"promotion"

[Cloud]

Okay, a slightly more serious thread than the other one.

I've noticed a common point made about the lack of promotion for gigs in Aberdeen. Gigs that are badly attended are often blamed on the promotion front, and all too often, promotion consists of sticking up a couple of posters in the venue and posting a message on here, even though the site only reaches a small percentage of the total gig goers.

So, what should change?

Would local bands be really happy to be paid a pittance (say 5) because the promoter went and made decent posters and stuck them up everywhere, and took a cut of the door money for himself because of the time spent doing it and then took a further cut to pay for the costs of the gig? The other side to it would be good crowds with the venues making plenty of cash too.

Or should the promoter be expected to give up his time for free and be expected to lose money on the gig, resulting in poor crowds like at the minute? Is this an ideal state of affairs? Yeah, there's a handful of people trying to drag the place forward, making it a "place to gig", but for every person doing that, there's others blowing the opportunities that they've been given.

[framheim]

it's never that simple.

i'm a bit unsure of what your exact point is. you seem to be saying promotion is simply a case of spend money on shiny posters and people will come which just isn't the case. paying a band 5 is insulting as well.

why ask if losing money on gigs with poor crowds is an ideal state of affairs? of course it fucking isn't. i'll guarantee no promoter wants to lose money on a gig and have a half filled venue all the time. so what's your point apart from stating the bleeding obvious?

[Daniel]

id happily give up money to play to a bigger crowd, but i cant think of much more that can be done. all the posters are put up in places like; one up, RnB, at the venues etc, where the target market are regulars

[The Ghost Of Fudge]

there are increasingly fewer places to put up posters, it seems to me......

[Cloud]

i'm a bit unsure of what your exact point is. you seem to be saying promotion is simply a case of spend money on shiny posters and people will come which just isn't the case. paying a band 5 is insulting as well.

Yeah, I made that point a bit unclear - what I'm trying to say is if the promoter spent more money on promotion (cd's, flyers, posters, spending time on getting the gig advertised absolutely anywhere, talking to people at gigs to get them to come...the lot) in general. Say that costs 150 for the night - which, given the state of things locally, would pretty much eat up any money for local bands, even with an increase of people through the door.

Would that be insulting to the band to only receive 5 after the promoter has taken the cost of advertising out of the door money, along with paying himself something?

[Afro Droid]

Say that costs 150 for the night - which' date=' given the state of things locally, would pretty much eat up any money for local bands, even with an increase of people through the door. [/quote']

Are the posters printed with pure gold ink on pieces of the Shroud of Turin? 150!?

You're an alright dude Cloud, but 99% of the time you have no idea what you're talking about.

Here's an example for you - I put on a show at The Moorings with Black Atom, Onion Terror and Today We Fight! a while back, I spent about 15 printing about 20 b&w A3 posters and about 150 flyers, some of which I gave to the bands and the rest I used to promote the show myself by flyering a postering a coupl'a weeks in the run-up to the show. At 3 door tax on the night, I was able to pay the bands at least 50 each (more in Atom's case) as well as paying myself back for the posters, buying my helpers a few pints on the night and having a few myself. I imagine this is how most promoters in Aberdeen work. It's not rocket science. It's more in hard graft than how much money you chuck about.

[steve corps]

promotion is pretty much pointless if the bands are shite, so promoters need to worry less about nice posters and more about the rubbish they throw on stage.less crap gigs, more quality gigs THEN worry if your 1000+ posters and flyers glow in the dark.

[Cloud]

Well, 150 is a "ideal" number - getting really good flyers that people take notice of (personal experience I guess, people don't really pay much attention to paper flyers, and they're not much use in the rain. And of course, people always take card flyers for other reasons..), paying for decent A3 colour posters printed on decent paper, paying for CD's to hand out, and paying someone to help for a few hours flyering.

I saw a figure of 250 to advertise a club night properly (and that's for each night), so I don't think 150 is really unrealistic if you're aiming to fill a place like The Tunnels. If you think about the amount of money Liquid must spend each night, 250 can't really be far off it - at least 6 staff out on the street comes to 90 for three hours, flyers are expensive things, posters to advertise certain nights and so on.

