There's No Place To Play

[Bluewine]

I'm fortunate. I just happen to live in an area where the gigging scene is thriving. I live about 20 minutes north of Milwaukee WI ( population 600k ).

 

Milwaukee is known as the " City Of Festivals ". There are hundreds of festivals and fairs happening literally everyday.  And there's still tons of bar gigs and now we have all these new Winery's and Brewerys that hire bands. Then add all the corporate events and private parties. Any good local band that aggressively pursues gigs can easily book 3 gig weekends. 

 

Some folks aren't as lucky. Folks that live in areas where the gigging opportunities are far and few in between.  I have a few musician buddies that live in these areas. When I talk about festivals and fairs they really don't know what I'm talking about. Even the term " bar band" is foreign to them.

 

I'm not sure there's much of a discussion here, the only solution is to move. And everybody can't get up and move on a whim.

 

Thoughts?

 

Blue

Edited October 4, 2023 by Bluewine

[Lozz196]

I suppose due to the size of the UK in comparison to the USA it’s easier for us to make the effort to travel to the gigging areas then return home afterwards.
 

Having always lived in an area where there are both local gigs and London only 30/45 mins away I’m rather fortunate on this subject. 

[Bluewine]

2 minutes ago, Lozz196 said:

I suppose due to the size of the UK in comparison to the USA it’s easier for us to make the effort to travel to the gigging areas then return home afterwards.
 

Having always lived in an area where there are both local gigs and London only 30/45 mins away I’m rather fortunate on this subject. 

 

Before I moved to WI in 1972, I grew up 10 minutes outside of NYC in a New Jersey suburb. After high school  where you would play high school , church and YMCA dances there was nothing.

 

I can't speak for London, but back in the early 70s there were little  to no gigs in NYC for local bands.

 

Blue

[meterman]

Last gig I played was three hours away from home. The pay was decent but I couldn’t be doing that on a regular basis. Perils of living in the middle of nowhere 😂

[Bluewine]

I think the tragedy with living in areas or regions where there's no place to gig is some guys give up and stop playing 

 

Blue 

[steantval]

The gigging scene was very buoyant around our way, then came Covid, the live music venues have now halved. ☹️

[Bluewine]

8 minutes ago, steantval said:

The gigging scene was very buoyant around our way, then came Covid, the live music venues have now halved. ☹️

 

Covid definitely had a huge negative impact on most businesses.  I'd hate to see that happen again. 

 

We never stopped playing. Even in the height of the Covid pandemic.  We took the acoustic act and played outside of the local restaurants while customers waited for their " take out " meals.  Good tips.

 

Blue

[Woodinblack]

There are fewer places around then there used to be, but the only reason our gigs are down is peoples lives getting in the way, and we rarely travel more than 20 minutes and that is in a town of less than 50k people. 

[joeystrange]

11 hours ago, Bluewine said:

 

Before I moved to WI in 1972, I grew up 10 minutes outside of NYC in a New Jersey suburb. After high school  where you would play high school , church and YMCA dances there was nothing.

 

I can't speak for London, but back in the early 70s there were little  to no gigs in NYC for local bands.

 

Blue

I have friends in NYC who all say there’s almost nowhere to play now, especially for originals bands.

There’s the odd bar gig for cover bands but in terms of actual music venues there are very few left.

They first told me this over 15 years ago and I believe they’ve just gotten fewer and fewer since. Even to the point where younger bands will ask them for advice and their advice is always ‘Get out of the city.’

[BigRedX]

I think it depends on how important music and playing gigs is compared with all the other things in your life. It also depends where you live.

 

I want to play gigs. Luckily there are several local ones for both my bands and the vast majority of the worthwhile out of town gigs for us are within a 4 hour drive of where I live, so all a relatively easy to do. I'm also lucky with my job in that I work from home and that could be anywhere (most of my clients only ever deal with me by telephone or email) so if the gigging situation were to change I could potentially move somewhere more suitable.

 

And if I really got stuck somewhere with no gigging opportunities I would still be reasonably happy composing weird instrumental music and releasing it on Bandcamp.

[joeystrange]

43 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

Luckily there are several local ones for both my bands and the vast majority of the worthwhile out of town gigs for us are within a 4 hour drive of where I live

I’ve always thought one of the best things about being a musician in Nottingham is where we are in the country. As you said we can get pretty much anywhere in England and Wales within 4 hours at most.

