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Unresponsive club owner after gig


BluesCam

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Hey gang. I am in a duo and we played a gig at a small club. There were only about 10 people in the place, but they stayed to hear us. We did two sets

and were paid a reasonable amount plus food and drinks. I think the club probably lost money on the gig. The bartender said he thought we were great and that he was

going to tell the owner to bring us back. Unfortunately, the owner will not respond to me about playing there again. Maybe because of the small crowd.

I am trying to decide if I should keep trying or just forget about it.

Any thoughts? Thanks.

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Have you tried talking to the bartender again? I have found that often an owner will be more inclined to do something if his people are pushing. I also found that sometimes you have to spend time in the club, get a feel for the other acts, see what 'new trick' you can bring that will seal the deal.

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That's a good idea daddymac. Maybe I will go back and talk to the bartender and leave a nice tip. Very creative suggestion. In this particular place that might be easy to do. I am speculating that the owner felt that he lost money on us. Thanks.

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That's a good idea daddymac. Maybe I will go back and talk to the bartender and leave a nice tip. Very creative suggestion. In this particular place that might be easy to do. I am speculating that the owner felt that he lost money on us. Thanks.

 

 

Dealing with the gatekeepers is the worst part of the job. You can pretty much count on them all to be unprofessional and unresponsive. Let me ask you this, if there wasn't a band playing and he had no crowd and lost money, would he still bring the bartender back? There is a cost to doing business, and profit isn't guaranteed.

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Dealing with the gatekeepers is the worst part of the job. You can pretty much count on them all to be unprofessional and unresponsive. Let me ask you this, if there wasn't a band playing and he had no crowd and lost money, would he still bring the bartender back? There is a cost to doing business, and profit isn't guaranteed.

 

Well, first off, club owners are busy people so I don't let it bother me. As far as the reference between the band and the bartender I'm not getting it. The bar and bartender are a direct profit center. The bands job is to keep people frequenting that profit center.

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Well, first off, club owners are busy people so I don't let it bother me. As far as the reference between the band and the bartender I'm not getting it. The bar and bartender are a direct profit center. The bands job is to keep people frequenting that profit center.

 

 

The reference is that if there are no patrons, the bartender is a cost center. It's not the band's job to bring clientele anymore than it's the bartenders. It's the band's job to entertain the clientele.

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The reference is that if there are no patrons, the bartender is a cost center. It's not the band's job to bring clientele anymore than it's the bartenders. It's the band's job to entertain the clientele.

 

Although I share that opinion, owners and managers no longer do. Most of the venues that I now play expect the artists to bring patrons to their establishments. A call to a manager often centers around how many FB fans you have, how big your direct contact list is, what promo methods you use, and how big your typical per night fan attendance is. Many venues don't care about how talented you are, but rather how popular you are. They want you to be their promotions manager, to do all their advertising for them, and even provide the in-house posters and table flyers. This is nothing new, sad as it is.

 

Re: the bartender recommendation - if I had a nickel for every time a bartender said he would give a big thumbs up to the owner, and nothing happened, I would have a whole lot of nickels.

 

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Although I share that opinion, owners and managers no longer do. Most of the venues that I now play expect the artists to bring patrons to their establishments. A call to a manager often centers around how many FB fans you have, how big your direct contact list is, what promo methods you use, and how big your typical per night fan attendance is. Many venues don't care about how talented you are, but rather how popular you are. They want you to be their promotions manager, to do all their advertising for them, and even provide the in-house posters and table flyers. This is nothing new, sad as it is.

 

Re: the bartender recommendation - if I had a nickel for every time a bartender said he would give a big thumbs up to the owner, and nothing happened, I would have a whole lot of nickels.

 

And this is exactly why I stick to the festival circuit and rarely play bar gigs. Shorter sets, more money, and the event promoters have to do their jobs.

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Let me ask you this, if there wasn't a band playing and he had no crowd and lost money, would he still bring the bartender back? There is a cost to doing business, and profit isn't guaranteed.

I would expect the bartender to close up early...that's what I did when I worked as a closing bartender. Lessen the overhead & lessen the direct labor.

 

When I was in purchasing, my goal was to save the company at the very least my salary +25% every year. Made it hard for the boss to deny you a salary increase if you'd already paid for it... ;)

 

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Thanks for the replies guys. The problem is when you are a new act you don't have a following. I did manage to get 8 people to come. About the bartender part. He came up to us as we were packing up and said he was going to recommend us to the owner, but I'm sure the cash register told the story.

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Ray Charles said it best: "If you gotta have something before you can get something, how you get the first is still a mystery to me." If you only hire acts who've been there forever, how can you tell: a) that a slow night isn't because everyone's tired of you, and b) that a new act won't bring in a new and bigger crowd once they hear about you?

