Attendance Concerns

[Woodinblack]

16 minutes ago, chris_b said:

Me, alarm bells ringing, "A wedding? We can't do weddings, we're not a wedding band!!" 

 

We are not a wedding band either, but we have done a load of weddings and none of them have been bad, the last one was a bit faffy, but most of them have been really good. I guess we have just been lucky, the people who have hired us had seen us before and were happy with what they got.

[Muzz]

23 minutes ago, chris_b said:

 

I felt sorry for one couple whose wedding reception we played. We were a pretty authentic Chicago blues band and they said we've got a gig, a wedding!!! Me, alarm bells ringing, "A wedding? We can't do weddings, we're not a wedding band!!" They said, Yeah it'll be great. The bride's father is a big fan of the band. We set up in a big barn in mid Surrey and played  the whole night to an empty room. As far as I could see, the reception took place in the car park!!

I've been on the other end of that - a friend's wedding, her Dad was paying, so it was a big country house hotel, verrrr posh, but he'd also booked a Jazz band, because he liked jazz. We all buggered off outside (some of us even crashed the wedding in the other wing, because it looked great) and stayed there, while her Dad, her Mum and a couple of their friends stayed in the room and tapped their feet.

[Dad3353]

We (The Daub'z...) are quite definitely not a wedding band; we play nothing to dance to (RATM, Muse, Space Oddity, Wish you were here, Radiohead and more...). We have a buddy with an events company; he often supplied the PA and did the sound for our concerts, with heavy use of subs, from his Disco days. He badly wanted us to play at his own wedding, despite our protesting its unsuitability. The day came, we were set up on the gravel track beside the main reception building/hall (so outside, using our own more modest PA...) When the time came, mid-afternoon, we were signalled to start up; after about ten minutes, the groom (our buddy...) came out to ask us to turn it down..! No, we were not loud (that's not our style, and we were playing outdoors...). We played a couple more songs and decided, together, that it would be kinder to everyone to knock it on the head, packed up and left, leaving the happy couple and guests to their revelries inside. We remained buddies, but got no more offers of 'function' gigs, to our relief. :-|

[Dan Dare]

2 hours ago, ezbass said:

Weddings, on the other hand, is where you are the hired help and are often treated as such.

 

I can stand that for an evening. The extra money weddings pay helps ease the pain...

[Woodinblack]

2 hours ago, Muzz said:

I've been on the other end of that - a friend's wedding, her Dad was paying, so it was a big country house hotel, verrrr posh, but he'd also booked a Jazz band, because he liked jazz. We all buggered off outside (some of us even crashed the wedding in the other wing, because it looked great) and stayed there, while her Dad, her Mum and a couple of their friends stayed in the room and tapped their feet.

 

Oh there are definately times in the set of a wedding that the audience have all buggered off outside, but then they are not there to see you. They come in later and there is cake!

[chris_b]

23 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

 

Oh there are definately times in the set of a wedding that the audience have all buggered off outside, but then they are not there to see you.

 

We were on a wedding and the singer was playing his usual, blues/soul set and not going down well at all. He kept complaining about the disinterested audience. In the interval I took him aside and pointed out they were not an audience, but wedding guests and his second set should reflect that! Talk about the bleedin obvious!! He dug out some proper songs and the second set got a much better response from the guests.

[The fasting showman]

I'll light the blue touch paper....we've all done them...grim NYE gigs at social clubs to families! 

Tired kids up too late, families sick of the sight of each other having spent a fortnight together. The band has agreed to 3 sets, involving dredging up seldom played songs.

The attendance issue being; who will last until Auld Lang Syne, despite the cheap beer?

[tauzero]

34 minutes ago, The fasting showman said:

I'll light the blue touch paper....we've all done them...grim NYE gigs at social clubs to families! 

Tired kids up too late, families sick of the sight of each other having spent a fortnight together. The band has agreed to 3 sets, involving dredging up seldom played songs.

The attendance issue being; who will last until Auld Lang Syne, despite the cheap beer?

 

My old club band played at one social club NYE gig. We were in an upstairs room, children were only allowed downstairs. The room was half-empty. The consolation was that of the three raffle prizes, we won two (I got whisky, the guitarist got vodka).