I guess I'm thinking in the big scale though - I tend to think that anything less than 85% capacity is somewhat of a let down. This is why I posted this thread - would people trade their payment in exchange for playing to bigger crowds? I have no idea, the band psyche confuses the hell out of me at times

[Flash@TMB]

Cloud - it is a promoters bread & butter to ensure that the increased number of people attending a gig, due to promotional efforts, outweighs the cost attached to those efforts.

What part of that are you struggling with?

[Cloud]

That's exactly what I'm trying to say - I don't quite understand the attitude towards the payment of bands.

If a promoter goes out, spends a small fortune on advertising, packs a venue out and pays the headline band their fee and then recovers his costs and pays him/herself a reasonable amount for their efforts, is it offensive to the local bands if they only receive 5 because there's only 15 left once all expenses are covered? I'm assuming in this example that the door price can't be raised as it's agreed with the booking agent/tour manager in advance.

[Flash@TMB]

That's exactly what I'm trying to say - I don't quite understand the attitude towards the payment of bands.

If a promoter goes out' date=' spends a small fortune on advertising, packs a venue out and pays the headline band their fee and then recovers his costs and pays him/herself a reasonable amount for their efforts, is it offensive to the local bands if they only receive 5 because there's only 15 left once all expenses are covered? I'm assuming in this example that the door price can't be raised as it's agreed with the booking agent/tour manager in advance.[/quote']

If the promoter packed the venue out and didn't have enough left over to pay the bands then they should have charged more at the door. And if the promoter had got it's sums right in the first place then they wouldn't have made that mistake. It is the promoters job to get this right. The promoter is expected to get this right. The promoter is considered to have failed if they get this wrong.

I'm sure that on certain occasions bands will play for free, especially if it's a big gig with a famous headliner. But the promoter should check with them in advance.

[Guest Bob]

The promoter is expected to get this right. The promoter is considered to have failed if they get this wrong.

And if the promoter fails they shouldn't be paying themselves a handsome wee fee. Never reward yourself for failure or it becomes habit.

[RicoAUBL]

exactly.

case closed.

[Dizzy Storm]

USAisamonster on monday

so far myself and maxi have ....

put out 1600 flyers handed out so far (to the target market for the last month and a half) - god knows how many hours!

put 50 posters up round town (covering eveywhere)- 3 hours

talking to as many people as possible at lots of gigs with flyer and mailing list - given up at least 8/9 nights

e-mail shots - 10 mins

myspace whoring with links flyers etc - 3 hours

abmusic posting - 10 minutes

my point?? postering and posting on here captures about 10% of our audience, it takes 30 mins to do the usual stuff. the hard work is actually getting out and talking to people abotu the shows and generating interest making it a night to look forward to!

we believe that giving someone a flyer and talking to them about the show is the key to getting the show busy. there is little monetary cost involved with this, maybe about 50 for printing. cost does nto come into it, its how much time you can free up to promote the show!

will this gig be a success?? only time will tell

[Chris]

how many bands still flyer outside gigs and clubnights? a few years ago this was the normal way to get people along to gigs. and as Sharon said personally sticking a flyer into someone's hand and talking to them about the gig will generate more interest than simply putting a thread on here saying "X playing Y next weekend!" which everyone who wasn't already interested in the gig will ignore.

[Cloud]

That's something else Chris actually - should (local) bands be doing their own promotion, outside of putting it on their website and telling people? Part of me says yes, if they expect a decent payment, but part of me is saying no because it's not their job to be promoting, it's their job to be playing at the gig in question.

But I really don't know..opinions?

[Chris]

i's the promoters job to promote the gig but the bands themselves should not just sit back and say "Fuck it the promoter's going to magically get everyone in the city that might enjoy this gig to come along". They still need to get out and spread the word themselves. The promoter should do the majority but the bands should do some of the legwork.

[The Ghost Of Fudge]

That's something else Chris actually - should (local) bands be doing their own promotion' date=' outside of putting it on their website and telling people? Part of me says yes, if they expect a decent payment, but part of me is saying no because it's not their job to be promoting, it's their job to be playing at the gig in question.

But I really don't know..opinions?[/quote']

deadloss have always done their own posters for nearly every gig anyway. i think it's a good way to build band identity, for what it's worth. and i like playing with photoshop anyway.

it costs like 2 to get some b&w posters made.

