post in ALL CAPS. It makes whatever you've written very hard to read.

billybenner

Malice wrote: »

billybenner: Please don't post in ALL CAPS. It makes whatever you've written very hard to read.

sorry about that

greensocks13

Thanks Billy, thats brilliant news, we'd love to do it if it was happening in galway! And i do understand what your saying about needing people there etc. I know where your coming from, it does make sense. Thanks for the reply.