 

I've played at weddings - only a couple with rock bands, rather more were with the ceilidh band. For the ceilidh band, we used to use sashes[1] for same-sex dancing pairs to determine which was "man" and which was "woman", but when we did one for a wedding between a gay vicar and his partner, we decided that we could finish up overthinking things.

 

[1] Against my advice, orange. And our dulcimer player wore a bowler hat. Fortunately we never played any Irish gigs.

[Gank Bass]

If nobody turns up, you're getting paid to practice 👍

[Supernaut]

Try playing in an originals band!

[chris_b]

42 minutes ago, Gank Bass said:

If nobody turns up, you're getting paid to practice 👍

 

No. . . . if the audience doesn't turn up you are playing to the promoter and trying to prove to him that you are worth booking again. . . . on a better night or in a better venue.

[Steve Browning]

I have no great insight. It appears to be in the lap of the gods, more often than not. 

 

In any event, you always play your best and treat every gig the same. A guy I know played Woodstock and treated every gig with the same mentality. 

[chris_b]

2 hours ago, Steve Browning said:

. . . . you always play your best and treat every gig the same. A guy I know played Woodstock and treated every gig with the same mentality. 

 

This.

 

My version is, every gig is the Albert hall.

 

Several times I've been asked to join bands because the band leader liked what he saw, and one of them was the proverbial man and a dog gig. Every time you have a bass on your shoulder you should be giving 110%.

[tauzero]

4 hours ago, chris_b said:

 

No. . . . if the audience doesn't turn up you are playing to the promoter and trying to prove to him that you are worth booking again. . . . on a better night or in a better venue.

 

Or, for those of us who don't move in the exalted circles of promoters, showing the landperson that you should get another chance.

[Bluewine]

16 hours ago, ezbass said:

Weddings, on the other hand, is where you are the hired help and are often treated as such.

 

We're not a wedding band by any stretch of the imagination.  But we've been wangled into doing a few. All of them were bad. 

 

It's usually when the bride or the groom just happens to like our band. I don't think it occurs to them to hire a band their guests would like.

 

Daryl

 

 

[Bluewine]

5 hours ago, chris_b said:

 

This.

 

My version is, every gig is the Albert hall.

 

Several times I've been asked to join bands because the band leader liked what he saw, and one of them was the proverbial man and a dog gig. Every time you have a bass on your shoulder you should be giving 110%.

 

I agree. However this pic shows how hard it is to give that 110%. Lol

 

Daryl

[Gank Bass]

10 hours ago, chris_b said:

 

No. . . . if the audience doesn't turn up you are playing to the promoter and trying to prove to him that you are worth booking again. . . . on a better night or in a better venue.

Trying to put a positive light for a fellow BCer mate

[Muzz]

Ahhhh, NYE...generally ours have been positive, even better when the DJ says 'Can you finish and be off for 11:45 so I can do the countdown?' Of courrrrrse we can... 🙂

 

We did have one disaster, thanks to a promoter who we didn't use again (amazingly, that can be a two-way street), when we turned up to a £25 ticketed do at a Working Man's/Liberal/Con/Labour Club*, and by 'we' I mean our guitar/acoustic trio doing all sorts of stuff, to be greeted by the landlord/sec with a cheery 'Where's the f*cking rest of you?'. After explaining I was considered medically complete he informed us, with furious gesticulations at the promo signage, that he'd booked a 7-piece soul band, and the sellout crowd was expecting that. Attempts were made by both parties to contact said promoter (we hadn't had any contact directly with the landlord, so it was very clear who was to blame) but unsurprisingly he wasn't answering his phone. We set up and gave it a go for the first set, but it became immediately obvious that by the time drink had flowed in any greater quantity we'd be needing chicken wire a la Blues Brothers, and the DJ saved much further pain, embarassment and possibly violence by saying 'Pack up and get out, lads; I'll take it from here.' We were packed down and out the door by about ten. When we finally got hold of the promoter days later he was so embarassed (presumably after a biblical bollocking by the landlord) that he actually paid us in full.

 

One consolation on the night (other than the early finish) was the thought that somewhere a small pub was, presumably delightedly, squeezing in a 7-piece soul band they hadn't booked...

 

 

* I forget the exact flavour, but uniquely it was less than a mile from my house at the time...swings, roundabouts...

Edited 4 hours ago by Muzz

[BigRedX]

14 hours ago, Supernaut said:

Try playing in an originals band!

