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How Does Your Band Get to Gigs?

jaywa

jaywa

May 5, 2008
7,702
283
Iowa City, IA
#1
Just curious how many people here are in bands that have a "band vehicle" of some sort (SUV, van, bus, RV, whatever), and how many of you are in bands where everyone drives themselves to gigs.

Also, is each person reponsible for getting his/her personal gear to the gigs or does it all ride in a trailer or something?

In my band we have a full size SUV and a trailer that the BL owns and maintains. Everyone meets at his place and we all ride to gigs together with everyone's personal gear and the band P.A. and lights in the trailer. Gas for the "band rig" is taken off the top of the gig pay, as a band expense. If anyone wants or needs to drive separately we always have that option but the gas $ comes out of our own pocket.

OTOH, I know of other bands where every member drives themself to every gig.

So how does your band roll (literally), and do you like the arrangement or wish it were different?
 
#5
Well we only played out once so far since I've been in the band, but for the most part we all took separate vehicles. I drove (honda civic wagon) with my whole rig, ampeg 6x10 and head, plus bass and a few of other people instruments plus some drum stands and stuff. Drummer drove his honda civic hatch with his family too and he didn't bring anything with him instrument wise. Then the guitarists drove a suv with all the rest of the drums, all the rest of the amps and everything else we could fit. We are playing out again in September for our EP release show and it will probably be a similar.
 
#11
For the most part, we all drive individually, though for far away gigs the guitar player and I usually ride together. The BL has a small SUV he brings his drums in and to tow the trailer with our PA, Lights and what not. Everyone else is responsible for bringing their own gear.
 
#14
Wow... great responses and to be honest I'm a little surprised how many vehicles y'all are taking to your gigs... though I totally understand everyone's situation is different.

In my band's case, we go the one-vehicle route for three main reasons:

1) 4 of the 5 of us live in the same town so meeting at the BLs place is only really a pain for the 5th guy (drummer), who lives 90 minutes away.

2) We hardly ever play local gigs, and due to the nature of our market our gigs are very spread out geographically. It's pretty typical for us to drive 60 to 100 miles (one way) for a gig, with some gigs much farther away than that. That's way too much gas for everyone to be burning with their own personal vehicles.

3) We have a big enough trailer that all of our production as well as personal gear can ride in it comfortably.

As an added benefit, we always know nobody will be late to the gig, and nobody will try to skate before teardown is done at the end. :D

In the band my BL was in before he started this one, every member drove themselves to every gig... even on gigs a long distance away. There were two guys who lived in the same town and even then those two never carpooled. He said by the time everybody factored out their gas expenses, the members of the band hardly netted anything. So by all of us riding together we get to keep more money in our pockets and that makes him (and me) happy.
 
#15
Depends on the gig - sometimes some of us will carpool together, sometimes we arrive separate. Depends on where the gig is.

In my older band one of the other guys would ride with me because I had to lug the giant PA of doom. Eventually being saddled with the PA all the time and no one (besides that guy) willing to help me load lead to my explosive exit from the band recently. (I've ended at the doctors more than once due to injuries I had lugging that thing around.. cool, huh?)
 
#16
jaywa said:
2) We hardly ever play local gigs, and due to the nature of our market our gigs are very spread out geographically. It's pretty typical for us to drive 60 to 100 miles (one way) for a gig, with some gigs much farther away than that. That's way too much gas for everyone to be burning with their own personal vehicles.
Click to expand...

Good point. All our gigs are local. I believe 50k (~ 30 miles) is our limit before extra fees start kicking in. So meeting up with even my closest band mate would tend to double my trip.

Gas tends to run me around $8 per gig. Sometimes more, rarely less.
 
#18
seanm said:
Good point. All our gigs are local. I believe 50k (~ 30 miles) is our limit before extra fees start kicking in. So meeting up with even my closest band mate would tend to double my trip.

Gas tends to run me around $8 per gig. Sometimes more, rarely less.
Click to expand...

Our SUV/trailer combo gets about 8-9 mpg. So yeah on the longer trips the gas expenses add up. OTOH, if we were taking 3 smaller vehicles then each of those vehicles would have to be getting 25 mpg or more to come out ahead and only one of our personal vehicles (mine) even comes close to that. And even in those situations we wouldn't have a prayer of getting our P.A. and lights transported (which is critical since 90% of our shows are DIY production).

But, our BL prices-out our more remote gigs correspondingly higher than ones that are closer to our home base. So for us it works out pretty well.
 
#20
We all live in the same town and I'm roommates with lead guitard, and the drummer and rhythm tard live together too. We take 4 vehicles to gigs now that we have our own PA. When we started out we managed to get everything into two cars. Now, with new cabs for me and my roommate, and the PA, we need all 4 cars and each of us drives on our own. It completely sucks, but whatever. No money for a trailer right now, although now that I think about it, maybe it's time to start pricing one out. Driving to gigs alone just feels kinda lame.
 

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