What's the biggest gig you have played?

[gary mac]

Festival gig to around 1,500 or so

[Leonard Smalls]

2000 or so for me supporting Carter USM...
Our drummer has done 90k or so - having supported U2 on the Zoo TV tour, including Wembley Stadium and Celtic Park!

[skej21]

Biggest as in number or biggest as in stature?

Number, probably 40k+ at a couple of football stadium gigs. Biggest in terms of stature, Royal Albert Hall (5,800 ish seats).

[Happy Jack]

[quote name='skej21' timestamp='1473081254' post='3126666']
Biggest as in number or biggest as in stature?

[/quote]

No no no, he wants to know how tall they all were ...

[EliasMooseblaster]

[quote name='Happy Jack' timestamp='1473082271' post='3126677']
No no no, he wants to know how tall they all were ...
[/quote]

Can we keep the poll open until I've booked an in-store gig in a Dutch branch of [i]High and Mighty[/i]?

[Asambique]

It's the 02 arena for me. The show wasn't sold out so maybe 15,000+ i'd say.

[Dood]

[quote name='EBS_freak' timestamp='1473074033' post='3126533']
Are we counting televised performances?
[/quote]

Around 6.5M for approximately 5 seconds lol... But the audience has doubled with re-runs.. but no one was watching me.. Or realised I was there. And I wasn't the subject of the show. So that's the same as most gigs then...

[TrevorR]

I stuck in Up To 1k. Played a pretty full Greenbelt festival big top and some heaving smaller tents when I was in a folk rock band back after uni. Since played to some big charity events at Ascot Racecourse, local festivals and the like as part of the Ents for the day. No idea how many were there at each, or how many were listening.

[Happy Jack]

[quote name='TrevorR' timestamp='1473083786' post='3126710']
... or how many were listening.
[/quote]

Hold on Trev, you just introduced a variable that no one is going to be comfortable with.

[paul h]

[quote name='Burrito' timestamp='1473079491' post='3126635']
Maybe 4000 as a top capacity, we've played the O2's C2C festival 4 times now. We also had a 5 minute slot on CBS in America which was our biggest online audience. You take these things in your stride though as it quickly returns to 12 people in Sheffield.
[/quote]

Playing at one of the C2C stages is a goal of mine in my current outfit

[Happy Jack]

I've just realised that, technically speaking, and in a thoroughly pedantic sort of way, I should have ticked the "Up to 10,000 people" range.

Up to 10,000 must, by definition, include any number less than 10,000.

[casapete]

Probably between 8 and 10k people at a rugby league ground, playing pre match and at half time, with nobody taking any notice.
Done the Albert Hall in London for financial company's do, maybe 2k people.
My current band play regularly to audiences of between 500 and 1500 people in UK theatres.
And once played to 3 people and a dog in a working men's club in South Yorkshire - funny old game.....

[MacDaddy]

[quote name='Happy Jack' timestamp='1473087602' post='3126759']
I've just realised that, technically speaking, and in a thoroughly pedantic sort of way, I should have ticked the "Up to 10,000 people" range.

Up to 10,000 must, by definition, include any number less than 10,000.


[/quote]

Poll edited due to Happy Jack's pedantry

[gafbass02]

A few festivals, run to the sun was pretty packed back in the mid 90's. I've played decent venues, Glasgow SECC, Hammersmith/Manchester/Liverpool apollos are all a decent size, rock city is smaller I guess. I ticked between 5-9,999 best guess.

[NancyJohnson]

Don't particularly want to rain on anyone's parade, but I'd actually be interested to know the names of some of the bands you guys were playing in rather than, 'Oh, I played here, here and here.'

The biggest I played was a lunch set at Richmond College, Twickenham about 25 years ago with a band called Mai Mai. It was during a week long music festival thing and none of the band were students there. There was over 500 crammed into a room that had a capcity half that. It was raining heavily. Amazingly, we were the only band that hired in a PA for their gig. I remember one unsavoury female member of the academia shouting, 'Laser show! Laser show!' when we were doing the load-in and after the gig pretty much trying to push her tongue down our guitarists throat. People are strange.

Happy days.

Edited September 5, 2016 by NancyJohnson

[seashell]

Haha I see I'm the only one (so far) who admits to a biggest gig of less than 99 people! That's in my bass playing career of course.

In my former life as an (amateur) actor and dancer I've played to an audience of about a thousand. But that was long ago and far away.

[scalpy]

In the flesh, a couple of thousand doing our town's Christmas lights switch on!

Televised, my old band got a tune onto ITV's (that's how long ago) formula 1 coverage a couple of times, figures were in the millions apparently.

[rogerstodge]

48,000 supporting Quo in Germany, A festival in Denmark with ZZ top, Maiden and Blur, god knows how many were there, also supported .. Ahem.. Gary Glitter on one of his Xmas arena tours... Oh yea and 28 people last week at a boozer in Dagenham

[ern500evo]

I imagine if Guy Pratt is still an active member here then he's going to trump most of us!! 😄

[scalpy]

[quote name='ern500evo' timestamp='1473097550' post='3126919']
I imagine if Guy Pratt is still an active member here then he's going to trump most of us!! 😄
[/quote]

Me and 124999 others saw him at Knebworth!

[zbd1960]

6,000 at Royal Albert Hall, BBC Prom concert, broadcast live on Radio 3, which was also shown on BBC 4... I was singing bass in a choir performing Vaughan Williams' Sea Symphony

[stingrayPete1977]

Do you get extra points if it was a free gig? I've played the Stafford Festival in the castle grounds, couple of thousand I'd guess, depends on the weather! All for nowt


If we can work on people per square foot The Swan beer garden in the summer is ridiculous, I went to the loo in the break and couldn't get back to the stage

Edited September 5, 2016 by stingrayPete1977

[BassTractor]

As a bassist who couldn't play bass, I think I had an audience of 100 - 120.
As a world famous classical organist, my largest audience probably was 6 or so.
Nah, 3 more likely.

[Telebass]

In 2010, one stage of the Tour of Britain started in Tavistock, so a big town centre gig was put on. Top three bands were us, then Mad Dog Mcrea, topped off by Seth Lakeman, although he played before Mad Dog because he had to go to another gig. Audience: around the 6k mark.

[Painy]

When I was 16, my band was making a bit of a name for itself in the pubs and clubs around Norfolk. As we were getting fairly well known locally, we were asked by our local youth club to represent them at "an event" which turned out to be the grand finale showcase for that year's national youth week which was held at the LCR venue at the University of East Anglia (about 1500 capacity).
We ended up being chosen to headline which was very cool but the thing I was most excited about was standing on the same spot on the stage as Caz Lewis had stood the week before playing with Skunk Anansie.
I've played to bigger crowds at festivals and bike rallies since and also in a talent competition which was televised (on Challenge TV dontcha know) but at the time that felt like playing Wembley Stadium to me.

Edited September 5, 2016 by Painy