Hey Justin, hope you are doing well. I was wondering what are your personal likes/dislikes are when it comes to a venue. I'm not necessarily talking about amphitheaters or coffee shops, but more along the lines of your "local" venue in which you discover new bands and having touring bands stop by. I live in El Paso, TX and I must say that the venues are currently horrid (Have you ever been here? I remember when you came to Las Cruces with Ima Robot for Warped Tour 
). The only place that recognized,touring bands come to, is a club in which in the weekdays a bunch of young teenagers barely hitting puberty or old horny men go to dance and rave. In addition, most of the venues have horrible sound guys (I understand that good PA systems, speaker monitors, do cost loads of money), but these guys totally suck at getting the stage sounding decent. The one thing that has angered me is that the true music loving venues have totally gone down the drain. These are the places who had good booking, did not cancel shows, typically had all ages shows, and were a place where people could have a good time. Maybe they were hole in the wall locations, but the audience and the bands were happy. I mean....At the Drive-In is one of the only relatively well known bands that has gotten out of here. Maybe the bands, would have liked more money, but I guess these venues can't afford to promote when only about 50-150 come to the shows. I guess certain alternative music resource streams like Myspace are helping this generation of music, but sometimes I wish everything was a more of a in person, verbal exhange like when bands like Fugazi were around. Anyways....sorry for the rant hahah, but yea....what do you dislike and like about venues whether you are an audience member or performing artist. I hope to someday own a venue so it would definitely be of great help if I had insight from a professional like you. Thanks!
). The only place that recognized,touring bands come to, is a club in which in the weekdays a bunch of young teenagers barely hitting puberty or old horny men go to dance and rave. In addition, most of the venues have horrible sound guys (I understand that good PA systems, speaker monitors, do cost loads of money), but these guys totally suck at getting the stage sounding decent. The one thing that has angered me is that the true music loving venues have totally gone down the drain. These are the places who had good booking, did not cancel shows, typically had all ages shows, and were a place where people could have a good time. Maybe they were hole in the wall locations, but the audience and the bands were happy. I mean....At the Drive-In is one of the only relatively well known bands that has gotten out of here. Maybe the bands, would have liked more money, but I guess these venues can't afford to promote when only about 50-150 come to the shows. I guess certain alternative music resource streams like Myspace are helping this generation of music, but sometimes I wish everything was a more of a in person, verbal exhange like when bands like Fugazi were around. Anyways....sorry for the rant hahah, but yea....what do you dislike and like about venues whether you are an audience member or performing artist. I hope to someday own a venue so it would definitely be of great help if I had insight from a professional like you. Thanks!
