Why are the bar gig always so late ?

[Kael]

It's a bar. They make money from drink sales. They hire bands to keep people there. They want people there till last call spending money. Seems straight forward enough. You play till the job's done. Usually, IME, that means till at least 30 minutes before last call when it is too late for anyone to reasonably jump ship to another bar.

 

[dnosewor]

I played this past weekend from 11:30 to 2:30am both Friday and Saturday night. The place was packed until close both nights. Bars in my area are open til 3am.

 

[fhm555]

If you want to start and finish early, put together a classic country band and start booking retirement centers, community centers in the sticks, etc. There are several bands like that around here and most play from 6 to 9 Friday or Saturday.

I had a job for a while playing in a house band at a camp ground that would open up to non campers on the weekend. They had a nice little all weather stage and seating area and would sell dinner plates of grilled meats, assorted roasted veggies, and cold salads like tater or pasta. It was a bring your on liquid refreshment deal and the only restriction was no glass containers. The campers got the band as part of their fee and the other folks paid a flat rate per vehicle at the gate. We played 4 sets starting at 5PM and had to be done by 9PM. The party went on til everyone got tired and went home or back to their camp site, but the band had to quit NLT 9PM.

We are getting a lot of private party work these days and it can vary from a mid day start to an 11PM start and may only be a couple sets or as many as 6.

 

[Vakmere]

I'm 42 and getting too old for this. But does anybody really want to be out, listening to songs that went out of style 40 years ago, from 11 pm - 2am?

When I was younger, I'd stay up as long as it took to get lucky with a woman. But the bands made up of people my current age are clearly not going for that younger demographic with the stale old songs they generally choose to play. Old farts playing for old farts.

And us old farts need to go to work and want to get to bed. Ca 't we get the time slot for old fart classic rock bar gigs moved to earlier?

Nursing homes have afternoon gigs. Look into it. Make sure the audience is awake first.