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Avoid - Red battle 09


Rickicaz1279

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We came across this forum on advice from someone looking after our interests. Although we have been advised to raise a claim for defamation, I thought I would attempt to address some of the issues raised here and see if we can get them ironed out first.

My names Sam - I'm the M.D of Redland. I have absolutely no problem addressing every point you've made and also making our finances transparent so that you can see how they work.

I hope that you will see that we're not actually a 'rip off' or a 'scam', rather, we're a company, needing to make money to survive, and giving bands opportunities with it.

First of all, regarding payment at shows - this is a competition to win prizes.. not a normal gig. We can either pay all bands with no prizes, or not pay bands with prizes. We, or anyone, can't do both. This is quite clear from the outset. However, last year we decided to allow bands payment at the regional finals as an extra benefit to them, if they'd sold 50 tickets or more. This was done at our discretion. Some promoters wont even pay bands at all.

Regarding text votes - although text votes are set at 50p per text, we only receive 19p of each text message - the rest goes to the operators and the phone companies. Text votes are not set up for bands to use, and are not set up for people at the gig. They are there to help people who cannot come to the shows to still vote for their favorite band. Texts are weighed financially and for the amount of votes they give a band in order to make it fair. For example, if ticket price is 5 then you would have to send in 10 text votes in order to make up the same amount of votes as a ticket. If a person decides not to come to the show and send a text vote it, you must therefore see that we're loosing 4.50, not making 50p!

I would agree with WoodyRATM that the Aberdeen gigs weren't amazing last year. This is because Moshulu is far too large for a handful of local bands to appropriately fill. If an audience is spaced out, then the atmosphere is ruined. In other cities where we used more appropriately sized venues, they were some of the best gigs we've ever been involved in.

There seems to be a lot of criticism to our methods of voting, i.e. not having judges throughout. We stand by our methods although this year we have brought judge voting in from round one. If you're an already established band, why are you entering Red Battle? Red Battle does not cater to bands who have already made a mark for themselves musically, it helps young, struggling bands find their feet. Because of this, a lot of the bands who end up in Red Battle, aren't musically as 'good' as some more established bands. What's the point, then, in having judges to vote for bands? There is none! However, we rewarded bands on work ethic and personality initially. First of all, bands who play well will always pick up more votes. Bands who work hard and promote themselves will obviously attract more people, and pick up more votes. Text votes shouldn't really count in this equation as they are for people not attending the gigs, as previously mentioned. However, we agree that bands should also be rewarded on merit, and this is a mistake we made last year. This coming year things have changed in the voting dept... Text votes and crowd votes are the same, who cares what judges think if the public or the bands work-force can't have their say? However, this year a judge at each venue will pick 1 band to go through to the next round based on how well they play. The other bands will go through on votes. The Finals are judged entirely, and so is the national final!

The prizes we offer we are subject to the amount of money we make. This is simple logic. If we cant make money, noone gets anything. There are many things we do in order to make sure we have enough money. 1. Only pay bands after X amount of tickets has been sold, 2. Use text votes as an additional revenue, 3.) Promote the shows as much as we can, 4.) Ensure we're using financially relevant venues.

OK so our costs... Here's the black and white of what we make. Check it out for yourselves...

Income

Round1

Last year we did 14 cities, 3 dates in the first round with 7 bands on each date. Tickets were priced at between 3 and 5 (depending on city) and on avarage, each band sells 20 tickets (some sell 50, some sell 3 - it avarages out at pretty much 20). So first round income was therefore 23,520.

Round2

Tickets were priced between 5 and 6, 6 bands on each date across 2 dates. Income was therefore 18,480

Round3

Tickets were priced at between 6 and 7, 8 bands on each date across 1 date. Income - 14,560

National final

Sold 1497 tickets @ 9 = 13,473

Text votes

We received 56,000 text votes amounting to 10,640

Total income = 80,670

Great!

