A message/plea to promoters from a jobbing band/musician
From an anonymous musician

The background

I’m an Oxford-based musician and play in a small-time local band that gigs regularly, usually several times a month at least. I’ve also played in numerous other bands on the Oxford scene over the last ten years, most of which have been equally small scale – you may possibly know some of the names, but none of them ever got properly successful. I’ve played well over 150 gigs in that time, mainly in Oxford or around Oxfordshire, and my current band have accounted for some 60+ of those of gigs over seven years. We’ve played everything from toilets to festivals, big venues to tiny sheds, supporting big, nationally touring bands and headlining cupboards. This, I feel, qualifies me to make a plea not only on my own behalf, but on behalf of all small-time, jobbing, hard-working but largely small-time bands that play gigs regularly.

We’ve noticed a distinct and worrying drop in the standards of promoters in Oxford. Not all of them – some still stand head and shoulders above the rest, and the big guns have pretty much got it together as you would expect – but we’ve played an increasing number of small-ish scale gigs at the main Oxford venues over the last three-four years, for so-called promoters, which have been very badly run and who made the whole experience fraught with frustrations, lack of information and general disorganization. This has been evident both from promoters who are new on the block and also a lot of supposedly seasoned promoters who we think really should know better. One recent experience has prompted me to write this piece, but it’s more than just the one occasion that has lead up to it.

We as a band are very easy going; we are very experienced and we are as professional as a band of our standing can be expected to be. We can set up and soundcheck within 15 minutes. We know we can arrive at a venue and, as long as there is a functional PA, we will be able to put on a show to a high standard. We have all the gear a band needs to possess in order to function – amps, drums, instruments, even bits of PA stuff like mics, cables, stands and mixers, should the need arise. We don’t fuck about, and we put 100% into every gig. This may sound like bragging, but in truth I have never been in a band that didn’t have that same attitude and approach, and just about all the dozens, possibly even hundreds of other bands we’ve met on the circuit have much the same approach. You get the odd one who don’t have a clue, or act like dickheads, but most bands with any gigging experience get their organization and professionalism down pretty quickly. If you don’t, you tend to get a bad reputation – or at least a sharp word – from the other bands on the bill for screwing around too much. Bands on the same wavelength muck in for each other, the rest get left to fend for themselves.

The problem

With all that in place, let me get on to the meat of my gripe. When we accept a gig, we are booked because the promoter expects something from us: a good show, some good songs, and most importantly some paying fans through the door. Likewise, when we accept that gig we expect something from the promoter. In fact, more than ‘something’, we expect quite a lot of things from the promoter. The bare minimum we as a band need to know, loosely in order, is:

• Date & venue of the gig
• Ticket price, plus any info on advance tickets, where to buy etc
• Names of all the bands playing
• Load-in time (when we’re expected to be there with our gear – very different from soundcheck time)
• Soundcheck time
• Stage times/running order
• Kit share – who is bringing what, what we are expected to bring ourselves, whose gear we are borrowing and who expects to borrow our gear
• Contact info for the other bands – names, phone numbers, email addresses, websites/Facebook/Myspace etc for them
• A poster or flyer for the gig, digital or printed
• Any Facebook or other web links for the show
• Payment structure/fees for the gig – are we taking a cut of the total door money, or a ticket cut, and if so how much of a percentage? Are we playing for free or do we have a flat fee?
• Any other pertinent info which may have a bearing on the show – for example if it’s a charity show, a festival with no sound checks, whether under 18s can attend, guestlists, whatever you think is important.

All that information needs to be communicated to us a minimum of two weeks before the gig, and preferably a lot earlier than that. A month in advance is nice, unless we’re booked short-notice, in which case we’ll take whatever we can. It is much preferable if all of the information is included in a single, concise email which all the bands are copied in on. We need to know these things in order to email our mailing lists, add the events to our own websites/Facebook etc, spam forums, distribute flyers/posters, organize ourselves around the times we’re expected to be there, and to organize the gear sharing. The more time we have to do that, the better the outcome will be for all.

None of this is hard, but it seems increasingly rare for bands to be communicated this kind of information by the promoter, when it’s critical in order for us to be able to do our bit to make the gig a success. I keep hearing promoters complaining about bands not putting in the legwork themselves to bring their fans, and I can understand that – to a certain extent – because bands are notoriously lazy on the whole. But if we don’t have this information available to us, what can we do? We spend a lot of time making websites, Facebook pages, collecting mailing lists and so on, which are our fans’ ports of call to find out what we’re up to. How can they find anything out if we don’t have any information to put on our sites or in our mail-outs? What’s the point if we only have half the information?

Facebook

Facebook has become a menace and made many promoters lazy. Too many promoters are relying on making a Facebook event and nothing more. Sure, Facebook is an important part of the advertising process, but it is not and should not be the only thing you do. If you have made a Facebook event then you must have an email address, and be on the internet yourself, and therefore must be able to find out ours with a little effort. If we’ve done our job right, it should be a breeze to find our contact info.

