The general standard of rehearsal rooms in Dublin

Rigsby wrote: »

The only reason I can think of why this should be, is that the owners know that generally a band cant practice anywhere and therefore are complacent when it comes to standards. I wont mention the number of times that amps have failed. I am a little more understanding here, because they probably get a lot of abuse.

I'm not pointing the finger at the businessmen who run the rehearsal rooms and expecting them to dip into their pockets and improve their facilities overnight because in many cases the overheads are just so expensive (rent for a commercial premises, ESB, staff wages, insurance, phone/internet, equipment replacements) that they can probably just about afford to get by and provide a service to begin with.

And, when you think about it, who damages the equipment in the first place? The musicians themselves. It's a circular problem where the studio doesn't want to kit out the place with top-notch gear because it will be abused and where an element of the musicians abuse the lesser grade gear because they devalue it, due to it not being their own and because it looks like it has been around the block a number of times. I mean, who steals cymbal felts off the drum kits that the studio has to resort to putting duct tape on the stands? And these same people probably nod their heads in agreement when others complain about the quality of band rehearsal rooms. The mind boggles.

I spoke to the guys in one well-known Dublin city studio a good few years ago when I was still going there, and they said there wasn't much money to be made in running a rehearsal space, or not as much as people would like to think. A while back I drew up a business plan of my own to see if I could set up a facility where I live for local bands but I did the math and quickly discovered it would require a lot of capital to get off the ground. Plus, it's a very risky endeavour. You would need some decent funding at least for security. Bands these days are expected to pay around €60-€75 for a full back line, but would rather pay €35-€50 instead if they had a choice. Sadly, unless a studio is booked up all of the time, running at near full capacity, that kind of business model just wouldn't make economic sense.

Fun with numbers:

Say a rehearsal studio has 6 rooms, and is open 7 days a week, 12 hours a day, with four 3-hour slots in their daily schedule. Each 3-hour session works out at €50 for a full backline.

That means that if the studio is at maximum capacity; 24 bands play in 6 rooms in a one day period, the studio makes a gross profit of €1,200 per day. That's only a potential so it's probably not that busy in most places. Even if the studio was able to generate a maximum total of €8,400 per week, it's theoretically possible but probably never happens save for once in a blue moon.

One can only speculate how much business a rehearsal room brings in, but I'll hazard a guess and say it's only half of that amount; €4,200 per week, where the studio sees 12 bands per day (Saturdays and Sundays could be busier days but these even out on the quiet weeknights).

So, with €4,200 per week, the studio has to deduct the following: rent for a commercial premises, ESB, staff wages, insurance, phone/internet, and then any equipment replacements.

Some commercial properties with a lot of sq. ft space can be as high as €2,000 per week, then say a 3-man staff could be between €1,200-€1,500. Which leaves just €1,000 to cover all the other weekly bills, whatever they may be. It's doable, but that's counting on getting 12 bands per day, or 84 per week.