Musicians need to calm down (I include myself) and have a hard look at their own music, values and attitudes. The music business is full of people for whom music is almost like a religion, such is the passion that inspires them and the positivity they derive from it (check out the comment by ‘Mike’), I myself am working on finding these people and sharing my music with them, doesn’t seem I’m going to find them in the ‘pay to play’ scene.

Eventually things will calm down, I see this as part of the crisis the music industry is experiencing at the moment – I went to HMV the other day for the first time in two years and the latest releases didn’t sell for more than £9.99, nothing lasts for ever (and the consumer is party culpable of being ripped-off in my opinion).

The tricky part of being a life-long musician is dealing with all the rubbish that distracts one from committing oneself to the (quite simple) act of making music. I’ve set out many years ago to succeed in music, and you know what? I’ve made it, I’m 45 years old, never had a hit record, worked in retail part-time for 15 years and my biggest crowd must have been 300-strong (only once) but I’ve just started the best band I’ve ever been in and I’m writing songs I never thought I would be capable of creating and people have big smiles when they leave our gigs!

I thought that was quite funny. But in general i totally disagree with ‘pay to play’. It discriminates young un-established bands and exploits the others.
The UK has a rich history of producing good bands/musicians. I recently discussed this with someone that worked for a major label, he suggested the UKs unemployment system has perhaps been one of the most helpful factors in this and ALSO the abundance of Venues and Pubs to ply their craft.
Bands dont just develop in a garage or rehearsal room- they need live venues and some encouragement!
All there seems to be lately is discouragement.

I really disagree that money is a filter as well, how can it keep the rubbish out? More like let the rubbish buy its way in!
As i recently saw at a national Unsigned competition that i wont care to mention.

The DIY idea from the ‘Rave’ guys will probably end up being the way forward for small bands. Its nothing new of course, Punk bands were going ‘underground’ in the 70s and no doubt others did before them.
It seems like a cycle, everyone(?) becomes discontent with a lot of things and then something develops from an underground movement.

Maybe the day will come when the bands no longer want the venues, then it will be the venues and promoters crying instead. Which is not a million miles away from the situation you have now with illegal downloading on the internet.
The stores and record labels are complaining because the days have gone when they could charge £16 a CD.

Its disappointing.
My point is more nagatives will come from this negative and the majority will suffer for the few..

As a reaction to this sort of practice, myself and another musician have started a Fair Trade live music solution. We aim to get bands paid at least their travel costs for each gig we get them and by making deals directly with the venues we can hopefully guarantee that bands who want our help will not make a loss. Although i know that alot of booking agents get their bands paid every time, the difference with us is that we do not take any copyright or other such rights and the band is not bound to us for exclusivity, they can get their own gigs and leave us whenever they wish. I’m sorry if this sounds like an advert Andrew and feel free to delete if you feel like this. But we are not so bothered about the profit, we do just want to try and sort this pay to play problem out and we shall be starting in the West Midlands.

If you want more info anyone please go to: http://www.fairtrademusiclive.co.uk, the website is in a basic form at the moment, but the about us section should tell you everything you need to know.

Pay to play is a joke. Would a Plumber pay you so he could fix your boiler? Whether you are in the entertainments industry or Construction you still spend years on perfecting your craft, spend thousands of pounds on equipment, travel distances to work/perform.
There was also a time when you travelled to new places to win over new fans and audiences. Why drag all your friends down to London at £5 a head when they can watch you live at the local for free?

So the dilemma is this; Do your band take a risk to expand your audience by trusting promoters in other cities or do we play the local pub circuit which is pityfull, for the next 10 years to stay in pocket?
Like i said, its difficult and no wonder these promoters are doing well.
As for myself i’m only interested in venues that pull ‘walkabouts’ in, the rest is a waste of time. Shame.

I completely completely understand where you are coming from. My band DonkeyBox gigs regularly at The Dry Bar, The Dry Bar in London has got it right, there is no need to bring own backline and he only asks for 4 people as audience minimum which is easily achievable.

We were in the Emergenza festival and that was pretty much like the experience you had with Surface Unsigned. After the first round we were wildcarded to the next round (having sold only 4 tickets for £7 each). We then did the ultimate marketing exercise and got 41 people out on a Monday night for £7 per ticket.

The promoter was only really concerned with how many tickets we were selling, he wasn’t giving any real feedback on the music as such. Though to be fair he did give us some practical tips on marketing the band and it’s music. To be fair the best best tips I really have got are from Andrew Dubber here and Derek Sivers.

Long story short, Emergenza then pissed on us by changing our slot last minute without telling us to 11.30pm on a weekday night (which I am sure is illegal…) and treated us like sh*t towards the end.

The net result, we pulled out of Emergenza and I’ve learnt my lesson, *never* *never* to play a BoB type of gig.

These promoters commit the ultimate sin of selling bands a dream, the one that every band craves and the exploiting the bands for all they’ve got. These guys don’t love new music, they are in it for the money, sad really….

In this age where everyone with a Myspace page and Fruity Loops can live out their living large rapper dreams, the only ones making money are the promoters, mixtape dj’s and anyone else who can charge these guys a fee for a service.

It is yet another sad story of something with great potential promising little.

Having done our utmost to get our fans to Manchester on a weeknight, we felt really let down by the promoter and the venue.

We had to travel up to Manchester for a meeting to book the first round when it could have been done on the phone. We were shut out of the venue on the day for 2 hours with no contact from the promoter. The sound man was late and when he did turn up he was below par. We asked for a soundcheck and didn’t get one. 4 of the 7 bands didn’t even turn up. The promoters didn’t bother to communicate with us that there would be less bands playing which meant we could play for longer and so sell the gig better to our fans. We felt really bad about charging people £6 to see just 3 bands play 30mins each. There was no visible promotion for the event in the venue. And the other bands that did play were shite. They also leave the organization on the night to complete amateurs.

There was meant to be 2 rounds followed by a regional ”final” at the Manchester Academy. Apparently there is now a 3rd round!

On the plus side the kit they had was good and showed the event had good sponsorship, and we didn’t have to sell 25 tickets to get through to the next round after all. (But they didn’t tell us this before the gig!). They also do a good voting system where the bands have a vote.

We are going to the Dry Bar on the 4th June. I’m not going out of my way to sell the required number of tickets, though I will promote it like any other gig.

I think that selling tickets to play is fine. However, I think the Sugarmill in Stoke have got it right. They don’t specify the number of tickets you sell, they just make it clear that they expect you to get people in the venue or you will struggle to get another gig. They then give you a fair cut of the ticket price.

In a nutshell, I reckon pay to play is OK as long as promoters do their job and promote the event as well as the bands. Otherwise it’s just exploitation.

Rant over

Si
Captain Yange

then….

They ask for fans to sell tickets at £7 a head on a mid week slot that can even be a 11.30pm slot.

Not good, but guess what, loads of bands *still* enter, including my own band that I entered. I will never do it again though.

I’d presumed that they were fighting some corporate numbskulls who go out of their way to track down the mildest of criticism. So, delighted to be distracted from proposal writing, I used the power of Companies House to track down the mighty Sur…