Attendance Concerns

[Bluewine]

On 13/10/2025 at 07:07, Steve Browning said:

An interesting contribution to a Facebook thread (not from me, I should add) that has relevance ot us here.

 

I’d just like to chip in my views on all of this, as I hold some pretty strong opinions on the state of things right now. I’m both a hospitality consultant and a musician that plays across the UK, so I can see the issues on both sides. I feel this gives me a fairly balanced take on the problems, though I do think the blame rests mostly with venue operators.

1st issue:

Many venues book the band but then expect the band to do everything. The ones that offer ticket split type shows are the worst for not promoting anything. They already have their captive audience, but it has to be a team effort when it comes to marketing.

2nd issue:

You have to spend money on promotions. Gone are the days where a crappy poster and a couple of Facebook posts were enough. The time has to go into it. We’ve played around 30-40 gigs this year and most of them have sold out. The common denominator is that both the venue and ourselves have spent money on sponsored posts and time on content. That’s the world we live in now. A crappy Facebook event isn’t bringing anyone that wasn’t already going to come. This should be agreed and decided at the point of booking - it pays dividends on the night.

3rd issue:

If it’s a fixed fee, the venue and band should decide what’s being spent on marketing, and that should be factored into any payments or costs. For covers and tribute bands, the best policy is usually for the venue or promoter to head up marketing. It makes the biggest difference as they have the captive audience in their area.

4th issue:

Venues need to understand that bands aren’t cheap and stop mugging people off. It’s often a 10-12 hour day including travel. £300 between six people should not happen. Bands also need to stop selling themselves short for £5 an hour. If a venue can’t afford to pay a band properly, they need to rethink their goals - book solo acts, duos, or DJs instead who are better quality. If you’re getting £300 bands, no wonder nobody’s coming. It’s because they’re probably shit and you’ve built a rep for having mediocre bands

5th issue:

We can’t change the world, so we have to live with it as it is. Stop trying to run pubs like it’s 1970. It’s a digital world now. If you can’t get on board with socials as a pub manager, employ a company to do it all - otherwise you will inevitably fail.

6th issue:

I wouldn’t worry too much about pubs having gigs listed on their website. Most pub websites get very few views aside from people checking opening times and menus. It’s handy as a ticket outlet with direct links from socials, but that’s about it. Socials are the absolute decider in whether venues fill or not.

Lastly, for bands:

Work on actually creating a brand and image for yourselves. Don’t just be another dad rock band or claim to be the number one tribute. Put some effort into creating something memorable that stands out and stop accepting shitty gigs. Be more selective about who you work with and where you play - it all adds to your image. The first thing I look at before booking anyone is where else they’ve played. If it’s a bunch of skanky, run down pubs that are on their last legs, I’m probably going to look elsewhere.

In short, both sides have got lazy or are too stubborn to move with the times. Both must.

Formula for a dead night:

Shit band + no promotion.

Cost to average size venue: the band and

Running at 50% capacity. Let’s say a venue can take £6k on the bar on a busy night - you lose £300 on a cheap band and miss out on £3k of sales.

Gross for the night: £2.7k (without other factors or overcomplicating it).

Formula to sell the place out:

Fairly decent band (£800) + £200 on marketing.

Venue at 100% capacity.

Gross for the night: £5k. Even more if it’s ticketed. Plus a growing rep for having the best bands around on.

Why venues don’t understand these simple maths is beyond me. There’s no excuse.

If a venue says “Even if I promote it, it doesn’t work”, then either you’re promoting it wrong, or your venue is already past the point of no return and you probably need to start thinking of a plan B.

 

Agreed. Would you agree that some pubs and bars are just not good for live music. After 15 years, I have to say we turn down more gigs than we accept.  And we play close to 65 shows a year.

 

Of course a lot depends on your location.  We still have a few live venues with a built in crowd. Meaning when we play there we'll have a good crowd without exception. And how about the gig where the venue is packed and the crowd has zero interest in your band or anyone else's band.

 

And here's another thought . What some of us think is a good crowd might not be a good crowd to someone else.

 

When we play The Bend Theatre we always have close to a full house. Last month we sold 230 seats . The theater holds 300. We were not fully responsible for selling 230 seats. It's an established well organized venue with a " built in " crowd.

