up yours pay to play

Rob. C

if anyone wants to gig on on a monday or tuesday for freel and have a chance to make a few quid post one up or text 0879823752. just heard of a band paying an awfull amount of funds to play on a monday and to make money they had to sell 30 tickets to make a euro on each ticket! this **** has to stop.;)

lanod44

where would these gigs be and what sort of money are you be talking?

Rob. C

hi
there
the gigs would be in voodoo (home to gigsmart) free to play and the more people you bring then the more you make no money goes to the venue from the door, its split with each band on the night. good opp

JAFO

there was a good article in the papers yesterday about "pay to play", shoulda brought it in.. it is a serious RIPP OFF, I used to play in New York, just a small pub on a every other week basis, I always got paid 500 bucks and as much beer as I could handle!!
that's how it should be done, but with the ripp-off mentality going on in this part of the world, I can only see it getting worse here

polarbelly

agreed jafo

but unfortunately, there arent really any pubs/venues that are always gonna have a crowd in, no matter what ... so therefore the venues need to make sure that they're covering their costs...

dont get me worng cos i'm in a band, but i can just see whwere the venues are coming from

unfortunately with voodoo, you're going to be playing to no-one unless you bring your mates along, which might be grand to make a few bob but from a music promo point of view theres no point....
your mates have seen you before, if you release something they're gonna buy it, you just wont be reaching new heads and thats the idea of playing smaller gigs surely

thats my outlook anyway, and rob c, hope you dont take offence, i think voodoo is a nice little spot

mick

Rob. C

hi guys(no offence taken mick) i see your point. i do know the way john opperates these nights in voodoo is that most bands bring at least 20 people each, some 10 or so, he puts 4-5 bands on therefore giving each band a chance to play to new people and hopefully gaining them as gig goers to there next show. most of the bands who play may make up to 100 euros each off the door all going well. i have seen nights there with a lot of punters. so maybee there might be hope for bands yet!
take care guys rob.c

JAFO

agreed Polar!... part of the problem too is Dubs are so lazy about live music, they just don't seem to be interested as much as they were years ago, is this perhaps due to too much saturation of 1: venues and 2: Bands, there's a lot of bands on the go now, nearly to the point of confusion!!
PS: I'm opening a Pro Tools Studio in Wicklow, anybody interested??.. have some opening "specials"!!

Thomas from Presence

unfortunately with voodoo, you're going to be playing to no-one unless you bring your mates along, which might be grand to make a few bob but from a music promo point of view theres no point....

The gigsmart gigs on the Friday have been pulling ginormo-crowds I'm glad to report.

Reasons (also entitled how to get lazy Dubs to gigs)

1. Club till 2:30pm (well its meant to end @ 2:30pm, battery must be gone in my watch officer...) playing songs that you don't have to pretend to like for fear of looking uncool!

2. Get a taxi home within a couple of seconds of sticking ones nose out the door.

3. A lack of the pretentious air developing in Whelans.

4. €5 for bands and club (with the password) compared with the €13 I paid to catch ten minutes of a folk band and a night of death disco in Whelans.

5. Nice people, nice decor

6. A drinks promo, may be upgraded to a beer promo if crowds continue.

7. GOOD BANDS THAT HAVE BEEN VETTED PRIOR TO BOOKING WHO KNOW THEY'RE GETTING PAID AND THEREFORE RAWK LIKE THE PROVERBIAL BASTARD!

****ty drab indie/metal bands are ten a penny, if you want to suceed then you must be at the very least competent and professional. Too basic requirements that many bands lack!

Plug: Next Friday @ Voodoo: Ginseng-Murder of Crows-Gymnast-ID Parade (wait till you hear the voice on the singer)
Followed by the lovely Papa Lazarou's Club-that-u-like

polarbelly

if its "very very special rates" then we're defo interested

and regarding rob c. and the set up at voodoo:

thats cool that you put on bands on the same night and all that...its much the same idea as what gigsmart does... and its fúckin brilliant and great to be setting up a scene like that, but at the end of the day as jafo said people just arent arsed experiencing new bands... i'm feckin the same myself which i've been trying to fix recently by going to as many gigs as possible...

what happened with me, was the lads from the 66electric posted bout their gig in da2 a while ago and i said, nah wont bother until i've heard them... got the cd the day after and was freaked cos they're fuc$in brilliant... we only learn by our mistakes

JAFO

there is a horrible attitude developing at Whelans alright, glad someone else noticed it too!... Voodoo is Great, we've done a few Sat nights there and made money (good bit) and sold CD's so yes, very refreshing to everybody right now. how did u guys find the engineering??

