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Why We don’t do battles

Last time we play in a Battle of Bands was back in 2010 and we agreed to play just because it was a free opening act in a big festival in the biggest stage I played in my whole life. We didn't have to sell any ticket or pay any fee..After the battle there was a show of a very well know band in my country...so we went with the "we're a support band" mindset...

In my country most of the Battle of the Bands are P2P shows designed to swindle young bands. You can't enter if you don't sell a minimum amount of tickets (so most of the times bands pay with their own money), the prize usually sucks and they always promise you "exposure"..so we don't play that kind of shows.. Only promoters win.
 
BOB events ARE scams - designed to generate publicity for a radio station, a venue, or maybe one band. or to get free entertainment. but of course they are rigged. I've seen it. All it takes is ONE band to really make sure that their friends/family/cousins/business associates all vote for them, then they declare themselves the "winner" for the next year on FB. Few people vote in these things and few care. but I would never get roped into one. or if I did decide to play one, I would assume it was rigged and MERELY did it to get my band's name out there. but I wouldn't be bitter, or tolerate social media complaints, when we didn't "win"
 
There's pros and cons to these BOTB malarkey. First of all we all know its just a popularity contest. I once played one in an old band the winner got to play at the local festival. My band came second the winner was a band full of kids who obviously sold their tickets to Mums, Dads, Aunties, Uncles, Grandparents, their local shopkeeper basically people who didn't really want to be there. When they did play the festival they couldn't be arsed to watch them again so they played to no one pretty much. On the other hand it could be an opportunity to get new fans make new contacts etc. So not all bad news I suppose.
 
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