 

I'll post the puc from from the last gig we played at The Harley Motor Museum & Restaurant.  It's an example of poor planning by inexperienced people. 

 

Daryl

Edited 22 hours ago by Bluewine

[Lozz196]

8 hours ago, Bluewine said:

 

And here's another thought . What some of us think is a good crowd might not be a good crowd to someone else.

 

That`s a good point Daryl, a good example could be the difference here in the UK between the south & the north. In my old band we could play to similar sized audiences and in the south it would be "too cool for school" whereas up north they`d be jumping around and cheering. Yet at the end of the night the amount of merch we`d sell would be the same, so the south liked us just as much, but didn`t show it. For me it was much more fun to play the northern gigs so I could say the northern crowd were better, yet each - going by sales - liked us pretty much the same. 

 

 

[casapete]

3 minutes ago, Lozz196 said:

That`s a good point Daryl, a good example could be the difference here in the UK between the south & the north. In my old band we could play to similar sized audiences and in the south it would be "too cool for school" whereas up north they`d be jumping around and cheering. Yet at the end of the night the amount of merch we`d sell would be the same, so the south liked us just as much, but didn`t show it. For me it was much more fun to play the northern gigs so I could say the northern crowd were better, yet each - going by sales - liked us pretty much the same. 

 

 

The North / South divide is an interesting point. In my old theatre band, audiences generally got livelier the

further north we played. Hence we particularly loved doing gigs in the NE and Scotland. That’s not to say

we always sold more tickets in these areas, just that the audiences appeared to be more appreciative.

This also seemed to be the case with poorer areas too, where the audiences were often more receptive

than in the wealthier parts of the country. 

[Steve Browning]

8 hours ago, Bluewine said:

 

Agreed. Would you agree that some pubs and bars are just not good for live music. After 15 years, I have to say we turn down more gigs than we accept.  And we play close to 65 shows a year.

 

 

I do. There are certain pubs where you wonder why they do it at all. Places where you think that it must be a front for something else or just a tax dodge. Siilarly there are places that don't want live music that would be brilliant (seemingly).

 

One other thing that happens in Europe, but not the UK, is how bands are treated. In Europe I've never not been fed and watered. If a pub were to give the band some food (chips and sausages/burgers/whatever) and free soft drinks (most of us are driving anyway) it would cost next to nothing (at cost price, don't forget) but change the whole attitude towards the venue.

[peteb]

51 minutes ago, Lozz196 said:

That`s a good point Daryl, a good example could be the difference here in the UK between the south & the north. In my old band we could play to similar sized audiences and in the south it would be "too cool for school" whereas up north they`d be jumping around and cheering. Yet at the end of the night the amount of merch we`d sell would be the same, so the south liked us just as much, but didn`t show it. For me it was much more fun to play the northern gigs so I could say the northern crowd were better, yet each - going by sales - liked us pretty much the same. 

 

 

 

From personal experience, it depends on where in the north you play. If you go to the north east or up into Scotland, you know you are going to get a great audience. But you wouldn't necessarily say the same for gigs in, say, Yorkshire. 

 

We play quite a lot gigs in the south east, which always have good sized and appreciative crowds. There is always a positive vibe, they react and sing along in all the right places. Of course, they're not quite on the same level with the north east, but more fun than most other places in the north. 

 

Edited 13 hours ago by peteb

[BigRedX]

The geographic thing is also linked to genre. I've played a few less than well attended Goth gigs in Scotland, but Yorkshire - Leeds, Sheffield, Bradford, Whitby and York are consistently great. The few times that I've played Manchester the reaction has been very favourable, but getting the gigs themselves has been unnecessarily difficult.

 

When it comes to selling merch, over exposure can sometimes go against you. In the last 12 months we've done a few gigs where the audience reaction has been fantastic, but we've sold almost nothing afterwards, because most of them already have the T-shirt and CD.

[TimR]

I think people's expectations are just higher in the south-east around London. 

 

Plus we are a miserable bunch. 

 

The further you go from London the more relaxed people are. 

[peteb]

5 minutes ago, TimR said:

I think people's expectations are just higher in the south-east around London. 

 

Plus we are a miserable bunch. 