 

Speaking of Nottingham we seemed to go through a spate of losing long-established venues at one point and I remember things looking fairly dire for a while. It seemed that we only had DHP owned venues for a few years.

But the last few years it seems that a good handful of new venues have opened and seem to be doing well.

 

As far as I can remember (the last 20 years or so) Nottingham has had a fairly strong and vibrant music scene, it’s just always seemed strange to me that we produce very few big artists.

[BillyBass]

I live at the northern tip of London, my band mates live in Hemel, Watford and Chesham, two towns just north of London in Hertfordshire and one a bit further out in Buckinghamshire.  Our gigs have all been in Herts-Bucks though we have just got our foot in the door of a pub in Tottenham.

 

Our singer asked us how far we would be willing to travel to gig, after he got an offer for a gig about 2 hours drive for all of us.  No one was keen on driving that far, we are just a pub covers band after all, but I imagine 1hr to 1hr 15 minutes would be acceptable to all of us.

[Barking Spiders]

Where I live the combined catchment for Cheltenham and Gloucester is around 1/4 million but over the last 20 years the best venues have gone for good, and there's a lot of competition for gig slots at whatever's left but if you want to play original material outside of rock, folk and open mic night stuff forget it. Music stores have fared badly too. In Chelt there used to be two main guitar shops, a piano and acoustic instruments store and another targeting schools. All gone. Similarly there used to be half a dozen music and vid stores. Only a one indie and a much shrunken HMV remain.

[Leonard Smalls]

Our nearest possible gigs are an hour away - local pubs will only have a very occasional covers band and then only the cheesiest of shoutalong song choice is popular...

Our next gig is 1.25 hours away, next 2 hours, after that we've got one in Hereford (1 hour - nearest). Then we're looking at 2 that are 4 hours away - we'll lose money as we'll stay the night and not get paid enough to cover hotel; we'd need to camp! Still, we see it as a hobby and hobbies usually cost money...

[BigRedX]

1 hour ago, joeystrange said:

As far as I can remember (the last 20 years or so) Nottingham has had a fairly strong and vibrant music scene, it’s just always seemed strange to me that we produce very few big artists.

 

The strong and vibrant music scene goes back all the way to the late 70s and is full of bands that should have got national if not international recognition (Fatal Charm, 23 Jewels, Medium Medium, The Howdy Boys, 1000000 Fuzz-Tone Guitars, If All Else Fails, None So Blind and many more). Somehow the bands involved always seem to manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in one way or another...

[Bluewine]

10 hours ago, BillyBass said:

I live at the northern tip of London, my band mates live in Hemel, Watford and Chesham, two towns just north of London in Hertfordshire and one a bit further out in Buckinghamshire.  Our gigs have all been in Herts-Bucks though we have just got our foot in the door of a pub in Tottenham.

 

Our singer asked us how far we would be willing to travel to gig, after he got an offer for a gig about 2 hours drive for all of us.  No one was keen on driving that far, we are just a pub covers band after all, but I imagine 1hr to 1hr 15 minutes would be acceptable to all of us.

 

Once we get into the 2 hour drive one way our fee starts at $1,000.00. That's a deal for 3 hours with sound and lights.

 

Blue

[Bluewine]

9 hours ago, Leonard Smalls said:

Our nearest possible gigs are an hour away - local pubs will only have a very occasional covers band and then only the cheesiest of shoutalong song choice is popular...

Our next gig is 1.25 hours away, next 2 hours, after that we've got one in Hereford (1 hour - nearest). Then we're looking at 2 that are 4 hours away - we'll lose money as we'll stay the night and not get paid enough to cover hotel; we'd need to camp! Still, we see it as a hobby and hobbies usually cost money...

This should be one of the only hobbies where you can make money.

 

I think we'd be considered a hobby band, however if there's no profit we'll decline. 

 

Blue

[TimR]

I don't think music venues are particularly viable in cities like London and NYC. Especially for new original artists. The old Pay To Play system has pretty much been run out of town.

 

If I had a venue in the city I would be charging admission and put on high quality professional bands. People have less money and are choosing where to spend it carefully. 

