In the middle: Promoter/venue competition

cdaniel · #1 01-28-2012, 02:39 PM

The scenario:
Our band frequently works with a small time "promoter" to get gigs in a couple of venues. He's always been a decent guy and seems to work on bands behalf, although we don't really know what his cut of the pay is. We don't care as the bar pays better than the going rate. Recently he booked us a few weeks ahead for a bar that we've played before and have done well at.

Just a week ago, another even smaller time "promoter" called us out of the blue looking for a last minute fill in for the next Friday, at a bar a few miles away from the place we're booked to play on the following Saturday. We accept as we've been hoping to get a foot in this door.

Back to back gigs a few miles from each other. We decide not to heavily promote the fill in show so our crowd will likely see us at the other show.

We're setting up Friday night and we get a text message from the 1st promoter. Essentially saying "what are you doing there at the competition when your playing my show the next night? That place is where I send the trash I won't book, don't ever do that again".

We're all bewildered by his apparent threatening tone and anger. Our contact calls him and gets the scoop that he doesn't really care where we play, but the other bar owner is upset as he considers this place were at direct competition with bad blood.

All news to us. We're just going to take it in stride tonight and ignore the drama unless the bar brings it up. We're all too old for this nonsense. If they're gonna be juvenile about this we may end up losing the regular gig.

Frankly we had a better crowd at this new place. The owners loved us. The set up is better. And they asked us back next month.

fraublugher · #2 01-28-2012, 10:50 PM

Seems like they're fighting over you , hopefully.
You must be doing it right , good job.

cdaniel · #3 01-29-2012, 11:03 AM

Yeah I guess if we really sucked it wouldn't be an issue. We did well at bar #2 last night and nothing was said from the owner. However further investigation with promoter #1 has shown this is really just a feud between two bar owners. We'll see how it all shakes out.

AnchorHoy · #4 01-29-2012, 12:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cdaniel

further investigation with promoter #1 has shown this is really just a feud between two bar owners

Yep. It happens

Notable example from my neck of the woods: John & Peter's vs. Havana in New Hope, PA. Play one and rest assured that you've pretty much blown your chance of ever playing the other in your own lifetime. The really sad thing is, that it's been that way for decades

Munjibunga · #5 01-29-2012, 12:54 PM

In a previous band, we had a similar situation where one bar owner said we couldn't play his place if we played at the other one. Interestingly, the other bar owner didn't care. We told the first guy, "OK, looks like we're done playing here."

lowfreq33 · #6 01-29-2012, 01:19 PM

It's a good idea not to play venues that are too close together on consecutive nights, unless there are so many clubs in an area that you'll get a completely different crowd. Some places have policies about this in their contracts.

cdaniel · #7 01-29-2012, 11:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lowfreq33

It's a good idea not to play venues that are too close together on consecutive nights, unless there are so many clubs in an area that you'll get a completely different crowd. Some places have policies about this in their contracts.

Not a god idea for sure, that's why we didn't promote the show much. Still we didn't want to pass the opportunity to get the foot in the door. Might have had 2nd thoughts if we had known about the "feud"

Sounds like everything is okay as long as we bounce back and forth with a few weeks space in between. We'll see.

Mike11121 · #8 01-30-2012, 11:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fraublugher

Seems like they're fighting over you , hopefully.
You must be doing it right , good job.

Might be time to revisit your rates?

cdaniel · #9 01-30-2012, 11:16 PM

We may do that eventually, but this town is long on competition and short decent venues. These places will hire just about any band at least once for peanuts and it keeps pay low.

Definately not in this for the money

JimInRadfordVA · #10 01-31-2012, 07:24 AM

How about using a different band name in each place?

I keed, I keed....

jonas_24112 · #11 01-31-2012, 10:38 AM

I'm going through a similar situation, but have no promoter in the middle. See this thread: Venue trying to "lock" my band in...opinions please.

For what it's worth, my opinion is you pay your promoter to deal with this stuff and if you're happy with the relationship you have with him and the job he has done for you, all you can do is apologize for the issue and let him deal with the venue fall out.