the_corpo

i may be wrong but is the folk band you mention the moldy peaches?
€13 isn't that unusual for an nme cover band














even if they are ****e

palmic

hi mick from da 2 here this pay to play is absolutely a load of bull.the reason myself,dorans,whelans,isaacs ,the music centre,vicar st all charge fot the hire of the venues is because we all have running costs (soundman.pas ,lights, etc) in an ideal world we would all love to pay bands well for every gig that they do but that cost for smaller venues would close us all down .we hire the venue out and the bands take the door this has been in place since the showband days im not saying this is right but it is the only way we can keep running gigs. ive seen the article in the sunday paper and seen my name been linked with this pay to play and im takeing legal action as we speak i dont want to sound like a dickhead here or anything but im not haveing that. cheers mick

Thomas from Presence

Certain organisations ask for tickets to be sold for the gig and keep €150. Here's how one person who was in a band runs things:

1. gig is on monday night in inner city venue

2. Venue is always quiet on Monday. Venue costs €200 to rent on Fridays s and Thursdays.

3. Conmen have brainstorm, tell a load of young bands that a&r attend their monday night showcase and young band will be his cup of tea. Young band is sucked in.

4 Young band must sell tickets for whatever price they like, €150 of this must be returned to the promoter, the rest is 'profit',

5 The promoter keeps additional money raised on the door

6 Promoter does this with 4 other mands grossing up to €450 before anyone comes in the door (the band desperate to bring a large crowd because the 'A&R' man will be there.

7. Promoter and publican are delighted, monday night is packed (unlike everywhere else in the city) and loads of people paid in.

8. Promoter can make €300 for 10 phone calls and taking dough off the door. Promoter does not promote gig so the only overheads are venue cost which is heavily discounted if not free.

Thats the problem gentlemen. Venue hire is legitemate and gigsmart recognises it. Deceit and lies propagated by others in order to make ridiculous amounts of money are the issue.

This sound familiar?

Richie

Tom – good point, well made!
Palmic – nobody is disputing the fact that venues have overheads, expenses, blah blah blah. That much is obvious. The fact of the matter is though, that there are numerous “promoters” (naming no names btw) in Dublin out to make a quick and easy buck from new bands trying to make their name in the poxy and money-grabbing rip-off that is the Dublin music scene. As Tom said, certain people are making a fortune for making a few phonecalls and booking a couple of bands for a gig. That's why ticket prices are so high, and that's why there's so many bands going round that are totally disollusioned with the Dublin "scene".

Holyghost

Making bands pay for 'overheads' is passing the buck. A well promoted gig should make enough on the door and bar to pay both promoter, venue and the bands. In most smaller towns I've played (Donegal, Sligo, Roscommon, Cork) I've been paid in cash and in booze. Pay-to-play seems to be Dublin thing (and to a lesser extent Cork).


In my opinion a promoter has two roles in organising gigs:
1/
A promoter should be responsible for vetting bands to ensure a high standard of music

2/This may sound obvious but... a promoter should be responsible for PROMOTING a gig. This is not simply taking money off of a band and leaving them to their own devices, it's actively advertising the gig.

What is your opinion on this Palmic?

VonBon

Y'know Palmic, if it was the case that you split the door with your bands, it'd all be good. But you don't. I have spoken to several bands who played in your lovely sauna that agreed to split the door, only to discover - on the night, that splitting the door actually means paying the sound engineer, the chick on the door, and getting a tenner at the end of the night.

FACT

You are full of ****. I think I'll take you to court.

Lunar Junkie

Bull****, palmic.

As I heard it, you agreed beforehand to split the door takings with a band then ripped them off mercilessly at every turn. Hopefully stories of your slimy trickery will spread far enough that no band gets roped in by you again.

Richie

Sounds like there’s some far-from-happy campers out there!!
I don’t know Palmic, nor do I know anything about him or his dealings, but I do know that the problems that nim psychotic and VonBon had are indicative of what I was talking about earlier. Dodgy promoters that are in it for the money, and not for "dedication to the scene", or whatever way they put it these days! (and I’m not implying that you’re dodgy Palmic – I don’t know anything about you)

johnnynolegs

so what happens if u get ur mate to do the sound who pays them then and do you get the money they woudl have gotten????????

JAFO

ah, paying the resident engineer every night is not unusual, except. HE GET'S PAID BY THE VENUE!!... usually!!
anybody need a live engineer??

