I understood the post. Had to use my best reading skills, but I got it.
Yeah, that does suck big weenies, doesn't it? That's happened to my cover band on more than one occasion. we've booked into places where they've hired two different bands for the same night (kind of like "overbooking" an airline flight I suppose), and we had to leave 'cause the other one got booked first. Then many moons ago when I was in someone's original band and they were doing 45-minute gigs, they'd show up at the place all ready to play, only to have the previous band hog the stage and crowd out the other acts.
Two things, one is, that I've learned from those experiences. Never again will I ever play a 45 minute gig. It's just not worth the effort, to gas up the car, and move all the gear back and forth. Second thing is, these days we have an agent that makes the venue sign a written contract, "at the time of booking". Basically, the contract says we get paid whether we play or not. Showing up is "sufficient". Once our agent actually took a guy to court 'cause he refused to pay. He ended up paying anyway, and it was a lot more than he would have had to shell out for just the band.
I don't know how it is in
PR, but here in LA there's a lot of competition, and there's plenty of bands that are willing to play "for free" just so they can get up on stage. And, there are a lot of club owners who take advantage of that situation. Unfortunately, if you're going to play music for money, you have to be a businessman too. Or, you have to work with someone who is. Our agent takes 15%, and as far as I'm concerned, it's worth every penny not to have to deal with the business end of things.
These days my cover band members and I have the luxury of approaching gigs in a casual way. We show up, and we bring our own beer, and at the end of the day we get paid. Meanwhile, we have a lot of fun, whether we're playing or not. Life is good that way. There's no use getting bent out of shape about other peoples' problems. We just make sure our end is covered, and leave the rest for the others.
Gig Story's 
...anyways after 3 min the Band's director come's up and said....with this supper happy gay look on his face 
.
ready to play 
were gonna leave...that mean's have a safe drive and hope to c ya all pump up ready for this tuesday rehersal.
were not gonna play?!? 
i heard this activity started at 8:00am and it's going to end at 3pm so why get the equitment ready just to play 2 song's... to then take down the equitment under this huge rain storm that's coming up ahead.
.....'' so we just started to leave...i for one had to waite while my mom got there the funny part was.....it started to rain 
.......and there was no shelter where i could stand under so i stood under a tree and took the guitar case off my back and hid the top of the bass that was expose out of the guitar's gig bag under my shirt so that the key's woulden't get wet if not they'll rust....then at last mom got there and i was super wet.. she then told me.
Bummer!
