Gigging thing - opinions, please!

[mrph]

(With apologies to diffrentcolours for poaching the title...)

There's been a fair bit of debate about gigs and promoters elsewhere on LJ today - mostly about a specific incident, but with some discussion of what should be expected/provided, good practice and all that sort of thing.

And thinking about it, there are a few musical and promotery types reading this journal. So...

What advice should be in a FAQ/guide for first time gig promoters?

Or, from the other point of view, for new bands who are about to start playing gigs?
Edit: actually, there seems to be a very decent take on the band's checklist here. Which the gigging thing lyrics indirectly reminded me of... :)

Comments

[diffrentcolours]

Cor, I used to be funny...

One thing that might be a good thing (especially in the light of recent events) is more communication between promoters of clubs and gigs to avoid clashes. It seems that the promotion "scene" has gotten even more insular these days.

I seem to remember at some point someone talking about setting up a mailing list for gig and club promoters to avoid such clashes, and to organise such things as band tours. Did that ever happen?

[sogoth.livejournal.com]

there is a small mailing list for UK DJs, but there's not a lot of action on it at the moment. No real organisation between clubs either.

It'd be nice if clubs within easy travel distance could help flyer each other and maybe work together on larger gigs that one club alone couldn't afford.

[mrph.livejournal.com]

It'd be nice if clubs within easy travel distance could help flyer each other.

I always thought that Gert Black Combine Harvester and taoist_goth's Dark Entries worked really well for this. One of those ideas that never really escaped the South, though.

[sogoth.livejournal.com]

While the idea was great, it didn't last too long unfortunately. The other side of the coin was that despite it all we never actually saw anyone new from the adverts in Dark Entries :(

My comment was more of an idealistic one as I know full well that people won't/don't travel from oxford to Church of Madness and only a few people from Reading ever manage to make it to Intrusion.

[mrph.livejournal.com]

I think GBCH had a fairly long run, but then it was covering a small/busy area, iirc - Bath, Bristol and Gloucester(?), all of which had overlap in attendee goths.

I always figured that the West Midlands would suit something like that - a couple of Brum nights, a couple of Cov nights, Wolverhampton and a hop over the border for Leicester. They're all reasonably close...

[sogoth.livejournal.com]

That may well have been the problem with Dark Entries towards the end. It was spread out across such a wide area that most of it was irrelevant to most people.

[markeris.livejournal.com]

If you described the remit of Dark Entries as a wide area to an American gig goer, they`d look at you blankly. Playing a gig 100 miles away from gig the previous night over there would be considered as being stupid enough to more or less play 2 gigs in the same town on conseuctive nights more or les. We`re very lazy indeed about supporting our music over here if it actually requires personal effort (the net has killed most reasons for making an effort, you can now feel part of a scene without ever once supporting it in the real world)

[mrph.livejournal.com]

Cars, booze and weekday events. That's half the problem here. From what I remember of my days on the corpgoth list, an awful lot of US goths are happy to drive to an event and get hotels or crashspace. But then more of the events seem to be on Friday or Saturday, so...

An awful lot of UK goths either don't drive or don't own cars. And out of the ones that do, a fair few don't like driving to gigs because then they can't drink. Combine that with the wretched state of our trains, and you have a problem. The main thing that stopped my London gig-going is the difficulty of getting home again afterwards.

But it's still easier to get back from London without a car than it is from Leicester - which is just over 20 miles from my house.

Looking back, an awful lot of the travels of yesteryear happened because of a small number of people who were happy to ferry carloads of goths to and from events. Aside from things like Whitby, that mindset has faded a bit these days - and, as ever, the people who used to do that, back in ninety wotsit, now have other commitments. There just don't seem to be newcomers with the same attitude.

[mrph.livejournal.com]

...actually, that's not strictly true. I know several people who'll drive many miles to their "local" club. It's the trips further afield that seem to suffer. Hmm.

[inulro.livejournal.com]

True in absolute distance terms, but I can travel 100 miles one hell of a lot faster in Canada than I can here in the Land of Permanent Traffic Jams.

[taoist-goth.livejournal.com]

Dark Entries died for several reasons.

1. The number of contributors tailed off and started to get too low to make it worthwhile

2. Some contributors consistently failed to pay for their flyers

3. Some contributors kept giving me hassle about the size/shape of their ads even after I'd given them exhaustive details of how it would/could look

4. It was very, very tedious to run (like herding cats through a tuna factory) and I just couldn't face it any longer

5. As it happened, I could get A5 colour flyers cheaper than doing DE


And finally I have a question. What kind of mindset do you have to have to book a slot in DE when you know you haven't got the money to pay for it?

[sogoth.livejournal.com]

It seemed to work quite well when it first started, much cudos for trying though!

[taoist-goth.livejournal.com]

It was one of those ideas that works well if everyone does their bit but falls to bits if they don't. If everyone made good use of their flyers and put them out all over, then all the contributors should theoretically have seen a surge in business. I have my suspicions about this, however.

Primarily though, it was an absolutely MONSTER pain in the arse to run. Really.

[sogoth.livejournal.com]

I'll bet.
We put them out around Reading, but people would look at it, see that 99% of it was miles away and ignore the relevant, local bits. Sad really as there were some good clubs listed :(

[taoist-goth.livejournal.com]

You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. :o/

[sogoth.livejournal.com]

That's cause after the long walk to the water they fancy a pint of cider instead

[diffrentcolours]

Hmm, given the power of the Internet, it would be trivial for people to flyer clubs "remotely" - so for example Club A's organisers could download and print off a bunch of flyers for Club B, and Club B could return the favour. There's an element of trust involved there but it might be appropriate for situations where club organisers don't have the time or money to visit other clubs.

[sogoth.livejournal.com]

yep, that's my point (I think... I forget these things so easily!)
Especially useful in the cases of Church of Madness and Intrusion. Both are close enough to get to from the other, but I just wondr how many people are aware of the other one, or aware enough to know dates and times etc. etc.

[diffrentcolours]

Hmm, I only recently discovered that CofM has moved nights... then again, I'm not exactly great at getting to Intrusion these days...