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On the economics of pub management


Happy Jack
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This last few years I have been happily gigging away in pubs, mainly West London but out as far as Aldershot, Slough and Chingford on occasion.

My main band is straight-forward covers, 70's +/- five years, played by a bunch of middle-aged white guys. We are pretty much your typical pub-rock band.

A recurring subject in band chats is: [b][i]How can they afford us?[/i][/b]

Last Friday and Saturday nights we played two different pubs (Chiswick and Greenford), slow start to business at Set #1 but the whole place on each night heaving and bopping by Set #3. It's not hard to see how the landlord could be comfortable pulling £250 out of the till at the end of an evening like that.

Tonight, on t'other hand we're playing a pub (Hanwell) where, if recent experience is anything to go by, there will be half a dozen miserable punters sitting as far from the music as possible and staring into their Guiness.

I manage the finances of businesses for a living, have done for far too long. I understand business models and cashflow, and what happens when they go wrong.

Just after midnight tonight, the landlady will reach into her till and pull out five £50 notes (yes, I know, I've wondered too), but her overall takings for the evening are unlikely to have reached £250, let alone her profits for the evening.

That's an extreme example, but there are plenty of less-extreme examples in my recent memory.

I went into Blackwells University Bookshop on Charing Cross Road. I asked them: [i]What have you got on pub management, or on the economics of running a pub?[/i]

10 minutes of search engine later the answer came back: [i]Nothing. Nada. Not a sausage. Bugger all. There [b]IS NO BOOK[/b] on this subject in existence.[/i]

Reluctantly, and in my moment of need, I turn to the ultimate in crowd sourcing ... The Basschat Collective.

Guys, how does a pub afford to pay a band?

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[b]" I manage the finances of businesses for a living, have done for far too long. I understand business models and cashflow, and what happens when they go wrong."[/b]

With that knowledge can you please explain how bands go out for this much money , what sort of business model should we have that possibly makes any sense !

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[quote name='plumbob' timestamp='1376732332' post='2178456']
[b]" I manage the finances of businesses for a living, have done for far too long. I understand business models and cashflow, and what happens when they go wrong."[/b]

With that knowledge can you please explain how bands go out for this much money , what sort of business model should we have that possibly makes any sense !
[/quote]

Not with you, old chap, please explain.

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I used to run pubs for Mitchells and Butler. It's a huge job. I was running pubs that took £25000 a week. With staff lists of over 30 people. It would take a long time to fully expalin running a successful pub. The simple answer is they don't just make money on a friday and saturday. If the pub is not doing so well on those times they will spend money in the hope of making money!

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[quote name='Lord Sausage' timestamp='1376736477' post='2178505']
The simple answer is they don't just make money on a friday and saturday. If the pub is not doing so well on those times they will spend money in the hope of making money!
[/quote]

That's very much my experience as well. I used to know a landlord who put on bands on a Saturday and he never really made much additional income on the Saturday. However a lot of his everyday locals really liked the fact that the pub had live music and often cited this as a reason for making it their local - the bizarre thing was that many of them didn't come in on a Saturday, lol

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[quote name='Happy Jack' timestamp='1376731110' post='2178425']
Guys, how does a pub afford to pay a band?
[/quote]

band brings along their own rentamob

we tend to get offered quite a few gigs as our band members are known and the venues know our ability to bring a fair few punters along to put beer tokens across the bar

a couple of months back we played a well known music pub in ashford on a saturday night - our set is not exactly their usual type of rock band - but we took a good crowd along with us - everybody appeared to be enjoying themselves (and importanltly for the venue ... drinking and spending their beer tokens!) afterwards the girls behiind the bar did comment that it was the best saturday night takings for several months

Edited by steve-bbb
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[quote name='Happy Jack' timestamp='1376736139' post='2178495']
Not with you, old chap, please explain.
[/quote]

