Open letter from bar owner to musicians

[Scott1]

Great thread with lots of intelligent posts.

I owned a venue and a production company for awhile and what I notice is there are two separate types of venues, and owners as well as bands sometimes confuse the two. It is especially bad when an owner doesn't know the difference.

"Dance" bars and "Show" venues.

The OP is speaking about dance bars and he is 100% on target, like it or not. Dance bars want people dancing (sweating), and having a laughing good time. That's when drinks sell the most. Get the women in and keep them dancing. Guess what happy, sweaty women bring in? (horney guys with money to buy them drinks). If you are a dance band and do this well, you will make good money and have regular gigs.

The average local Show venue is not about volume drink sales, you might get one drink, like a water or a beer, out of the average patron, so there is usually a cover charge and premium prices for drinks and overpriced crappy finger food. People come to hear original music and see a stage show, (generally not to dance and party) but while the audience is enjoying and focusing on your wonderful original music, the venue isn't making a cent; so this business needs a different financial model than a bar.

I think the main problem is with owners who think you can blend the two; very difficult in practice and mostly done unsuccessfully. Their bar is failing so they come up with some wacked out business model for live music and then force it on the bands; pay for play and unrealistic draw expectations just a couple I can think of. It sucks for the bands and IMO they should not go along with it. Let them go out of business, someone else will come in and hopefully do it right.

If there is no good Show venue where you are, it really doesn't cost too much to rent a venue between a couple of (no more than three) bands and put on your own show. The biggest costs, besides that venue charge, are one time event insurance and security, but that's not too bad, add it all up that's your break even point. Then if you are any good, people will realistically pay between $2.00 to $5.00 each to see your show. You can see how many people you'll need to make a profit. People won't pay much more unless you are well known locally with a large following...but if you had that, the larger live venues would be contacting you. The biggest mistake I saw bands making in this area was over-valuing how much people are willing to pay to hear them play.

[TRichardsbass]

Thank you. Great post. Hopefully the kiddies will read it twice.

[MarkMgibson]

Originally Posted by Depth_Charge

Maybe I was too short in my reply (I tend to waffle).
Yes, its the venues responsibility, but most bars follow the model of "make money", not "promote bands".

If the band want to guarantee a successful night, and their pre-gig research shows the venue aren't pulling their weight promotion wise, it falls on the band to self-promote at that point.

Oh, and any event organiser (not venue) should self-promote, regardless of the activity being promoted. That's having a personal stake in the success of the event IMHO.

Yeah, that's true enough. It used to be different though; I remember when pubs did a hell of a lot to promote good local bands, including radio spots. Those were the days.

[Factor88]

Originally Posted by TRichardsbass

Maybe that is another point to make. If any of the posters here who had negative things to say about the club owner were actually making their full time living wage playing music, you would probably not say what you did. You would clearly understand it. Most musicians and bands are nice side income that is fun to do. So, I say, lose the attitude. Suck it up. He is paying you. If you were paying him, what would you expect him to do to ensure your success?

I agree with this so much. Of course, I DO also think there are the type personalities that resent anyone who has some little bit of power over them, and perhaps musicians happen to have a greater then normal percentage of these types in the demographic.

I was blessed to be able to play pop-rock-country covers for about five years as a soul source of income at countless venues up and donw the east coast, and I just don't remember that many d-bag venue folks. Certainly not to the extent you hear talked about on this board so much. Was I just lucky? You might think so, but then I also never seem to have problems with bandleaders, police (not that I have not been ticketed, etc), local government, or 95% of my supervisors at all my day jobs. At that point you realize it is not luck. The people who go through life having so many problems and disagreements with those with some sort of power over them should look in a mirror...it ain't them...it's you.....

[MarkMgibson]

Originally Posted by TRichardsbass
Maybe that is another point to make. If any of the posters here who had negative things to say about the club owner were actually making their full time living wage playing music, you would probably not say what you did. You would clearly understand it. Most musicians and bands are nice side income that is fun to do. So, I say, lose the attitude. Suck it up. He is paying you. If you were paying him, what would you expect him to do to ensure your success?

