Well, we did it!! (pay to play content)

[lfmn16]

And really, the amount of "work" we did to sell the tickets wasnt much other than a couple facebook posts and some text messages You guys are making it sound like i held my friends kid hostage and forced him to to buy a ticket or else... geez..

The REAL amount of work was everything you did to get to this point. Musicians (myself included) often don't think about the tens of thousands of hours of personal practice, thousands of hours of band practice, thousands of hours of performances, thousands of dollars spent on equipment, transportation costs, publicity, demos, promotion packs, etc., etc., etc. that it takes to put together and maintain a professional sounding band.

I think anytime you post that you did, or are doing, a pay to play, you can expect a fair amount of negative feedback.

 

[GlennW]

I wanna find some hookers that P2P.

 

[lfmn16]

I wanna find some hookers that P2P.

They are called groupies.

 

[gustobassman]

If we take the same business model they use for bands and apply it to the servers and bartenders, how long do you think HOB would be in business ?

someone made a good point, what if you sold the first 100 tickets and then asked for another hundred and lets say you sold 75 more, does the band get to keep the profit of surpassing the minimum ? $1500 seems pretty steep to rent a stage for an hour or so, I hope it turns out well for you and makes it worth the effort

Call me crazy, but why is having 100 of our friends wanting to see us play after 8 years off "renting the stage"?

Dont any of you do this for "fun" anymore? This is one gig where i DIDNT have to bust booty to sell tickets (meaning no promotional money was spent by us), get a ton of free advertising, dont have to travel, and get to play music with friends of mine.

You morning crowd is a lot less forgiving on here...

 

[gustobassman]

The REAL amount of work was everything you did to get to this point. Musicians (myself included) often don't think about the tens of thousands of hours of personal practice, thousands of hours of band practice, thousands of hours of performances, thousands of dollars spent on equipment, transportation costs, publicity, demos, promotion packs, etc., etc., etc. that it takes to put together and maintain a professional sounding band.

I think anytime you post that you did, or are doing, a pay to play, you can expect a fair amount of negative feedback.

All very valid points. I have clearly stated that we knew what we were getting into. Im on my 20th year of live gigs and this might be my 3rd p2p ever. We had an adult discussion regarding the entire situation amd i was voted down. Tickets sold like hot-cakes, the guys are stoked, and what good would it do for me to be Captain Bring-Down and make the next month a pain in the butt for them? Just keep whining like im reading in most of these posts? No. That would be counter-productive in my opinion.

 

[Gord_oh]

A hot merch girl helps too!

pics?

 

[Skeeter1]

The exposure is valuable to you. Is it worth $1500? Because you can say it however you want, but the fact is you just paid $1500 to play a gig.

Actually he didn't pay $1500. The $1500 is the gross his expense costs are what he paid. Other words, how much time, effort, went into selling those tickets. If he drove (fuel, depreciation, and time) around to sell those tickets then yea he paid a lot. If he used bands Facebook, or other retail connections to sell then his material costs and time (labor)costs go way down. That is the true cost.

 

[jumblemind]

Being ancient I remember a thriving live music scene all across this country but that died a couple decades back - gigs everywhere (even if the pay was crap it was pay) where the clubs competed by assuring the local patrons that they would vet the acts & provide a quality product from week to week or night to night

When did it become the responsibility of the band to do ALL the promotion & drag 'their' crowd to each & every gig??? This is very convenient (& lazy) for the venue owners

Gets back to supply and demand. There used to be fewer bands and a lot more people wanting rock and roll. Seeing live music was still "new", hell rock music was still new, guessing at your time frame. It's old now, been done over and over like a wild west show, and there are fifty times the amount of people putting on the show with a tenth of the people actually interested in that kind of thing.

And folks can say what they will about P2P and be technically correct, but average people are more likely to get motivated about going to the HOB to see a show than a rented out warehouse. The product is less the raw rock experience now and more about a packaged entertainment piece that people can choose for a specific timeslot in their weekend evening. That's not necessarily a bad thing, just how it is now that entertainment is a huge part of our lives relative to decades past.

 

[pnchad]

Nobodies criticizing anyone here but the facts are the facts

People suck & as long as you'll allow it they'll take advantage of you

Don't follow the 'shiny object' sic HOB - it's just another greedy corporation maximizing profits - don't let them do it on your back - when their product becomes so sucky nobody shows they'll get what they deserve

How many successful bands got their start at HOB??

Learn business & marketing along with you music - it is useful in everything you do

Think outside the box - the interwebs are cheap

 

[duff beer]

Call me crazy, but why is having 100 of our friends wanting to see us play after 8 years off "renting the stage"?

Dont any of you do this for "fun" anymore? This is one gig where i DIDNT have to bust booty to sell tickets (meaning no promotional money was spent by us), get a ton of free advertising, dont have to travel, and get to play music with friends of mine.

You morning crowd is a lot less forgiving on here...

We do all our gigs for "fun"...but we won't pay or sell tickets for the privilege of having that fun for any private business. Charities are different...we will play for free for a charity that we all agree on, but even then our expenses must be covered. We may even sell tickets to friends for a charity gig who want to see us, but that's not a pay to play scenerio and we are under no pressure to sell xx number of tickets...it's simply "Hey Bob...we're playing a charity gig for cancer. Tickets are $15, let me know if you want any."

As to playing music with friends...I can do that in my basement or the basements or garages of other friends any time I want.

 

[Ric5]

So, one of my bands has a pretty decent gig coming up in August at the San Diego House of Blues. It was a pay to play deal (which i loathe ) and the numbers seemed a little staggering at first. 100 tix at $15 makes... a lot of cash we had to fork over by the deadline!