Sorry mate !
Only saying that as much as the question [b]“ How can they afford us ? ”[/b]Is true ,
equally a similar question applies to bands [b]“ How can we afford to play for this ?”[/b]
Time, fuel cost of kit etc
Now I know most of us do it for fun , to play or whatever ,
Was just asking with your knowledge is their a business model that we as bands should all follow to enable decent pay
or
is it the failing of pubs not to correctly see the need and allow for the costing of decent paid entertainment to allow there business to flourish

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I've seen a pattern of landlords coming into pubs, putting in their redundancy money or life savings to upgrade the fittings and purchase the stock to last about two years as the rent is too high.They then default, and the freeholder pubco simply move on to the next one.

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I do see a regular turnover in landlords/ managers /tenants etc there is always someone trying something a bit different to convince themselves there is money to be made in pubs , but with all the cheap supermarket alcohol it seems like very stiff competition , except for those who buy their stock from the supermarket and miss out the brewery :unsure:

How about using a pub to launder money :rolleyes: , a predominantly cash business like that is rife for a bit alternative investment :o

inflate your takings, bung a bit of dirty cash in (pay your bands ;) ) and all of a sudden the money enters the wash .

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Am sure a lot of pubs take the wider view of assessing profits on a weekly/monthly basis rather than nightly.
Overall outgoings (including entertainment of all types) set against takings - if its looking okay, then
live music survives!
I'm in the very fortunate position of playing a weekly residency at a pub with a great landlady, who takes risks
with live music and it's paid off. Before she took over, the pub used to charge on the door to help cover our fee-think it was £3, and we used to get maybe 50/60 punters on a regular basis. When Maggie arrived, she did n't believe in this, and made it free entry which I thought was financial suicide. Glad to say she was right - we now get over 100
in each week, along with a few who pop in for a swiftie as well, so her takings have increased a fair bit.
Just wish there were a few more who had her vision & bottle to give it a go.

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[quote name='plumbob' timestamp='1376740088' post='2178536']


Sorry mate !
Only saying that as much as the question [b]“ How can they afford us ? ”[/b]Is true ,
equally a similar question applies to bands [b]“ How can we afford to play for this ?”[/b]
Time, fuel cost of kit etc
Now I know most of us do it for fun , to play or whatever ,
Was just asking with your knowledge is their a business model that we as bands should all follow to enable decent pay
or
is it the failing of pubs not to correctly see the need and allow for the costing of decent paid entertainment to allow there business to flourish
[/quote]

Loss leader. Good advertising etc.

As the pubs above, musicians make money during the week, teaching, luthering, selling instruments, running IT companies and on other Saturdays playing for corporate gigs and weddings.

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[quote name='plumbob' timestamp='1376740088' post='2178536']
... a similar question applies to bands [b]“ How can we afford to play for this ?”[/b]
Time, fuel cost of kit etc
Now I know most of us do it for fun , to play or whatever ,
Was just asking with your knowledge is their a business model that we as bands should all follow to enable decent pay

[/quote]

Now if I had a really good answer for that, I'd be sitting (probably cross-legged) on top of a mountain somewhere (well, alright, the Brecon Beacons then) with a queue of eager acolytes stretching down into the Vallll-ees.

Even within my 4-piece band, there are four radically different financial situations each one veering towards a different solution.

As a rather bland, generic answer, I'd say that anyone playing pubs because they think they can earn anything better than a bit of pin money is probably delusional. I play because I enjoy it, and if there really was no alternative then yes, I'd play for nowt.

If you accept that logic, then getting paid £250 for an evening of playing music I love with some of my best mates is a real win-win situation.

This attitude has absolutely no relevance to functions bands, corporate event types, etc. but that's not where I'm at.

Edit: For the avoidance of doubt, that's [b]one quarter[/b] of £250! :lol:

Edited by Happy Jack
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I've been involved in pubs all my working life (12 years) and have just taken over a pub with my wife that we've already been working at for the last 4 years.