 

The further you go from London the more relaxed people are. 

 

As I said in my post above, I don't find that to be the case. There are parts of the north that are far more miserable! Probably why @BigRedX's goth bands do so well there! 🙂 

 

[TimR]

19 minutes ago, peteb said:

 

As I said in my post above, I don't find that to be the case. There are parts of the north that are far more miserable! Probably why @BigRedX's goth bands do so well there! 🙂 

 

Well obviously it's grim up North as well. 

[peteb]

6 minutes ago, TimR said:

Well obviously it's grim up North as well. 

 

You don't know the half of it! I'm guessing that you never played northern working men's clubs in the 80s or 90s! 

 

[MacDaddy]

 

 

 

[Jack]

9 hours ago, Bluewine said:

 

And here's another thought . What some of us think is a good crowd might not be a good crowd to someone else.

 

9 hours ago, Bluewine said:

 

I dunno, that crowd looks bigger than any one I've ever drawn.

[Lozz196]

2 hours ago, BigRedX said:

When it comes to selling merch, over exposure can sometimes go against you. In the last 12 months we've done a few gigs where the audience reaction has been fantastic, but we've sold almost nothing afterwards, because most of them already have the T-shirt and CD.

Definitely, to combat this we used to have so much merch - probably 8/10 different tees, some same style but range of colours too - it took longer to carry in the merch than it did full backline!

[BigRedX]

13 minutes ago, Lozz196 said:

Definitely, to combat this we used to have so much merch - probably 8/10 different tees, some same style but range of colours too - it took longer to carry in the merch than it did full backline!

 

We currently have two similar T-shirt designs, and have found that most people want either one or the other but not both, so I'm currently working on a new one that is completely different.

[Dan Dare]

2 hours ago, TimR said:

I think people's expectations are just higher in the south-east around London. 

 

Plus we are a miserable bunch. 

 

The further you go from London the more relaxed people are. 

 

I used to work for the Department of Health and so had access to some interesting stats. All the area of high anti-depressant use are in the North. Possible reason we suverners are so miserable and norveners are so chilled... 🙃

[Lozz196]

17 minutes ago, Dan Dare said:

 

I used to work for the Department of Health and so had access to some interesting stats. All the area of high anti-depressant use are in the North. Possible reason we suverners are so miserable and norveners are so chilled... 🙃

There`s def a certain type of logic there, DD

[Stub Mandrel]

I've just booked into a hotel for three nights. The 'above lively music venue' was an attraction... I enquired and it's karaoke on friday and saturday...

[Dad3353]

18 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

I've just booked into a hotel for three nights. The 'above lively music venue' was an attraction... I enquired and it's karaoke on friday and saturday...

 

You lucky dog, you..! 

[Bluewine]

9 hours ago, Lozz196 said:

That`s a good point Daryl, a good example could be the difference here in the UK between the south & the north. In my old band we could play to similar sized audiences and in the south it would be "too cool for school" whereas up north they`d be jumping around and cheering. Yet at the end of the night the amount of merch we`d sell would be the same, so the south liked us just as much, but didn`t show it. For me it was much more fun to play the northern gigs so I could say the northern crowd were better, yet each - going by sales - liked us pretty much the same. 

 

 

 

We're on the same page. For my band, we do best with the venues with a "built in" crowd. 

 

Daryl

[Bluewine]

8 hours ago, Steve Browning said:

 

I do. There are certain pubs where you wonder why they do it at all. Places where you think that it must be a front for something else or just a tax dodge. Siilarly there are places that don't want live music that would be brilliant (seemingly).

 

One other thing that happens in Europe, but not the UK, is how bands are treated. In Europe I've never not been fed and watered. If a pub were to give the band some food (chips and sausages/burgers/whatever) and free soft drinks (most of us are driving anyway) it would cost next to nothing (at cost price, don't forget) but change the whole attitude towards the venue.

 

When venues comp drinks and entrees for the band they're off to a good start .

 

Daryl

[Woodinblack]

3 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

 I enquired and it's karaoke on friday and saturday...

you got your song ready then?

[Stub Mandrel]

1 hour ago, Woodinblack said:

you got your song ready then?

 

The only time I made an impression at Karaoke was when I chose "Firestarter" 🤣