A Strongly Worded Blog

I promised my twitter followers (@raq_hell, if you haven't already, come on guys) a strongly worded blog. Now, I'm not too sure how strong I should make these words, and whether I should use them for their swearing/shocking power or just be STRONG in my words and opinions. As my Mum reads this blog (Hey there Mumsie), I think I shall go for the latter. But I may drop an F-Bomb, be warned. But never the C-Bomb, as, despite what Drew will tell you, I am a lady of class.

CLASS^^^

Since we've moved to Melbourne, we've played five gigs. Most have been well played (by us) and well received (by the small-medium amount of people at them). However, one thing we are now going to avoid as we have had two unfortunate brushes with them, are any gigs with the words 'Artist Showcase' 'Showdown' or 'Bands sell Tickets' in the gig description (or run by X or Y Promotions company). Our first gig of this nature was the first one we played here, which I booked on March 24th-ish, about three days after we got here. Honeybone don't muck around. I mentioned to the organiser we couldn't sell a lot of tickets, as we had only just moved here and (at the time) knew a grand total of about four people. She was like 'that's fine, just whatever you can manage'. We sold fifteen, and when we went to settle the tickets/money at the start of the gig, the organiser turned to her helper and said 'Ohhh they're from New Zealand and they sold FIFTEEN tickets, isn't that great?'. My thought was 'They can probably smell your condescension in Darwin'. Nonetheless, we made them $150, and we got the pleasure of playing a 'real' gig for a grand total of twenty minutes. We were asked back, needless to say I turned it down.

The other gig I was referring to was yesterday, and we played really well, which was nice. We sold a total of FIVE tickets at $12 each, and ended up having to pay the promotions company $40 for their sound guy (well, that's what they said it was for...), because we didn't sell fifteen tickets or more.This is the standard practice for this weekly running gig. In the run sheet, it said we were not allowed under any circumstance to provide our own sound person, so there goes that loop hole. What I thought was better about this gig than the other one was that, if we sold more than fifteen tickets, we would got $3 back from each ticket sale. So, say if we sold fifteen tickets, like the other gig, we would have $45 to put in our hot little pockets, and the 'promotions company' would have $135. BUT if we sold fourteen tickets, not only would we miss out on $42 for ourselves, we would lose an extra $40 to pay the sound guy, even though the promo company would have made $168 from the tickets. So that's $208 for the promotions company and $0 for the bands (the attraction of the day). So it's really no wonder that the 'promotions company' didn't do any promotion (that I saw/heard) for this gig, as they profit MORE from an emptier room.

With our five tickets sold, we made them $60, and paid them an extra $40, which makes $100. We gave up our entire afternoon (1-8pm), which Peter had to get off work for, so he missed out on at least another $100 (I'm not too sure how much he gets paid). Since Drew and I don't work Sundays, we didn't lose any money, however we probably could have done more productive things like record/mix parts for the new album, write new material or practice at our respective instruments. So that's a joint monetary loss to Honeybone of at least $140, which doesn't include travel costs (we had to tram it) or lunch/dinner. Not to mention the 'rider' we were provided with was bottled water, so we paid for our own drinks also (which probably came to another $100, although that would have gone to the venue, not the promo guys). We PAID $140 to PLAY a four song, 25 minute set. All for the honour of playing on a real stage. Awesome.

I do realise that this promotions company will have costs to cover. But considering there were about eight or nine bands on the bill, I'd say they're making a rather substantial profit, and comfortably covering their asses if the bands don't get enough people through the door.

Now, had we put this gig on ourselves, organised the promotion, sound guy, backline, lineup and venue, I would understand such a loss. That's what happens when you organise a gig. You prepare for loss, especially if you are a young, new band. I'm pretty sure we lost about $100 putting on our last gig in Dunedin, but everyone who came had such an awesome time that it didn't matter. We didn't mind. But gigs like these, where you have absolutely no control over who you play with, who does sound and what kind of promotion is used (apart from the promotion you do yourself) should not be done at a loss.

These types of gigs are aimed at young, inexperienced bands looking for easy gigs with little organisation/work on their part. We did these gigs as (at the time of booking them) we were unsure of how to go about getting our own gigs in this new town. What is ironic is how the people running these gigs call themselves 'Promotions Companies', yet do no promotion on their part, and rely entirely on the bands to sell tickets.

How I see it, is that there are two major problems with this concept of a 'gig'.

1. Bands who do these types of gigs aren't going to be headline acts. They're probably just starting out, they have only a small amount of fans usually consisting of family/friends. Honeybone falls into this category only because we are new in this town, not because of lack of experience. At both gigs we did, the average age of the musicians was probably 18-19. How are these kids supposed to sell a large amount of tickets when no one has heard of their band? And these companies say they are helping young, local, unrecognised acts??

2. We live in an age of a diminishing attention-span in most people, with technology getting faster, lighter and smaller, many people are used to getting results in seconds, not minutes, hours or days. No one wants to wait for anything, they want it instantly. Getting people to commit to a decision like buying a ticket for a workmate/friend/family member's gig days or weeks in advance is a difficult task. I encountered this trying to sell tickets to my workmates. No one wants to commit to a decision like that. It's not a major decision, but it's not an instant reward, like downloading the band's music off Bandcamp for free which would probably take about a minute. No one wants to give up their weekend time in advance. It's all 'maybe', especially if you're in the same boat as my band, where not a lot of people have heard us, so they are reluctant to make plans and spend money in advance. There's no instant reward, so they don't see the appeal. PLUS paying $12 to see a band play for twenty-five minutes is a little steep. Especially on a Sunday afternoon, when most young people are still sleeping off the night before.

I'm sure these kinds of companies can justify what they do in many, many different ways. But I don't see how they can justify ripping off young, inexperienced bands and still have 'support local music' on the back of their event crew hoodies. I for one would like to know what promotion they put on for these weekly 'showcase/showdown' gigs. The first one we did didn't even have our band name on the poster outside the venue. The second one didn't have anything outside the venue, as there was another gig on the same day in a different room (which I think was free),which is a bit of fail on their part.

I might sound like a total whining bitch, but the gig wasn't a total loss. About seven or eight people went away with a free copy of 'Soul On Fire' EP, and we met some cool cats by the name of Polygasm (who are freaking amazing). We're putting it down to an experience, a chance to practice loudly, and some extra 'likes'  on our facebook page.

And we LOVE having more 'likes'. Maybe one day we'll even have enough to apply for an NZOnAir Grant. LOL.

At said gig. Why WOULDN'T you like us?

Last night I was fuming. Today I am mildly annoyed. Tomorrow I will probably be indifferent, or even nonchalant. Basically I want to get the word out, in case there's some hot young band thinking doing these kinds of gigs will be a fast ticket to fame and fortune reading this. Value your music and your integrity. These kinds of gigs promise everything, and deliver nothing. They're off laughing to the bank, while you slave away at a supermarket checkout/ office desk/ cleaning mop/ another cliche musician day job to pay for the next EP recording, a van to get your gear around or a decent guitar. All you need to do to get gigs is be good at what you do and network. DON'T be an up-yourself asshole, be nice. Be friendly. That's all it takes.

Hey wow, no F-Bomb.

xxxxxxx

Oh screw it. Fuck.