Or not...

Costs:

Venue hire avarages out to 350 for first round per venue, 450 for second round per venue and 500 for the regional finals per venue, + 2000 for the national final. All plus vat = 36,895.

PRS @ 3% of net ticket take = 2100.99

Transport for 2 vans @ 110 each per week = 5,940

Transport for 1 extra van used half the time = 1,485

Accomodation for 3 teams in Travelodges @ on avarage 49 per night per team = 17,640

Band payments came to a total of 4971

Expenses which were paid at the national final came to 8606.77 (including band payments for the national final)

Tickets

Round 1 needed 14,700 tickets

Round 2 needed 10,080 tickets

Round 3 needed 8,400 tickets

National final had 1600 tickets printed (although only 1497 were used)

All @ 12p per ticket + vat = 4,903.98

Staff wages (not including mine or the other director) were at NWM @ 41 hours per week for 3 people = 16,914.96

Equipment cost us 3,000 +vat on deal from our sponsors

We spent 2917.03 on expenses during the whole Red Battle (repairs to equipment, etc)

Total outgoings = 105,899.73

Oh dear! We've made a loss of around about 20,000.

How do we get this back? Through sponsorship. We make our money back from sponsors putting into our deal and matching ticket amounts. This means we received an additional 29,760.94 .

This puts us in credit by 4,531.21

That, my friends is not a good take for a 6 month period.

I work for around about 50% of minimum wage. Why do I do it? Because I enjoy it. In fact, I'd probably only take a tiny pay cut if I were to sit on the dole.

It's not possible to run a project of this size without being very careful about where your money goes. We are also given fantastic prizes in return for advertisement. These prizes are your payment back. It's one thing to run a BOTB in your local town, because you only have a fraction of the above expenses. When you run it nationwide you suddenly have travel, accomodation, etc etc to fit into that and the numbers just dont work out quite like you thought they might have.

I'm slightly offended that people would think we're a rip off. Perhaps we need to change the way we work slightly to not give off that impression. However, we have to have guidelines, we want to give away prizes, but we can only do that if we make enough money to keep the sponsors happy! You work hard, you get more prizes. It's simple.

As I say, this year we are having judges at every stage, but we will still expect bands to work hard, yes to bring in the people, but not just to bring in revenue, also to make the gigs GOOD!

Also, I take a personal annoyance at people who don't think they should promote for a gig, or be required to bring anyone. If you can book a gig or a tour yourselves, then why are you in Red Battle? Go and do it yourselves. We cater for people who dont have the ability to do that. We therefore expect them to bring people to the show. Do you know how hard it is to promote bands who noones heard of? Quite right, you might be able to book your own show and promote it, but you're still only promoting to your own fan-base, friends and family. This is because NOONE CARES about gigs anymore. It's not like when I was 14 and first going to gigs, where people would turn up to a venue regardless just to see live music. Back then, very few people were in bands. Now, every other man and his dog are in a band. Noone wants to see a band, its impossible to promote it, unless you bring your fan-base. Because so many people are in bands the standard of bands has dropped drastically. Therefore, if you had it your way, only the very best bands would be rewarded by being given shows. So what happens to the small, very young bands? They speak to a promoter, who requires them to sell some tickets for their trouble and puts them on a gig. For our local shows (shows that aren't Red Battle or dont have prizes as well), we require bands to sell 30 tickets to get paid. 30 measly tickets! That brings is 120, 30 of which is given to the band, 70 of which goes to the venue and 20 of which goes to us. People dont seem to realise that this isn't actually a bad deal. Promoters have to pay for the venue! So what about getting a gig with just the venue itself? Aren't the venues the ones who would then take your door money AND the money made on the bar? Did you know that venues work on 8 per head for drinks? So if they have 300 people into the venue they make around 2,400 and then pay each band 30 or something? And we're the ones who are ripping people off?