[The Milner]

We have a street team who help us out when we have suitable fliers and posters for gigs, we get them up in schools and they have days when they go advertising in town, seems to have helped increase our attendences. I'm sure most bands could find a few dedicated fans who would be willing to go out once every so often to help promote the band.

I feel there are not enough bands who actually go out and advertise the fact they are playing and leave too much up to the promoters. Yes the promoters have a duty to promote the gigs they are putting on but it is as much up to the bands to promote themselves to generate interest in the gigs in the first place, the promoter is giving you the chance to show what you can do surely you want to let as many people as is possible know about this so they can come see you.

[Inkster]

I think bands should go out and promote themselves in the lead up to a gig.Even if it is only to their friends, although telling more people will generate more fans in the long run.

I can't actually remember the last time I seen people outside a club or after a gig promoting themselves.I remember Karloff did it once outside Mosh and some people were doin it after the FFAF gig at the lemon tree but the Moshulu incident was the last I remember and that must've been months ago.

[framheim]

Would that be insulting to the band to only receive 5 after the promoter has taken the cost of advertising out of the door money' date=' along with paying himself something?[/quote']

fucking right it would be. bands need money to survive, if the club is reasonably busy and they've done their job they should be paid fairly for it. no one would argue with the promoter making their costs back but if they took a cut for themselves then offered five quid(not even enough to buy everyone in a band a pint) to a band who've practiced and worked hard to play that gig then i'd imagine they'd be insulted.

when i put on gigs i always split the money made with the bands and took enough for a taxi and some chips on the way home and nothing more. obviously i'm not suggesting every promoter does this, it's a profession and i was doing it as a hobby.

if a fee is agreed with a band before the gig then the promoter should honour that no matter how busy the club is.

band should also chip in with promotion, paricularly if they want to be a professional band. for the sake of a few quid and some hard work if they get an extra 5 - 50 people in the venue then it's well worth it. however wasting money on glossy full colour flyers would be futile.

[Cloud]

This might come out a bit disjointed, so beware.

fucking right it would be. bands need money to survive' date=' if the club is reasonably busy and they've done their job they should be paid fairly for it. no one would argue with the promoter making their costs back but if they took a cut for themselves then offered five quid(not even enough to buy everyone in a band a pint) to a band who've practiced and worked hard to play that gig then i'd imagine they'd be insulted.[/quote']

But ultimately, something has to give - should the promoter not be compensated fairly for the time spent promoting the gig? And if push comes to shove, who should be paid, the promoter or the bands? If a promoter was spending 20 hours directly dealing with that gig, that's 101. The band in comparison would be (let's say a typical four piece) playing for half an hour - so 2.53 each. Which would directly work out as a tenner for their set - is that a fair price to pay?

Perhaps, dare I say it, local bands are overpaid?

if a fee is agreed with a band before the gig then the promoter should honour that no matter how busy the club is.

Yup, there can be no argument there. I don't think there's anything worse than promising to pay someone so much and then not doing so - better to be honest up front and say that there might not be any money to pay them by the end of the night.

band should also chip in with promotion, paricularly if they want to be a professional band. for the sake of a few quid and some hard work if they get an extra 5 - 50 people in the venue then it's well worth it.

Would a professional band not do the exact opposite and expect the promoter to do the job? Subjective, I guess..

however wasting money on glossy full colour flyers would be futile.

Is it actually a waste of money? If they were, why don't clubs/etc just use paper flyers? I think proper glossy card flyers do a lot to put across a "serious" image - yeah, they cost a small fortune, but at the same time, casual people in the street are far more likely to pay attention to something that looks like a big deal than a 'cheap' paper flyer. I recall Obedience School also used proper flyers.

[steve corps]

cloud, is this a trick thread? you seem to be arguing the point with yourself, it makes sense to understand the actual question you are asking before you ask it, usually.

[Cloud]

hey, i'm just trying to get people to comment

I guess the actual question would be something like this :

"Would it be fair to pay local bands peanuts in exchange for giving them a gig at a packed local venue?"

[Chris]

"Would it be fair to pay local bands peanuts in exchange for giving them a gig at a packed local venue?"

the answer would be no.