I do make my living playing music, and I think most of that post is utter crap. It's just lazy, unmotivated club managers whining about having to actually do some work. Yeah, let's book a band, do absolutely nothing to advertise or promote them, and just expect the customers to roll in by the hundreds. That really is amateur hour stuff - I don't care how common it's become.

[bassbully]

Originally Posted by MarkMgibson

I do make my living playing music, and I think most of that post is utter crap. It's just lazy, unmotivated club managers whining about having to actually do some work. Yeah, let's book a band, do absolutely nothing to advertise or promote them, and just expect the customers to roll in by the hundreds. That really is amateur hour stuff - I don't care how common it's become.

I don't know about you but in my neck of the woods we (bands) need bars, clubs ,owners and manager way more than they need us so you deal with it.

[obimark]

On the nights some of these bars don't have music , who comes there and why do they come?
If the answer is NO one, than they shouldn't be in business anyhow!!
At best a band can bring some additional people but most cover bands aren't going to bring the 50 people who didn't show up to the place.
And I hate to say this the younger folks love these Djs, at our last gig there was a dj playing after us (around 12:30 PM), around 12:10 about 30 more hipster young(er) folks showed up out of nowhere... They seemed to enjoy our last couple of songs, but I don't see them making an effort to come out and actually see our gigs (and we are a cover band with a good selection of 90s,80s etc...)

[PJMiDi]

Originally Posted by bassbully

I don't know about you but in my neck of the woods we (bands) need bars, clubs ,owners and manager way more than they need us so you deal with it.

This is pretty much the simple truth of it for most working bands. My fathers owned a bar a long time and a lot of his friends do as well. I hear the same thing every time they're talking about live music. If the band doesn't bring in close to twice what your paying them its not really worth it. I personally might be ok with making a little less than twice what i'm paying them, but in the end the bar/club owners have all the leverage.

[Ric5]

Bar owners must hate people like me. I never buy premium drinks, and I don't stay all night.

[electracoyote]

Originally Posted by obimark

On the nights some of these bars don't have music , who comes there and why do they come?
If the answer is NO one, than they shouldn't be in business anyhow!!
At best a band can bring some additional people but most cover bands aren't going to bring the 50 people who didn't show up to the place.
And I hate to say this the younger folks love these Djs, at our last gig there was a dj playing after us (around 12:30 PM), around 12:10 about 30 more hipster young(er) folks showed up out of nowhere... They seemed to enjoy our last couple of songs, but I don't see them making an effort to come out and actually see our gigs (and we are a cover band with a good selection of 90s,80s etc...)

Good post, opens up a lot of questions.

The number of patrons drinking and eating in the bar owner's establishment at any given time depends on how clever and motivated he is about drawing people in. Some bars in my area have something interesting going on every night of the week, and people who can go out weeknights gravitate toward those venues. Some bars just wait for the weekend, knowing as they do the average working stiff can't stay out on a week night. It's like craps; play the odds, put your chips on the numbers you think will win, and hope for the best. There are some bars in my area that do it all in a typical week; karaoke night, open mic night, DJ night, trivia night, live music night, bar olympics night, ladies night, etc. Some bars have nothing going on during the week and hope for a great turn out on the weekend so they can pay their operating expenses for the whole week.

As musicians, you have to know your market and each venue's personality and entertainment needs. Your band, as good as it may be, may never be a fit for certain venues. And if you find yourself missing opportunities or getting shut out a lot, then you need to understand and accomodate some of these venue owners' business models better. Because, right or wrong, like it or not, they do control the strings if you want to play out.

[MarkMgibson]

Originally Posted by bassbully

I don't know about you but in my neck of the woods we (bands) need bars, clubs ,owners and manager way more than they need us so you deal with it.