Here's an idea... go and open your own venue, start your own promotion company, create your own event. See how hard it is to make money or be stable in this industry and then come back and complain.

It would be better if people expressed their views to us directly. We had a disclaimer on our web site regarding those people who thought that we were doing something immoral, or 'rip-off like'. This basically explained that if you had opinions about how band competitions were run, please inform us about them so we can change. We're just 2 people sat in an office, we're not a huge corporate machine churning out the $notes as fast as you can blink.

On the same subject, we're all from band backgrounds. We know what it's like being in a band and we certainly know what we would not stand for when we were in bands. Infact, 3 of our part time guys are still in bands!

Everything we do or dont do is in our terms. It would help if people actually read our info page on our web site and terms before clicking the button at the bottom of the signup form. This would show you everything we do and how it all works, and perhaps make way for more serious applications.

One thing I would like to mention - we were completely wrong in saying that bands must bring 50 people to the national final in order to qualify for judges vote. This wasn't fair and we removed this, and consequently made a loss on the national final. However, 1500 people still showed up and we had a great day.

We have also never changed the terms throughout the comp! Most of you never bothered to even read the terms, or our info page, or the letter we send you with the tickets. If you had, you would have read exactly how things were supposed to progress and change through the rounds.

This is a forum so I'm sure this will receive the usual forum criticism. Be very careful what you do and don't say though, I've taken a lot of time in going through last years figures and writing this on here when I didn't really need to, we don't appreciate things written about us which are clearly untrue and said in a way in which to harm us. I'd appreciate it if, in future, you have qualms about what we do - you come and speak to us first.

Thanks,

Sam

Redland + The Battle

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I didn't read any of the above post, but the band moaning carried on with the competition even though they thought it was a ripp off!? Shuddup!

Yes, but we didn't put any money or effort into it when we realised it was dodgy therefore we didn't participate in feeding them money. We also told our fans not to come to the gigs.

You really need to look at ways of reducing your outgoings...

Silly money being spent there.

Very much agreed, for a venture that only brings in 80k why are you throwing away 100k when some serious saving could be made in there?

Finally, we have proof that the final vote count was not as it appeared however we will not go into this.

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Read most of that rant from the promoter. I dont know the inn's and outs of it but you aint gonna win any BOTB arguement on here, infact it's rare you would win any arguement on here im afraid, trust me i've lost a few!

Well done to the Locals for winning the whole thing, which regardless of what anyone thinks is pretty good to win a national competition for anything and think they have done pretty well out of in regards to new Equipment and some decent gig slots as its not always easy to get gigs throughout the country.

I actually remeber getting a fone call on the night of the one of the "heats" asking where i was...i knew nothing about it.

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Fair play for coming on here personally.

There will always be the argument between the commercial and non commercial worlds in any creative sector and neither are wrong (with exceptions). Exactly the same sort of things goes on across the arts. 'I make and exhibit because I love doing so' or 'I may and exhibit and want paid for it'.

I'm not a fan of BOTB events before we even get to the money side of things. There is a time and a place in a career though. As with anything all angles should be looked at thoroughly before embarking on these things and if there is any questions simply ask or don't do it. How many times have we seen and will see these debates on forums...

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Yes, but we didn't put any money or effort into it when we realised it was dodgy therefore we didn't participate in feeding them money. We also told our fans not to come to the gigs.

Very much agreed, for a venture that only brings in 80k why are you throwing away 100k when some serious saving could be made in there?

Finally, we have proof that the final vote count was not as it appeared however we will not go into this.

How did you come second in the comp without putting any effort into it and not feeding us any money? Surely this proves my point that it's not all about the money!

How we spend our money is entirely irrelevant to the point I was making! It seems regardless of what is said, someone will pick holes in it anyway.

Proof that the final vote count was not as it appeared? I'm intrigued, do explain...

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100% this, spending 18 grand on accommodation is a total fucking joke......

