Whats your experience of getting gigs and how venues approach live music

[KingPrawn]

Evening all.

I'm posting this question as I am genuinely interested in your experience of booking gigs and how you feel the current climate is. I am essentially a weekend warrior, so I'm not talking about you cats who have the cream gigs. I play in a few bands, locally in the Midlands and have noticed a huge change in venues' attitude towards booking live bands. It used to be that we could go out as a 4/ 5-piece or more, depending on the style of music and get plenty of gigs and maybe £100 a head. Over the last few years, I have experienced more and more venues that are booking solo artists with backing tracks for a sub £200  fee, above a full band. We played a festival in the summer, and all the acts before us were solo with backing tracks. I get why the promoter does it, as it's cheaper for the venue/festival. I felt it looked awful as an audience member. A lone individual with a music stand and an iPad on a stage the size of an articulated lorry. I just worry about the live band experience and what will happen to it. I'm not against backing tracks; they have their place. It just feels a bit poo 

[martin8708]

I occasionally trawl through the Facebook Musicians available page for our part of the country, and it’s filled with duo’s and solo singers who play along to backing tracks . 
The big advantage is they can fit into the corner of small pubs / eateries and provide background music /entertainment.

Bigger bands need bigger venues , generally come with noisy guitarists  /power drummers and generally need to be paid more .

Payment over here on the Isle of Wight has always been poor , your lucky if you can get £200 for a gig , so going out as a five piece band does not allow you to quit your day job .

 

Having played in two duos , ( No backing tracks ) the whole gig experience is much easier from accepting bookings ( without wondering if the drummer will turn up ) setting up / breaking down and interaction with the audience.  Plus you get a bigger share of the gig money .

[NJE]

I have found there are a lot of bands out there, and a lot of them are incredibly average and will play for very little. Often live music can be a draw for pubs but equally I have seen bands clear a room, so it’s hard for a venue to keep paying out big sums when there could be no benefit at all.

 

A half decent solo vocalist with backing tracks is going to sound better quality than a rubbish band, cost the venue less and take up less room. Ultimately it seems like less of a gamble.

 

In genuinely don’t believe many people care about the live music experience at a pub level (which is my level) I think a lot of the time a band just happens to be somewhere they like drinking, it’s not the reason they are there. 

[Franticsmurf]

16 hours ago, NJE said:

In genuinely don’t believe many people care about the live music experience at a pub level (which is my level) I think a lot of the time a band just happens to be somewhere they like drinking, it’s not the reason they are there. 

In recent years this has been my experience too. With a couple of exceptions, it feels as if people are less concerned about the band and its certainly not the main reason for being at the venue. The couple of exceptions I've experienced have both been bands with a more professional attitude than has become the norm, a set that doesn't include the same or similar songs to every other local band and that as a result of the first two have attracted a following. 

[knirirr]

It does currently appear to be difficult to get gigs as a jazz quartet, except at certain specialist venues (usually in Oxford) and then there's a long waiting list to get in. 

Where other pubs might want jazz it's usually only as background music during meals etc. and telling them we play this sort of thing (apologies, don't have a good recording of our interpretation) puts them off. 
Outside Oxford the pubs do indeed seem to prefer duos. I have noticed a particular local duo being booked for "jazz matinees" etc. in local pubs even though they are really folk-type performers. 
 

 

[BigRedX]

To the OP is this for covers or originals? There is a distinct difference between the ways for both venues and bands operate for each type of music.

[Dad3353]

1 hour ago, BigRedX said:

To the OP is this for covers or originals? There is a distinct difference between the ways for both venues and bands operate for each type of music.

 

Or Baroque, Big Band, Folk, Free Jazz, Gospel and more. All of these, whether covers, 'standards' or original have distinct differences in the approach needed. The Venue World is not as 'black or white' as you seem to often  imply.

[BigRedX]

But IME the biggest difference in the approach to getting a playing gigs is whether they are "standards" or music the performers of written themselves. The actual genre is a lot less important than that.

[Burns-bass]

21 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

But IME the biggest difference in the approach to getting a playing gigs is whether they are "standards" or music the performers of written themselves. The actual genre is a lot less important than that.

This is true. I’m in a covers and original band. The former is mostly booked by the set list (we play blue note jazz stuff). The originals band is done by an agent.