We need them in my neck of the woods as well, and I deal with club owners and managers nearly ever day. My problem is that the bar industry has become extremely lazy. 20 years ago, if you had a good band with a good reputation, club managers would be calling you for your services. They would do whatever they could to promote you (depending on the size of the club), and at the end of the night, the band would get well paid, the club would make a very good profit, and everybody was happy.

There's still a lot of clubs/pubs/bars who operate this way, but there's a lot of lazy S.O.B's out there as well. They want live music, but some of them can't even be bothered to do in-house advertising, like putting up a damn billboard. As for this "we need them more than they need us" attitude. If you believe that, then stick to your day job.

I often go into pubs on a Friday night when I'm not working, and there's nobody there. Why not? Because they have nothing to offer except over-priced booze, lousy food, and on-line gambling (all of which you can get at home).

Live music is one of the few unique things that clubs have to offer. The clubs who understand this (in my neck of the woods) have the place packed every weekend. The ones that don't are empty.

Live bands offer a unique experience; please don't under-sell yourselves. What we do is a high-level skill - very few people can do it, and millions wish they could. I don't care if you're a startup cover band playing to 50 people. I bet 49 of those people wish they were up on that stage.

[Mike in Chicago]

I agree with most here..problem is many of today's musicians deserve this kind of a talking to.

[bluewine]

Originally Posted by MatticusMania

You say that the bands that want to do the above should rent a hall and throw their own show... the ones wanting to make money could do the same as well.

Why would we do that when you can book a 9-1 paying gig at a cover club or bar?

Blue

[MarkMgibson]

"Renting a hall" isn't so simple these days, especially with strict liquor license laws. Years ago you could get away with it (just say it was someone birthday party), but not these days. (though I guess it depends where you live). Plus, some of those private gigs got nasty - lot's of alcohol, and no security = many fights and lots of police. Not pretty.

[nortonrider]

MarkMgibson:
It sure seems like you have a complaint for just about everything.

[aborgman]

Originally Posted by nortonrider

you can get a pretty close "guesstimate" by just knowing how much a well drink costs in your area.
AN EXAMPLE (just for the sake of discussion) - your mileage may vary:

Making A $5.00 Rum and Coke:

.A fifth of well rum costs the bar $22.

Yikes is that number WAY off for this area.

A typical cheap well rum runs about $6-8/fifth off the shelf. Bars will be paying less than that.

[MarkMgibson]

Originally Posted by nortonrider

MarkMgibson:
It sure seems like you have a complaint for just about everything.

What am I complaining about? If you disagree with something I say, spit it out.

[Marial]

Originally Posted by Factor88

I agree with this so much. Of course, I DO also think there are the type personalities that resent anyone who has some little bit of power over them, and perhaps musicians happen to have a greater then normal percentage of these types in the demographic.

I was blessed to be able to play pop-rock-country covers for about five years as a soul source of income at countless venues up and donw the east coast, and I just don't remember that many d-bag venue folks. Certainly not to the extent you hear talked about on this board so much. Was I just lucky? You might think so, but then I also never seem to have problems with bandleaders, police (not that I have not been ticketed, etc), local government, or 95% of my supervisors at all my day jobs. At that point you realize it is not luck. The people who go through life having so many problems and disagreements with those with some sort of power over them should look in a mirror...it ain't them...it's you.....

I could not agree more with the bolded.

[nortonrider]

Originally Posted by aborgman

Yikes is that number WAY off for this area.

You are Correct.
I asked my woman about pricing yesterday and she said that she just bought a case of rum for $9.00 a bottle and they gave her a free one.
So...... 13 bottles for $108. = $8.31/bottle

[PJMiDi]

yea you make a huge profit margin on liquor but you also have to consider the other costs. considering thats their only profit margin pretty much they have to use that to pay for labor, maint, util, product cost, advertising and tons more. There's a reason a drink made with 7-8$ a bottle alcohol cost 5$