Where would you sleep? In a van? For 6 months? For 6 people, @ 50 a night X 3 teams thats 150 per night. Trust me, there's no cheaper way of doing any of this.

In reply to the other point made, we actually do this for the love of it, but need to get paid a bit too. You know, to not die.

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Guest idol_wild
How we spend our money is entirely irrelevant to the point I was making!

Really? Why did you make it sound as if you went out of your way to publish the finances then? You must have expected people to pick up on them? And they must have been focal to the point you were trying to make - which they sort of were, really.

You're paying too much for your venues, by the way. Not to mention accomodation.

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We came across this forum on advice from someone looking after our interests. Although we have been advised to raise a claim for defamation, I thought I would attempt to address some of the issues raised here and see if we can get them ironed out first.

I wouldn't go down that route if I was you. There's enough people on this forum with relevant knowledge and experience - along with relevant connections. Raising any claim could end up ruining you as a person - and I think most people on here would pull very strongly behind the owner of the site if someone attempted such a thing.

My names Sam - I'm the M.D of Redland. I have absolutely no problem addressing every point you've made and also making our finances transparent so that you can see how they work.
Total income = 80,670
Venue hire avarages out to 350 for first round per venue, 450 for second round per venue and 500 for the regional finals per venue, + 2000 for the national final. All plus vat = 36,895.
All @ 12p per ticket + vat = 4,903.98

As the MD, perhaps you might want to explain why you were paying VAT when you clearly should have registered for VAT? If you're at all familiar with VAT regulations, you'll be aware that you should have registered and charged VAT on those ticket prices. Certainly I hope you've done so now.

For our local shows (shows that aren't Red Battle or dont have prizes as well), we require bands to sell 30 tickets to get paid. 30 measly tickets! That brings is 120, 30 of which is given to the band, 70 of which goes to the venue and 20 of which goes to us.

What kind of venues are you using that give you such a poor deal?

People dont seem to realise that this isn't actually a bad deal. Promoters have to pay for the venue! So what about getting a gig with just the venue itself? Aren't the venues the ones who would then take your door money AND the money made on the bar? Did you know that venues work on 8 per head for drinks? So if they have 300 people into the venue they make around 2,400 and then pay each band 30 or something? And we're the ones who are ripping people off?

This is where it's painfully obvious that you have absolutely no experience of Aberdeen - don't give us the bleeding heart story when ten minutes research would tell you that venue hire charges are *very* reasonable in this city. Things might be like that from where you're from - but they're certainly not like that here.

Here's an idea... go and open your own venue, start your own promotion company, create your own event. See how hard it is to make money or be stable in this industry and then come back and complain.

Again, you might be wise to investigate this city and this website a bit more before makng such comments. Many people here have put on gigs or worked/managed venues - you're certainly no better than most people on here.

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Guest idol_wild

Good post, Cloud. I think he'll probably check back to chart the progress of this thread.

Some of it is very worthwhile input and hopefully they take note and help use it to their advantage.

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Where would you sleep? In a van? For 6 months? For 6 people, @ 50 a night X 3 teams thats 150 per night. Trust me, there's no cheaper way of doing any of this.

In reply to the other point made, we actually do this for the love of it, but need to get paid a bit too. You know, to not die.

I'd call 3k a month wasteful, many people can get the arse end of a year's rent paid on that. Your BUSINESS model is rubbish, and your 'expenses' figures are probably cringeworthy too.

Well played Cloud. I suspected Mr RedBattle coming on here would result in some sort of face slap owning.

Off yer high horse. You collectively tried to use this whole thing to your advantage last year, when you should have known better than to go near this pile of toilet in the first place, as I said earlier on. Stop whining about it and keep working out your own gigs and building up relationships like you seem to have done with Broken Melody, because that's how you'll actually get somewhere.

Peace out. :up:

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Good post, Cloud. I think he'll probably check back to chart the progress of this thread.