 

I went to see a friend's band in Portland Square last month. I suspect they hired the venue at a loss. Better than pay to play, as you take risk but also no one is skimming off the bottom and hiding the door from you.

 

 

[Burns-bass]

Bristol is full of venues for bands both original and covers. We did toy with the idea of leaving but it won’t happen when there’s so much here.

[Leonard Smalls]

17 hours ago, Bluewine said:

This should be one of the only hobbies where you can make money.

It'd be nice! 

But we're making more money than we did a year ago... And playing to bigger audiences which hopefully means we'll build a bigger fanbase leading to more people paying to come and see us until finally, we take over the world.

Unfortunately, it's a bit more difficult with originals bands and takes longer (or perhaps never!) to become profitable. Our merch has just about paid for itself, now we're in profit on that so if we get say £100 for a gig (we sometimes get more, sometimes less) we may sell tshirts, cds, mugs, keychains and assorted tat as well which makes it worthwhile. 

[Bluewine]

On 05/10/2023 at 02:11, BigRedX said:

I think it depends on how important music and playing gigs is compared with all the other things in your life. It also depends where you live.

 

 

 

Agreed,

 

Very astute comment. 

Playing music and gigging is important to me. However, at 70 years old I do wonder how long it will remain important.  

 

I'm already hearing comments from guys my age like

" it's not it urgent". And I get that.

 

And you'll probably see future posts from me going into the winter complaining about not having enough gigs.

 

Blue

 

Edited October 7, 2023 by Bluewine

[Bluewine]

13 hours ago, Leonard Smalls said:

It'd be nice! 

But we're making more money than we did a year ago... And playing to bigger audiences which hopefully means we'll build a bigger fanbase leading to more people paying to come and see us until finally, we take over the world.

Unfortunately, it's a bit more difficult with originals bands and takes longer (or perhaps never!) to become profitable. Our merch has just about paid for itself, now we're in profit on that so if we get say £100 for a gig (we sometimes get more, sometimes less) we may sell tshirts, cds, mugs, keychains and assorted tat as well which makes it worthwhile. 

 

I did the originals thing with several bands about 15 years ago. Both bands were good with good material.  However,  making money was tough.

 

Blue

[Happy Jack]

On 05/10/2023 at 09:45, BillyBass said:

I live at the northern tip of London, my band mates live in Hemel, Watford and Chesham, two towns just north of London in Hertfordshire and one a bit further out in Buckinghamshire.  Our gigs have all been in Herts-Bucks though we have just got our foot in the door of a pub in Tottenham.

 

Our singer asked us how far we would be willing to travel to gig, after he got an offer for a gig about 2 hours drive for all of us.  No one was keen on driving that far, we are just a pub covers band after all, but I imagine 1hr to 1hr 15 minutes would be acceptable to all of us.

 

I much prefer gigging within an hour's drive of my front door. As you know Billy, that means that I cover much the same ground as you ... fanning out from NW London to cover Middx and Herts plus bits of Beds, Bucks and Essex.

 

I'm constantly astonished that there are still people (my age, not teenagers) who will happily gig the way bands used to in the 60s/70s, and drive to Nottingham for a pub/club gig on a Friday, then to Southampton on the Saturday. It's not that I can't hack that (I rather like the drive home after a decent gig) but I'd only do that if I really had to.

 

In context @Bluewine, it's always worth remembering that on average distances over here are ridiculously short compared to motoring about the MidWest or whatever. In England, driving 100 miles to a gig is usually considered outrageous, whereas in much of the USA that will barely get you to the local shops. 🙄

[Lozz196]

Def @Happy Jack, in my last band the most ridiculous weekend we did was:

 

Gateshead Friday night

Glasgow Saturday lunchtime 

Blackpool Saturday evening 

 

Yes we were an originals band not covers but still a bit of a feat for guys in their 50s.

[Happy Jack]

On a more general note, if there's an area, in any country, where there are musos desperate to gig but no venues then Shirley the answer is obvious ... put on your own gigs. Find a friendly pub/club or just use a local village hall or whatever, and let's do the show right here!

 

 

If it's a complete flop then don't do it again, and you've answered your own question about the shortage of venues. If it's a huge success then congratulations ... you are the next Robert Stigwood.