Just having a rant/vent/whinge.
Two months ago the band got a call from the guy who runs the local "metal" shop, asking us to play support for one of the biggest underground metal bands to ever come out of Australia. Of course we jumped on the opportunity. We knew up front that we probably wouldn't be paid as the headline band was asking a fair bit of cash, but we were more doing it for the exposure to new people coming to see the headline act (and the possibility of supporting the headline again).
We got told that we didn't have to do any legwork on the promoting as he'd handle it all, just make sure we let our friends/fans know and post it on the band's Facebook page. Huge sigh of relief for us, not having to spend money on printing and tape - and the time to plaster flyers everywhere around town.
From here, the "promoter" (AKA guy who runs the shop) created a Facebook event for the gig. He's plastered the event all over the page for his shop and that's about it. We got downgraded on the bill as he added other higher profile bands from out of town - which we didn't really care too much about (great bands, great blokes) - but when we get told it's the headline, us and another smaller band we kinda got excited. Now we're on earlier, we're not sure if we'll get people through the door early enough to see us - or if the headline will check us out.
Fast forward a month later and a flyer has finally been created for the gig. Very basic, no effort and even used the wrong logo for our band. A couple of flyers go up around town (which I later found out our guitarist put up) and "promoter" d***head posts the event/flyer all over Facespace twice a day.
Now it's 3 days before the gig. There is still no flyer up at the venue. I can count on one hand the number of flyers up around town (those that our guitarist put up). I'm sick of seeing the gig mentioned on Facebook it's been reposted that much.
The "promoter" reckons there's going to be 180-ish punters through the door, based on the Facebook event. We know from the last big gig (that we organised) that 180 Facespace attendees equals about half that on a good day, and have tried to explain this. So far, he's managed to sell about 30 pre-sale tickets. Our big gig we had around 80 pre-sold before the day.
We've questioned him repeatedly regarding the lack of flyers up around town and he can only respond with some BS about how he had gotten heaps put up, but they all got taken down. We know that it's BS as our friends who work in town haven't seen a single flyer anywhere. We've pushed him to get more flyers out and he assures us it'll be done.
So we've got a high profile gig coming up that nobody knows about, we're not getting paid for, and we're not likely to get any exposure.
Then, there's all the other crap going on with "promoter" guy being completely stupid with booking guys to run the PA, forgetting to organise a PA for the second stage and telling the other bands they can use our gear without consulting us.
Our plan is to rock up, play our arses off to whoever shows up and proceed to get as many free drinks as we can into us and enjoy the other bands.
Rant over. Thanks for reading.
Two months ago the band got a call from the guy who runs the local "metal" shop, asking us to play support for one of the biggest underground metal bands to ever come out of Australia. Of course we jumped on the opportunity. We knew up front that we probably wouldn't be paid as the headline band was asking a fair bit of cash, but we were more doing it for the exposure to new people coming to see the headline act (and the possibility of supporting the headline again).
We got told that we didn't have to do any legwork on the promoting as he'd handle it all, just make sure we let our friends/fans know and post it on the band's Facebook page. Huge sigh of relief for us, not having to spend money on printing and tape - and the time to plaster flyers everywhere around town.
From here, the "promoter" (AKA guy who runs the shop) created a Facebook event for the gig. He's plastered the event all over the page for his shop and that's about it. We got downgraded on the bill as he added other higher profile bands from out of town - which we didn't really care too much about (great bands, great blokes) - but when we get told it's the headline, us and another smaller band we kinda got excited. Now we're on earlier, we're not sure if we'll get people through the door early enough to see us - or if the headline will check us out.
Fast forward a month later and a flyer has finally been created for the gig. Very basic, no effort and even used the wrong logo for our band. A couple of flyers go up around town (which I later found out our guitarist put up) and "promoter" d***head posts the event/flyer all over Facespace twice a day.
Now it's 3 days before the gig. There is still no flyer up at the venue. I can count on one hand the number of flyers up around town (those that our guitarist put up). I'm sick of seeing the gig mentioned on Facebook it's been reposted that much.
The "promoter" reckons there's going to be 180-ish punters through the door, based on the Facebook event. We know from the last big gig (that we organised) that 180 Facespace attendees equals about half that on a good day, and have tried to explain this. So far, he's managed to sell about 30 pre-sale tickets. Our big gig we had around 80 pre-sold before the day.
We've questioned him repeatedly regarding the lack of flyers up around town and he can only respond with some BS about how he had gotten heaps put up, but they all got taken down. We know that it's BS as our friends who work in town haven't seen a single flyer anywhere. We've pushed him to get more flyers out and he assures us it'll be done.
So we've got a high profile gig coming up that nobody knows about, we're not getting paid for, and we're not likely to get any exposure.
Then, there's all the other crap going on with "promoter" guy being completely stupid with booking guys to run the PA, forgetting to organise a PA for the second stage and telling the other bands they can use our gear without consulting us.
Our plan is to rock up, play our arses off to whoever shows up and proceed to get as many free drinks as we can into us and enjoy the other bands.
Rant over. Thanks for reading.
