Members Bob O'Brian Posted December 13, 2007 Members Share Posted December 13, 2007 I was talking to one of the major venues in my town about bookings for next year and it looks like things are going to turn sour. This place has, for several years, taken in a band every Friday and Saturday for three hour gigs, paying the usual going rate for these parts, no questions, no problems.Since business hasn't been doing so well the venue are trying to cut costs. They're going to reduce the number of times they have a band in (boo!), using discos and DJs instead to save money. They're also talking about changing how they pay the bands- possibly doing a percentage of bar takings or some such. We are also going to have to do more promotion work than before. I guess we've had it fairly cushy up till now, but I'm worried about whether I can trust the venue to tell me what their bar takings really were, and it looks like the money is going to drop anyway. What business other than live music sees its income dropping every year? This sucks! What makes it most annoying is that the venue are really lazy when it comes to booking bands. They hear two or three bands that they like, and then give them ALL the gigs for the year! So every time you go in the place you see the same band, doing the same set, and it gets very very stale. I wish they'd give some of the other guys more of a go, it's not like there's a shortage of bands. So to give this rant a purpose, what's a reasonable deal to strike with a venue? Also, in a small town, how much promotion ought we do? What are the best ways of promoting ourselves? Yours worriedly, Bob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mrmatt64 Posted December 13, 2007 Members Share Posted December 13, 2007 Well, seems you're just talking about 1 place, although you did say it's a small town, so maybe there's not many other places to play there. I live in Columbus, Ohio so there's many places to check-sometimes that could be a bad thing!! Anyoo, this is a bad time of year for a LOT of venuse (except for New Year's Eve gigs!) so I bet you'll hear that from a lot of places. Just hang in there and hopefully the new year brings along new opportunities for ya! Mr. Matt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Bob O'Brian Posted December 13, 2007 Author Members Share Posted December 13, 2007 Cheers for that, but the venue is talking about a big change for the whole of next year's bookings.It's kind of hard to gig anywhere else since I live on an island and getting the band to the mainland would cost more than half of what we charge for a gig. Ouch! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mrmatt64 Posted December 13, 2007 Members Share Posted December 13, 2007 Got ya! Good luck in your endeavors!!!! Mr. Matt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members PaulyWally Posted December 13, 2007 Members Share Posted December 13, 2007 So to give this rant a purpose, what's a reasonable deal to strike with a venue? You could try having a cover charge. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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