However... we did it! This isn't bad for a band that recently re-grouped after 8 years of not playing together AND coming back under a new name. We are making no money, but there is a boatload of promotion the headliner is paying for and the exposure at a most likely sold out HOB show is not gonna suck. A hot merch girl helps too!

For once in my 20+ years of live gigs, i can see the value in a pay to play situation. I know this isn't always the case. I think we lucked out here.

I read the horror stories all the time, but did anyone else have a pay to play situation that actually worked out for you?

You paid them $1500 to play there ... I hope you got $1500 worth of enjoyment out of it ... it is like went to a fantasy rock camp and got to pretend you were a successful rock n roll star for a short time by paying them $1500. Also getting exposure as a band that has to pay to get a slot on stage is not good exposure. Exposure as a band that gets paid to be there is good exposure.

I will do some free gigs but I have never paid to play ...

I will be playing a party in the mountains in 2 weeks ... there is no pay, but there is free food and free drinks and we finish playing at 8 pm so I get home at a reasonable hour.

 

[gustobassman]

You paid them $1500 to play there ... I hope you got $1500 worth of enjoyment out of it ...

I will do some free gigs but I have never paid to play ... I don't really need or want that kind of exposure ...

I will be playing a party in the mountains in 2 weeks ... there is no pay, but there is free food and free drinks and we finish playing at 8 pm so I get home at a reasonable hour.

The gig is august 3rd. Three radio stations are set to do ads for the show. We paid nothing out of pocket and are playing not later than 10:00.

I will say it again, i was never on board with this. The other guys voted me down. Whats done is done. I dont like to do p2p, and never have. Tickets are sold, the band is happy and moving forward.

Its one gig people.

 

[Lee Moses]

I can understand why the O.P.--or at least his bandmates--might see something like this as a good opportunity. And it is true that it might open some doors.

What bothers me is that bands who go along with this kind of scheme enable club owners/concert promoters to keep exploiting bands without giving them their due pay. There was another recent thread pointing out how wrong it was for stores to hire disabled people at 22 cents an hour--why would people in their right minds enable similar exploitation of musicians?

 

[gustobassman]

Nobodies criticizing anyone here but the facts are the facts

People suck & as long as you'll allow it they'll take advantage of you

Don't follow the 'shiny object' sic HOB - it's just another greedy corporation maximizing profits - don't let them do it on your back - when their product becomes so sucky nobody shows they'll get what they deserve

How many successful bands got their start at HOB??

Learn business & marketing along with you music - it is useful in everything you do

Think outside the box - the interwebs are cheap

I not a rookie or newbie. There was a calculated and adult discussion as to the benefits or the negatives.

As far as the "interwebs" had you read my posts you'd have read that "a couple posts on facebook and a few text messages" sold our tickets. We had our facebook link hooked to paypal so most people paid that way. Fee free too.

Is that outside the box enough for you?

 

[masterFlash]

Hey Gustobassman,
My earlier post was not meant to knock you or stomp your buzz or anything of the like. In fact most of my points were positive.

I actually think preselling tickets is a good way to motivate bands to market their product off stage. Adding in the penalty of 'you buy what you don't sell' is also a decent motivational tool.

Bands that can't sell the minimum amount of tickets required should not be playing that size of a room yet. There is no way I would book my group as a headliner at a 1000 person concert hall.

It is not the sole responsibility of a venue to promote the bands.

BUT... I do think compensation for the performance is in order. It can be monetary or a guarantee for future show(s), hopefully paid.

As this deal is already done, there is prolly no room for negotiation. However I think you could have a good conversation with the venue's booking person after the show.

Maybe next time you could get 80% of ticket sales after the first 100. Just an Idea.

Anyway have a great show, engage the crowd, make everyone in the audience say 'Holy #### that's was a sweet show'.

 

[gustobassman]

Masterflash- all good man. I wasnt the driving force behind this gig. I chose to put my feelings aside because my guys were pumped on this show. I couldve whined and moaned about "the crappy deal we got", but its not right to try and mentally sabotage the gig.

Also.. say we sell 25 t-shirts at $10 a piece. Thats $200 profit after costs (guitarist designs clothes for a clothing company, shirts & prnting are cheap). There is potential for 800 people at this show. I can guarantee at least 25 of our fans alone that will buy shirts. This is more than reasonable.

 

[escaraBAJO]

I' learning a lot from this thread.

I'll agree with the "this is bad for other musicians opportunities". I haven't think of that and I think is a fair point.

I disagree with the "you are paying them to play" argument because this is a Business transaction so there's something to be gained. What? That's up to the two parts to decide and be cool with. Focalized promotion is not cheap. That's assuming you will get all the benefits of that promotion.

As for the slightly different but more hardcore "I'm not paying you to do something I should be payed for" argument. Just go and take all the logos from your sneakers, T-shirts, amps, basses and cars. Because you're paying them to do their promotion.

To the OP:
I say have fun and make the most of it.
You said you won't do it again and I believe you

Good luck

 

[jumblemind]

Didn't bands like Guns n Roses and Motley Crue start off by having to do the same sort of thing to play at the Whisky?

 

[lfmn16]

Tickets sold like hot-cakes, the guys are stoked, and what good would it do for me to be Captain Bring-Down and make the next month a pain in the butt for them? Just keep whining like im reading in most of these posts? No. That would be counter-productive in my opinion.

True. Part of being a band member is accepting the majority rule gracefully even when you disagree, although I'm sure someone could come up with some far-fetched scenario where you shouldn't.

 

[mflaherty]

if the OP sold 101 tickets, do they get to keep 100% of the proceeds for every ticket over 100? are you only allowed to sell just enough tix to buy in to the show?

If it was easy to sell 100 tickets, can you sell 100 more and keep the $1500?