So we've been offered a few gigs from a company that sell themselves as a gig promoter / organiser. I won't name names but they seem really really useless.
They claim they are professional, but these gigs are not professional in any shape or form. The bands are a complete mismatch of style.
At the moment we've had a gig arranged with them for a few months. We talked previously about arranging gear. They (the promoters) said clearly on their emails not to assume that others will lend out the gear and to bring your own unless otherwise arranged. Okay, cool.
So the week of the gig is nearly here and there is a email chain with all bands in. We've posted what gear we are bringing. Out of all 4 bands, one is providing drum kit (non breakables). We are providing all other back line.
Why is this acceptable?
We are travelling just over an hour to get there. I'll be spending £25 on train-fare, another £15 on taxi home. Add in train fare for another member, and then add in petrol and parking in a major city for 5 hours for final members. We will not come close to breaking even for doing this gig.
Headliners are saying 'travel issues'. But they live local to the area! We are not getting any kind of pay increase for supplying all bands with backline. We did not ever agree to doing this. We actually agreed that this wasn't going to happen.
If we are providing gear for the whole gig, we wont be leaving until very late. We previously had plans to pack down after our set so we can get home after last band the plays
My instinct is to either directly ask the promoters for more money, or to leave the gig entirely. The leading member of the band says its probably not gonna workout and he doesn't want to come across as greedy or manipulative. And TBH I don't think he's wrong. Its just infuriating that out of 4 bands we are the only ones capable of bringing amps to a gig that has been arranged for over 2 months.
And the promoters are doing what to help this? Zero. There's little no response from them despite their being about 6 accounts of theirs in the email chain.
Oh and can I add in how terrible the quality of music is for all other acts? Im fine with other genres of music, but literally they cant play in time or in tune in their official recordings.
Another gig we did with them:
We had us (melodic, alt rock/metal). An all girls group who were barely 17 and could just about play their instruments well enough to play rock/pop covers. A forgettable rock/pop that were quite out of tune, but were admittedly very nice and sociable and way too young to expect much more of (one member was 15). Overall there was little to no crowd. When we got there the organiser made very little effort to communicate with us. He spent all his time on his laptop. We would ask him things like set times, sound check, and he would just kind of shrug and go back to his laptop.
The company itself just seems like a huge scam to make money off artists.
My main thing coming out of this is don't believe the hype. Don't believe that booking agents or event organisers, or gig promoters are anything more than a couple of talent-less nobody's, with a poopy job who wish they could play an instrument, and want to make money off of other people's art.
Going forward, with this gig, or probably the next : this is not the first time this has happened. We have turned up to gigs where they dont have mics or mic stands or xlr's ETC. What is the correct way to go about dealing with it?
I welcome any response.
They claim they are professional, but these gigs are not professional in any shape or form. The bands are a complete mismatch of style.
At the moment we've had a gig arranged with them for a few months. We talked previously about arranging gear. They (the promoters) said clearly on their emails not to assume that others will lend out the gear and to bring your own unless otherwise arranged. Okay, cool.
So the week of the gig is nearly here and there is a email chain with all bands in. We've posted what gear we are bringing. Out of all 4 bands, one is providing drum kit (non breakables). We are providing all other back line.
Why is this acceptable?
We are travelling just over an hour to get there. I'll be spending £25 on train-fare, another £15 on taxi home. Add in train fare for another member, and then add in petrol and parking in a major city for 5 hours for final members. We will not come close to breaking even for doing this gig.
Headliners are saying 'travel issues'. But they live local to the area! We are not getting any kind of pay increase for supplying all bands with backline. We did not ever agree to doing this. We actually agreed that this wasn't going to happen.
If we are providing gear for the whole gig, we wont be leaving until very late. We previously had plans to pack down after our set so we can get home after last band the plays
My instinct is to either directly ask the promoters for more money, or to leave the gig entirely. The leading member of the band says its probably not gonna workout and he doesn't want to come across as greedy or manipulative. And TBH I don't think he's wrong. Its just infuriating that out of 4 bands we are the only ones capable of bringing amps to a gig that has been arranged for over 2 months.
And the promoters are doing what to help this? Zero. There's little no response from them despite their being about 6 accounts of theirs in the email chain.
Oh and can I add in how terrible the quality of music is for all other acts? Im fine with other genres of music, but literally they cant play in time or in tune in their official recordings.
Another gig we did with them:
We had us (melodic, alt rock/metal). An all girls group who were barely 17 and could just about play their instruments well enough to play rock/pop covers. A forgettable rock/pop that were quite out of tune, but were admittedly very nice and sociable and way too young to expect much more of (one member was 15). Overall there was little to no crowd. When we got there the organiser made very little effort to communicate with us. He spent all his time on his laptop. We would ask him things like set times, sound check, and he would just kind of shrug and go back to his laptop.
The company itself just seems like a huge scam to make money off artists.
My main thing coming out of this is don't believe the hype. Don't believe that booking agents or event organisers, or gig promoters are anything more than a couple of talent-less nobody's, with a poopy job who wish they could play an instrument, and want to make money off of other people's art.
Going forward, with this gig, or probably the next : this is not the first time this has happened. We have turned up to gigs where they dont have mics or mic stands or xlr's ETC. What is the correct way to go about dealing with it?
I welcome any response.