Rob. C

new pay to play deal that i have heard guys.5 bands play on one night.its a must that every band sells 30tickets each. if you cant you dont play. you buy the tickets in advance and if you dont sell them all thats your problem.tickets cost 8 euro and band gets 4 off the ticket if they sell there 30. promoter makes 600 bands make 120 each. my advice is that these fooloish bands get together hire out a venue themselves and keep that money for themselves! so evey band sells 30 tickets X8euro is 240x5=1200-venue cost anything from 90-150 rest is split for the bands. makes sence dont ya think.

johnnynolegs

Gigsmart does seem to be the best one around at the moment............

Thomas from Presence

Its all about being sensible, primary school maths and the ability to judge the amount of people in a venue is enough to do a quick Am-I-getting-buggered calculation.

johnnynolegs

exactly tom

palmic

vonbon and playground psychotic seems like ive pretty pissed yous off sorry to both .what happened with playground psychotic was we were doing a 50 /50 split.i started a 50/50 split with the all good intentions as to stop the venue hire fees on certains nights with certain bands after doing about 8 gigs like this it became very clear that this wouldent work.i was been left with not enough to pay the venue costs (soundmam pa etc) myself and glen were paying these out of our own pocket so i had to stop it.the last time we did a 50/50 was playgrounds gig at the end of the night we made £140 on the door so the venue made £70 and the band made £70 the problem was i had to pay soundman £100 and a person collecting the money £40.but my mistake was not telling the band the these costs come off the top.anyway the band got pretty annoyed about this and came back the next night lookings for money which i gave them im sorry to playground and vonbon if youre in some band the best i can do for yous is give yous a free night im not doing 50/50s anymore not worth the hassle but it was ment in the best intentions .thomas i agree with all the points you made about dublins music scene there are a lot of dodgy scams for bands id like to meet you have a chat and come up with something good my numbers 0877777443 vonbon if you want to ring me feel free.weve done over 120 gigs here and weve not had a lot of complaints but i hold my hands up i was wrong with the the 50/50 thing .IVE been involved in the dublin scene since power of dreams 12 years ago ive been involved with the rock garden,da club,tivoli,isaac butts ,ive managed melaton,damien dempsey and i still love the dublin music seen if i was dodgy id have been gone a long time ago the da2 was set up to try and bring back the spirt of the original da club where music comes first since weve startted weve been running a band compeition with garageland where were putting up all the prize money a total off £7000 pounds .weve ran the going underground acoustic nights (mundy,the walls.pugwash,blink,etc etc) on wensdays night with no cover charge which is starting up again in 2 weeks we give the cheapest drink prices from 10-6 everyday for all students £2.55 a pint so we do try but i dont always get it right.....mick

johnnynolegs

now that is a good response well done mick

palmic

cheers johnny

the fnj

Just a word of warning people, be careful who you burn your bridges with, because this city is so small the reality is you have to deal with the same people over and over despite past history.

As the old saying goes

If someone f*cks you over once shame on them, if they do it to you twice shame on you.

Learn from experience and protect yourself next time around.

And as the other saying goes

Let your children run wild and free

johnnynolegs

ah the classic let your childrne run wild and free - i followed that advice and got 90 gigs in 3 months joyous advice

IrishUnsinged

In case any of you in bands are interested (and some seem plenty interested) IrishUnsigned are proposing an alternative in a way. Instead of clogging this, go here to read it.

http://209.204.240.222/bbs/showthread.php3?s=&threadid=3473

In case any of you are really interested, we used to do gigs and we also do all sorts of promotional work for bands for free (yes free, you can directly contact any of the badsn we have helped, who are on the IrishUnsigned site in the artists section to verify).

We recently arranged for Lucas to meet a guy in the states who should get them a few gigs, we put RedKid in touch with a guy in Germany and now they have dates lined up in December and we're working on Scandinavia next. We also got all sorts of bands interviewed on radio stations and in print. And we *never* take any money from bands for this stuff, it's all about spreading our name and theirs.

We stopped doing gigs that we funded cos bands weren't bringing anyone (literally, the last gig we did had nine paying customers!) but we think we have a useful compromise idea. We managed to lose about 2 grand of our own money on a few dozen gigs since March so we stopped it. Read the post linked above and then email me (email address is on the post) if you want to discuss it. Don't reply to me here cos I only foud this thread by accident after something I read on Thumped and I might forget to come back too often!

Ron, IrishUnsigned.com

PS:Incidentally, if you want to help out a new band, vote 'brilliant' for Sutras on the PetSounds artist of the week at www.petsounds.ie

Also, if you want to make the music world fairer, see my other post on Boards.ie about the charts and registered shops

Finally, we are trying to get a collection of discounts and deals together (ie we have a sound guy who will supply a rig and run a gig for €160 as well as other deals in the pipeline) than send me details of anyone you know prepared to do a discount or special offer.