We have live music every Saturday night and over the summer every Sunday afternoon with a barbecue and other garden party-type stuff.

We pay from £240 to £350 per band depending on how well known they are and how much we think we'll earn on that night. We are a small pub; maximum 120 people inside and out. In the winter, maximum 80 people indoors.

Believe it or not, we take just as much money in the week as we do in the weekends. We have bingo, pool league, darts league and also a conference room. We use this money to subsidise the weekends entertainment. It's very rare that we actually make good money after paying a band. On an especially good night we'll take £2k behind the bar and after all outgoings are considered we might have £300 to bank.

Pub economics is real seat-of-your-pants type stuff. We've survived by turning our pub into a community centre of sorts. We host all kinds of events, provide catering services for local events and we involved ourselves in local life as much as possible.

Truckstop

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Depends how they buy in their product.

We are playing a pub tonight that pay ok..for a pub,... but sell beer at £2.50.. so maybe 60-70p under par.
The rent and rates have to be paid despite who turn turns out.

The LL may buy in a barrel at £40 plus .... and if he got 70pints frm the barrel...he gets £180 plus per barrel at £2.50...
If the pub is tied in, then the brewery will not sell barrels at anyway near this price...but they may well give them
back an entertainments budget.
Back in the early 90's pubs round here, were getting upto £60 a week towards that budget and could afford to put
on 3-3.5 days of music. Typically wed night, fri and sat night for the premo bands, and sunday lunchtime.
If they don't get any budget they have to really work it hard. The pub that Steve-BBB is talkin g about have worked REALLY hard
to get the pay-off now and he had to hold his nerve..
But...it pays cheap... but since he is over-subscribed, he can do this. It is a fine line between paying for top bands and having them pay that back with
turn-out and for that, there is no garauntee anyway..... Sometimes there is a lot to be said for doing as it is a nice gig..and that counts for lots..
Steve's band is lucky as they always have a zillion hot MILFS on their gigs.. can't think why this... :lol:
but that sort of thing gets noticed very quickly by LL's...

Round here...every single LL will ask you at the booking stage..have you got a following so it is hard to get a start.
On the other hand, this is why I have less sympathy with bands that don't draw... and why listening to original bands talking about playing
to 20 people, and most of them are with the 4 bands on the bill. and complaining about the turn-out...????
In today's market..THAT IS THE DEAL...!
For good of bad... and whether you are good or bad... the turn-out pretty much defines the band.
Do enough gigs to 2 men and their dog and you will not last long..and why would you want to.

We don't do many pubs now...but if we do one and the turn out is low...and that can be down to us, then we aren't likely to go back.
There is not enough money in pub gigs for the work, IMO... so there needs to something else good about it.

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My band plays for £250 a night, but will drop to £150 for small venues when they have no chance of getting enough people in to make it viable. At some of our £250 saturday night gigs the bar has taken well over a grand more than they would on a Saturday without live music.

We reckon that with the driving setting up and break down, plus two hours on stage, we spend about 6 hours on a gig, for £50 each.

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A local hop festival round here... will open the whole town up to a music event,
There will be 4 main stages in the town and every pub will have a stage build as well...
Stage and marquee companies and P.A hire goes ballistic round here for this weekend.
Tonight is the pre event to the main event in 2 weeks time.
Over the weekend the town will get 20,000 pass through... and shops and bars make a mint.
They may be 70 or so band slots..or more..impossible to count.
This is one exmaple of the council allowing money for their hard working rate payers of bars and shops etc etc ..
One or two pubs are known to do £58-60k of takings for the weekend...confirmed by the Brewery who supply them.
This is 3 great xmas in a weekend for them..!!!!!

And the council say it is too expensive to admin...!!!!!!!!!

The best music pubs round here...will boast nightly takings of £6k for their best band nights normally... I am sceptical of that..!!!

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