How to do it right

That leads on to this point: communicate directly to us on our own band email address. Don’t rely on us trawling through Facebook to find the event, or a post on the promoter’s personal wall, for information. There’s so much crap on Facebook that a post disappears off the ‘Recent activity’ list quickly, and it’s very easy for people to miss it entirely. You should ensure that you make an official Facebook event and pass that link on to all the bands so that they all link to the official event, rather than making their own. Don’t post critical information about the gig only on the Facebook event – tell us directly of any changes to lineup, running order, etc. We may know about the Facebook event, but we don’t check it every day to find out about the mechanics of the gig. We expect that information to be given directly to us. Most of what we need doesn’t belong on a public Facebook event – it is privately passed between the promoter and bands.

The information about soundcheck and gear sharing is important. It is only polite, if you are a supporting band, to check with the other bands about who is providing gear for you to use. It leads to very awkward situations if that hasn’t been done in advance. If we’re headlining and providing gear for a show, we expect to have been approached by the supporting bands to discuss what they need to bring in addition to what we’re providing. It gets very hard if a band turns up to soundcheck and hasn’t sorted this out. Quite often, it means that they haven’t brought the right gear, and need to borrow something which is off-limits, like cymbals, amp heads or snare drum. What do you do? Tell them, quite rightly, to fuck off, and thereby prevent them from playing? Or allow them to borrow your gear and run the risk of them cracking a £200 cymbal, putting a stick through your snare drum or blowing valves or speakers in your expensive guitar amp, thus making it impossible for you to play, and costing you money?

This goes back to the point about bands mucking in together. Organising gear sharing is much easier with bands you know personally, and quite often you’ll allow someone to use your amp head or snare drum if you know them and know they’ll respect it. If you’re playing with total unknowns then the exact opposite becomes true. They will invariably not be allowed to use your ‘off-limits’ gear.

On a similar note, a big problem at gigs in small venues is storage for equipment. Invariably it is much better for the bands to share as much equipment as possible, and for them each to bring as little as possible. This saves space, makes the changeovers quicker and means you don’t end up with two drum kits, ten amps and three bass rigs all fighting for storage space. Similarly, it is important to know in advance if there is some configuration change required, such as a left-handed drummer. Even with the most easy-going of drummers, this is a kit sharing nightmare, and any advance warning and planning that can be done is to everyone’s advantage. If the guy turns up on the night and promptly disassembles the drum kit with no prior warning, there is likely to be a fight, not to mention it taking an additional 15 minutes of setting up either side. All of this is easily avoided if we have communications in place in advance.

The tipping point for me was when we were recently confirmed for a gig, and when I asked the promoter to email me the details of it, he openly laughed at me and told me he didn’t have time for things like that. Well, fuck you. If you can’t even be bothered to communicate directly to the people that are playing the gig for you, then I wish you the very worst of luck for your event and will not be sorry to miss it. There are plenty of better gigs to play.

Why to do it right

It takes time and effort to run a gig, but it’s not rocket science, it’s just organization. Too many people seem to be putting gigs on just to say they booked the bands, but have no concept of how to organise the event itself. They’re just playing at being a promoter. My own band is very DIY-oriented and respects anyone who puts in the time and effort to run a gig, and we’ll muck in as much as possible. We’ve organized and promoted quite a few gigs ourselves, and are happy to play for anyone, anytime, anywhere. But please, put the time and effort in to organise and communicate properly, otherwise you’re screwing with the very people who are making your event happen in the first place – the bands. It’s all about the bands and the music, not about massaging your ego just because it’s your name at the top of the poster. If you run a good event, people will start to recognize you as a good promoter who puts on good shows. If the bands all think you’re a disorganized dickhead, it won’t last long.

So, if any of you current or would-be promoters out there are feeling that any of this applies to you, and a lot of you should be feeling that, I have one piece of advice: go and talk to Gappy Tooth Industries. They’ve got it down to a fine art, and it’s to their eternal credit that they manage to keep their events running as smoothly as they do. GTI gave us our first gig some seven years ago, and we’ve been involved in a number of events for them over the years. Their communication is always immaculate and leaves you in no doubt as to what is happening. A single email with all the information laid out clearly, concisely and in full, poster attached, everything needed. They’ve successfully applied this to small, three/four band gigs and to full blown three-day, 30+ band festivals, for nigh-on ten years. It doesn’t stop all kinds of shenanigans happening, but it cuts out most of the avoidable crap of the process. And everyone‘s life is happier for it.

I’ll finish by saying that most of the bands I’ve come across are very easy going when it comes to playing this kind of small scale gig. We do it mainly because we love doing it; not to make a fortune or to fuck groupies on the back stairs of the Wheatsheaf. Soundchecks will always happen, one way or another; the bands will always work it out and work with each other to get things done.

But don’t think that I’m overstating the case. There is a lot of time, effort, cost, and stress put into any gig from the band’s side of things. This could be easily avoided for both the bands and the promoter if there was just a little more organization carried out in advance. That responsibility lies solely in the hands of the promoter. It’s your gig, not ours. You need to make the arrangements, not us. You need to lay down the groundwork and framework for it to happen, not rely on us knowing the ropes and muddling through. You need to be in control of your event.