 

Yeah, I know . . . preaching to the choir.

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I recently heard a story about a restaurant owner that turned down a musician that offered to play for free. After 6 years of having live music he determined that he was losing money having it. This is a dinner & wine type of restaurant and the reasons wouldn't apply to every venue. But it may shed some light on an owner's perspective.

 

1. Tables taken out for musicians eliminated tables for paying customers.

2. Musicians were bringing in patrons that didn't spend money

3. Staff had to be paid later in the night even though very little revenue was generated

4. other than the financial aspect, they decided their quality of life would be better if they closed at 10 instead of 1am

 

Some venues rely on musicians to bring in a crowd to stay in business, but for most restaurants live music only adds to the atmosphere - an enhancement.

 

 

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I too believe it is not up to the entertainer to bring a crowd to the club, but to entertain the people there. Anyone who follows them is simply extra. I've played a once a week gig for 10 years now, and we have a big following that come almost every week, but I wouldn't tell another club that they will follow me to their establishment. If they ask, I'll say we have a mailing list of over 500 people, and I'll let them know, but I can't guarantee that any will show up. If I could predict the audience, we'd go into the consulting business and get rich.

 

We predominantly play yacht clubs, country clubs, retirement communities, private parties, private clubs and so on, but we balance that with a minority of public restaurants or bars. In the yacht clubs and other places there is always an audience. In the commercial gig, we don't worry about it. We invite our mailing list, and hopefully some will show up.

 

And whoever is there, whether it's packed or one table, we will do our very best.

 

Insights and incites by Notes.

 

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*And whoever is there, whether it's packed or one table, we will do our very best.*

 

My Wednesday gig, I start at 5. It's sometimes empty except for staff. At 5, I sit behind the piano and start playing and singing the best I can. That's because people are going to come in and I want there to be a vibe.

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Empty club stories, I wanna play.

 

My favourite one is a Monday night blues gig I have talked about previously. Small forty or fifty seat lounge. One waitress/bartender. Often when I showed up to start, there would be a couple of tables of folks seated right next to where I was supposed to play. The few people in attendance were usually from mainland China, conversed in Mandarin and were usually having an interesting and elaborate Chinese tea serving. They were not interested in Blues, and for the life of me I can't figure out why the few people in the lounge were always seated right beside me.

 

I once wondered if my part of the room had the best Feng Shui, or if it was simply the shortest distance to the bar. Considering the bartender was one of the most efficient ladies I've ever met, I'm thinking it was a distance factor. Generally when the folks finished their tea service, there would be no one there. If the bartender went back into the kitchen (as she often did), I would be playing for no one. Still, I can't complain. It was a two hour gig with a house PA, on a Monday and went on for months; until they turned the lounge into a Rolex store.

 

Here's a link to one of their tea masters at work. Luckily I didn't have to compete with them. They were earlier in the day. https://www.yelp.ca/biz_photos/xi-shi-lounge-vancouver?select=nL_0TCXO4tjyVnFQEADgwA

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solo jazz gigs are around, but most don't pay very well...jazz rooms [and blues rooms] are vanishing as the population ages here...we went to a very nice French restaurant a while back, they had a duo [at 6:30PM], a jazz guitarist and a vocalist...frankly, he should have left the singer at home; he was capable, while she was...not really.

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I think some places look at the entertainment as their marketing branch. Plus, there is a misconception with restaurant and club owners that all they have to do is throw up a Facebook page and they are good to go. The place I originally mentioned closes at 10 pm on Fri. and Sat. They used to close at 9 pm! They don't have a sign that can be seen from the street. They update their website slowly. That don't offer specials, etc. It is a nice room with so much potential, but I guess I have played my first and last gig there. I am going to try to find gigs at breweries. There are a ton of them around here.

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I shut my band down in August. We played two venues in the city nearby- one had a really decent crowd the other hardly anyone. Both gigs were booked when we discovered after the fact that no other bands wanted to to do them because they were notoriously bad weekends- one was Memorial Day weekend, the other was a huge blues festival in town ( we were a blues band that didn't get the festival because we did it the previous year). Apparently, the crowd we thought was decent was small by their standards, so neither club would respond to our attempts to rebook. After we pulled the plug on the band, I felt a huge relief in not begging these guys to book us. And it isn't just us. Every friend I have in other bands tells me they have to beg, wheedle and pester the guys to get themselves booked. for a whopping 400 dollars a night.

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It is obvious that some club and restaurant owners don't care about the quality of the entertainment. They only care about the crowd draw. We only got one chance at one place, even though I feel that we sounded good. Right now, I am having fun playing at private parties.

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