Al Krow

But let's take worst case and say that this doesn't happen. Are we really saying that the opportunity to generate £10s billions of economic activity is going to be passed up because EU artists are going to stop coming over. Are there really no UK artists to take their place (e.g. all the pro-musos looking for work who are not moving to Dublin)?

Again I'm struggling with your numbers. How many artists are coming over to the UK to generate £10s billions in small amounts? What are you considering to be a small amount, and we can work backwards to the number of overseas artists coming to the UK each year.

And that's where I'm struggling with the economic analysis. If its worth £10s billions then frankly some enterprising half wit is going to spot that it's worth sorting out visas. It's either worth a lot of money, in which case visa costs and effort are worth it, or it's not?

Our joint love for music trumps politics every day of the week, buddy 😉

Yeah but your use of filter pedals live more than makes up for it 😁

True and the pro-muso small club scene is worth diddly squat over here, as folk have already pointed out. What is worth £billions is film and computer graphics. We're doing brilliantly on that score as a nation.

Tbf the 3M+ from the EU and the other several million from the rest of the world only up sticks and are prepared to leave their homelands and communities because the economic prospects are better over in the UK - assuming that they are economic migrants, of course, which the vast majority are / were (my parents included). So if there is a bigger pot of gold elsewhere and the opportunity to take go for it! You have my admiration sir! It does take a LOT of get up and go to leave the place you've grown up in; the reason why we have such capable EU and rest of the world citizens doing so well over here (and who often get first dibs on unskilled work) is that so many of them were folk with exactly that "get up and go".

So should UK pro-musicians worried about a loss of livelihood from EU work be prepared to get off their backsides and move to Europe, while they can before the 31 Dec this year and FoM is still available, in the same way that 3 million+ EU citizens have been prepared to up sticks and move to the UK in search of work? Dublin would be great place to live, for example, and there are plenty of others!

Here's the link again (and I'll post it in the OP for ease of reference) to Jon Willis' Helix patches. http://drtonelab.com/ Rumour has it that some Helix users are now preferring the speaker cab EQ settings, particularly the 8x10, on the Dr Tonelab page over cab sims and IR’s. If that's the case then that should address a key gap in the HX Effects armoury.

People also voted against changing the system when offered the chance on 5 May 2011, by an overwhelming majority. Democracy eh?

We're not going to agree on this one, but that's ok. What I do know is that there are 800,000 16 to 24 year olds in the UK who are not in education or training [Source ONS]. Post ending FoM bosses are going to have invest in equipping some of these with skills and paying a decent wage instead of relying on cheap already trained workers from overseas. If even 100,000 of these youngsters are helped into work and a productive life as a result, then I'm afraid 500 or so (or whatever the number is) pro musos not being able to work in the EU is not something I'm going to shed a tear over.

Things will indeed change following the end of FoM and a new visa / immigration policy and there will be winners and losers. For the average unskilled British worker ie those as a group most left behind by globalisation in the UK, things should get better: employers will no longer get away with some of the lowest levels of workforce investment amongst advanced economies as they are forced to abandon their addiction to cheap E European workers trained at some one else's expense. That may, as you say, come at the price of some pro musos having to get a day job, like the rest of us.

Well yes, that was my point about Spotify much earlier in the thread... Adapt or go the way of the dinosaurs.

Can't argue with that!

That ain't going to happen. If it's a consequence of FoM coming to an end, then so be it. Sometimes we have to live with what our fellow countrymen vote for - it's called democracy. There are going to be winners and losers from the changes to visa / immigration laws, but from what @peteb is saying there aren't a vast number of EU musos coming over here to play anyway 'cos there's no money in it. And as @Lozz196 rightly said earlier in thread, UK bands managed to get across to Europe prior to FoM and before we all became marmalade sandwiches. Btw ignore @skankdelvar (even if he and I appear to be on the same side of the argument on this one) he's obviously having a grump which, when you get to our age, we're all entitled to do once in a while! 😁

Ok, that's painful.

Turkey has just agreed to visa free travel for six European countries including the UK (I think announced yesterday). Clearly don't have to be part of the EU to agree such things!

Change happens. Spotify has had a far bigger impact on the music industry than a change in visa regime will ever have. Gotta move with the times.

We've often moaned about the lack of choice of colours on the modern BB range. Well this BB1024X was re-finished in surf green and has just sold in the FS. @nord1 please do spill the beans where you had this done. As you said in your FS ad, they've done a great job!

I completely get the concern, but I think until the visa regime (cost and visa duration and whether it's happening at all) is clear it's a little too early to start panicking? I know the EU is playing hard-ball on a lot of things (it was the former Greek finance minister who spilled the beans on their tactics) and have e.g. yet to reciprocate on citizens rights for the 900,000 Brits living in Europe in the way we have (quite rightly) already done for the 3 million or so EU citizens living over here, a matter which is disgraceful for their part. But hopefully they will do the decent thing in the end.

Are European bands just as good? If you're selling a thousand tickets, the cost of visas is likely to be marginal: can't imagine a booking agent will prefer worse acts if tickets don't sell? Besides less international travel, particularly flights, is better for the environment, which is a good thing right? Going to boil down to how much Europeans are going to charge Brits for visas and how long a visa will last for. (Clearly the UK is not going to be making much money from issuing visas to EU bands, if not many of them are likely to be coming over here as there's no money to be made).

Out of interest, what's the position for non EU musicians coming to the UK / EU currently e.g. from the US and the rest of the world: do they need visas? Has that led to the death of music, or have folk just got a visa?

Nice little review of another British hybrid gem.