More than likely. I wasn't going to say anything, but his threats of litigation really do deserve treated with the contempt that they deserve. It's always the line brought out with people with absolutely no experience of the legal system - and anyone who has even a passing interest in law knows that the threats are absolutely hollow. It's one thing when a company like Microsoft or the BPI threaten you - because they've got the money to drag you through the courts until you submit from how much it's costing you. But 'Redland' don't have the money to do it - and I doubt they could afford to even bring such a case to court in the first place.

Even obtaining the personal details of people posting to this site would surely cost quite a bit of money in obtaining the relevant court order - and what would they get except details of IP addresses and publicly viewable information? Then you'd be looking at a court order to force the ISP to reveal who '212.22.35.215' is - which again wouldn't be cheap, as the ISP would fight any such order to avoid setting a precedent.

Quite frankly, throwing around threats of litigation is a guaranteed way for your business to fail. Would anyone on here really do business with someone who would threaten you with the courts if you didn't do exactly as he wanted?

I've just had a look at the terms and conditions on the website, and several things stand out for me.

If you cancel any gig for any reason within 14 days of the date of the gig you will be billed for the amount of 50 tickets multiplied by the ticket price.
You do not have to sign any contracts when playing Red Battle, but you agree to these terms and any others we set before you in writing by playing and applying for Red Battle.
We reserve the right to withdraw any prizes from any band with whom we cannot reach an agreement on the specifics of any prize, this includes lack of contact from the band.
d.) you will be paid 1 per ticket sold, once you have sold a minimum of 50 tickets;

e.) you will receive rider, once you have sold a minimum of 50 tickets;

Why do I have the feeling that these terms and conditions were ripped off from the Red Stripe BOTB that had similarly dodgy terms?

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We should also make the point that Red Battle changed the terms and conditions throughout each stage of the competition, to favour the bands who scammed the most money out of their fans.

But the MD says they didn't...

We have also never changed the terms throughout the comp! Most of you never bothered to even read the terms, or our info page, or the letter we send you with the tickets.
One thing I would like to mention - we were completely wrong in saying that bands must bring 50 people to the national final in order to qualify for judges vote. This wasn't fair and we removed this, and consequently made a loss on the national final. However, 1500 people still showed up and we had a great day.

Caught red handed.

I'm also curious to know how they managed to get 1500 people into a 1200 capacity venue?

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Guest idol_wild

Cloud, you've proved in this thread, with only two posts, that you contribute well to this website when you aren't trolling and looking for a word-off. :up:

If I could give you more rep, I would.

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Fair enough The Locals did it but I'm sure at great expense to themselves... made a nice load of money for RB though! ;)

Not a great expense to themselves at all, they filled two 50-seater buses quite easily with alot of people driving down as well. Didnt cost them anything except from time advertising (which they do for all of their gigs) to fill the seats. and it paid off in the end with Recording, Equipment, Money, a Tour which the red battle(not sticking up for them still think its a bit of a joke comp) are supplying them with a driver/van and putting them up in hotels every night of the tour and also they have had quite alot of exposure because of winning.

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You lot make me sick. Really do. The boy obviously has his heart in the right place and is trying to do something. (He's clearly put his heart and soul into that post).

It's clear all he was trying to do is show that he is not some con atrtist because some bitter folk have piped up because one band has more mates than the other...which has seen them through! No BOTB is any different, surely you must know that.

But yet all you can do is nit pick his business strategy when that was really NOTHING to do with anything. Seriously... who cares if he made a loss or NOT?! Fuck Me! FUCK ALL to do with what he was trying to show people.

Redman, if you are still reading this. I feel your pain. You clearly didnt have to do what did but your fustration got the better of you and now you probably feel 100 times more pissed off after those petty responses. If you knew this forum a bit better then you might not feel so bad. I wouldn't worry about 1 or 2 "jesters" (quote from previous post) on here.

"Stick In" - lol

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