 

It's a complete myth that originals bands' gigs are poorly attended. Over the past 25 years the originals bands I have been in have had no problem attracting audiences.

 

And if they are it's down to the bands not being sufficiently entertaining musically or visually, and/or too disorganised or lazy to do the required promotion.

 

And in those cases they only have themselves to blame.

[Wolverinebass]

1 hour ago, BigRedX said:

 

It's a complete myth that originals bands' gigs are poorly attended. Over the past 25 years the originals bands I have been in have had no problem attracting audiences.

 

And if they are it's down to the bands not being sufficiently entertaining musically or visually, and/or too disorganised or lazy to do the required promotion.

 

And in those cases they only have themselves to blame.

There's of course more than some truth to that that bands are useless. However, I've certainly seen enough that most definitely aren't and are still struggling. They're doing the promo, got merch and all the rest. They have great material and put on a great show. Still sparsely attended gigs though.

 

I would say that as I play in progressive metal bands, I'm very much in a "niche of a niche," but I can see that in London, if you try and play more than 4 gigs in a year, you can do all the right things and still not get anything for it. Most bands are just cycling round the same 10 venues, which is about as dire as it gets.

[Lozz196]

2 hours ago, BigRedX said:

 

It's a complete myth that originals bands' gigs are poorly attended. Over the past 25 years the originals bands I have been in have had no problem attracting audiences.

 

And if they are it's down to the bands not being sufficiently entertaining musically or visually, and/or too disorganised or lazy to do the required promotion.

 

And in those cases they only have themselves to blame.

Agree, pretty much all of the gigs I’ve played in the past 10 years or so in originals bands have always been well attended. Since returning to Knock Off temporarily, in the three gigs we’ve played crowds were approx 600 (800 capacity) 100 (100 capacity) 500 (600 capacity). 

[Supernaut]

2 hours ago, BigRedX said:

 

It's a complete myth that originals bands' gigs are poorly attended. Over the past 25 years the originals bands I have been in have had no problem attracting audiences.

 

And if they are it's down to the bands not being sufficiently entertaining musically or visually, and/or too disorganised or lazy to do the required promotion.

 

And in those cases they only have themselves to blame.

Right on cue! 😁

[BigRedX]

43 minutes ago, Wolverinebass said:

There's of course more than some truth to that that bands are useless. However, I've certainly seen enough that most definitely aren't and are still struggling. They're doing the promo, got merch and all the rest. They have great material and put on a great show. Still sparsely attended gigs though.

 

I would say that as I play in progressive metal bands, I'm very much in a "niche of a niche," but I can see that in London, if you try and play more than 4 gigs in a year, you can do all the right things and still not get anything for it. Most bands are just cycling round the same 10 venues, which is about as dire as it gets.

 

Unless they are playing music that is only going to appeal to a very minority audience they must be doing something wrong. Maybe "headlining" before they have grown an audience that will support it. IMO until you have at least one album out that is selling and/or streaming well your band is not ready to headline a gig. You need to have 40-45 minutes of music that at least half the audience is going to be familiar with. 

 

The other thing is are they playing where the audiences are? These days for an unsigned or small-label band London is just another city with nothing that makes it any more or less special than any other city. Go where your audience is or at least where there are promotors for your genre. Otherwise you will end up playing the same few places to the same few people and run the possibility of outstaying your welcome.

[BigRedX]

41 minutes ago, Supernaut said:

Right on cue! 😁

 

Of course!

 

You posted a stupid statement. Did you not expect to be taken to task for it?

[Lozz196]

19 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

 

Unless they are playing music that is only going to appeal to a very minority audience they must be doing something wrong. Maybe "headlining" before they have grown an audience that will support it. IMO until you have at least one album out that is selling and/or streaming well your band is not ready to headline a gig. You need to have 40-45 minutes of music that at least half the audience is going to be familiar with. 

 

The other thing is are they playing where the audiences are? These days for an unsigned or small-label band London is just another city with nothing that makes it any more or less special than any other city. Go where your audience is or at least where there are promotors for your genre. Otherwise you will end up playing the same few places to the same few people and run the possibility of outstaying your welcome.

Again agree. Since we started Knock Off in 2013 we played all over the country. At our first Rebellion in 2015 we must have had 700 watching us (1000 capacity room) whereas bands who’d been on the scene for years, but only played locally were getting much smaller audiences.