What happened to real event organizers/promoters?

[Mo Jiggity]

I'm playing a show in June. My singer booked it a few months ago, so it's been planned well in advance, and on Sunday he told me that they didn't have a PA and wanted to know if I could do sound. I've done sound for shows I've played 5 or 6 times in the past year, and every time I do it I end up running around barking half-sentences at people while I dick with someone else's ****** PA gear (with the exception of one instance where I used my buddy's nice stuff) and deal with other people who think they know what they're doing and have less than half a clue what's going on on the technical end of things. For this reason I declined, and my singer laughed since he knew exactly why.

But this got me to thinking... when did it become acceptable practice for shows of ANY type to leave handling the PA up to one of the bands? All of the times this has happened it has been at a bar, church, or restaurant, all of which are supposed to be remotely legitimate venues, and all of the times there have been promoters. In each instance it's been the sound guy bailing to go on vacation or the people running it not realizing that you need a sound-making device to make people heard to a large crowd. If this happened at frat parties or basement performances I wouldn't really be surprised, but the fact that I've had to run sound while playing guitar and/or bass for free so often really puzzles me.

So really... when did it become standard practice to assume that a band would bring a PA?