Paying to Play - How do you feel about it?

[dontpassgo]

yeaaah man. its paying to play. why dont organisers now just invite a band to play? selling of tix is very toublesome. Its reasonable enough if it were to be 10 tix. But selling 20 or more is ridiculous. And covering for the unsold tix is even worse. :smt021

 

[soft]

dear all,

i have split this post from another thread so that we can discuss about this issue more effectively instead of bombing EVERY thread in the gig forum.

the issue raised was that some gigs require the bands to help sell x number of tickets. some see this as an exploitation to reap money from the bands. some see this as a collective effort to get a gig going and a chance to showcase their music.

what do you say?

 

[bam]

Organizers have to cover for their own costs of organizing the gig, and bands selling at least a certain amount of tickets ensures that each band has a crowd watching them. Would you like to be playing to an empty crowd?

You know, this topic has been done to death recently..

edit: didn't see your post, james, posted straight after you hahah.

 

[budakbone]

how much do we hav to cover for each ticket?????

 

[soft]

yes, this topic was inserted into many gig threads. i am putting one out so that we can discuss it here without disturbing threads which are trying hard to promote their show.

we can direct anyone who post the same question in those gig threads to come here and discuss.

 

[LobinHoot]

Well, if you expect the organizers to "invite" you to play. Either:

1)Your band has a reasonable fanbase.
2)Your band is very good.
3)Your band is somewhat known.

Other then that, i dont think any sane organziers(commercial) would let bands with neither of the 3 above to play for free. Put yourself in thier shoes, you wanna do a gig that has 10 non-pro, unknown bands playing. They probably gunna lose money. I mean its quite fair in a sense that if they agree to let you play, the band must somewhat promise some sort of crowd turnout you know. No one is stupid enough to do a gig where they gunna to fork out own money to cover costs.

That explains for the ticket sales. If you can gurantee a certain amount of turnout(reflected by the ticket sales) then your in. Personally i have to admit i dont like paying to play idea but then for unknown, non-pro bands...there isnt much of a choice eh? Well ultimately if you dont like their way of doing things, then look for other gigs. No one is forcing anyone.

I myself heard that some pro standard bands are playing for free at gigs even...i mean with their kind of standard, they aint even getting paid.If the band is around that kinda of standard then i can understand the mentality of expecting gig organizers to "invite" them for gigs. Else perhaps its time to do some self reflection. One example of a band(local?) which is really good is Ministry of Rock(?). YouTube has some of their clips.

My two cents

 

[JiveB]

IMO organisers should just let the bands sell what they can and just return the unsold. I know that like that some bands will just be lazy and claim not to be able to sell any tickets at all. But that's what organising is about. Organisers have to take a risk. The way they set quotas for bands, they are also guaranteeing profits for themselves.

10 bucks ticket price is a good price but I think that a lot of (young) people find it a lot of money. I think everyone should get conditioned to a lower price and then slowly raise the price. That way more people will be encouraged to go, and once they experienced it once, they will want to come back for more. That's when the increased price will be seen as reasonable to them. Its pretty simple but maybe some people can overlook it, heres a gentle reminder : Volume over margin. After you set a comfortable base then start increasing the margin. I'm sure you won't want the only crowd at the gig to be the band's supporters right? There's so much more potential. I'm pretty sure a lot of ppl have heard of Music Mania at Gashaus(for e.g, pure e.g off the top of my head) but many are discouraged from attending cos of the slightly steep(to them) price. If the costs are lowered a bit, and the quotas are lessened or taken off, the bands can concentrate on the music and pure fun, and the crowd will consist of more than just fans and friends.

Just my 0.01$ hope it made sense. Just woke up hehe

 

[chapter2]

From what i noticed..
even if a band is GOOD or WELL KNOWN...
there will b no such thing as invite..
i see almost the same bands playing at almost all the gig...


if u say that no one is stupid enuff to fork out their own money to cover cost..then i suggest that u should not even organise a gig in the first place..

 

[caijunlong]

Come to think of it, if you don't invite your friends over to watch you play, there might be no audience. Because I believe people will not be interested to hear an unknown band(including myself). There are just too many of them.
Looking at it from the organiser point of view, they are people who love music too, even though they are also looking at some profit from organising gigs.
It sounds a bit unfair to push the cost to the band members if they can't sell their tickets. Organisers want to safeguard themselves at the expense of making the bands absorb the cost of the tickets.
But again, if all this doesn't happen, we won't have so many gigs around. I guess we should just take this as their attempt to expand the scene. It is still good in a way.
Good luck to everyone selling tickets. I understand how tough it is for most people.

 

[soft]

chapter2, what are you trying to say in your post? can explain a bit clearer?

thanks.

* also, many understand the need to make it worthwhile for organisers to do the gig but at the same time, oppose the idea of getting bands to sell the tickets. is there any other way to do it?

 

[Horrorflicked]

the organisers have to ensure there would be a crowd..
but isn't 30+ tix freakin ridiculous?

i mean.. if these gigs are for bands to start out, im pretty sure these bands wont be able to get 30ppl to go.. or at least it'll be really hard..
IF the organisers are making hell lot of profit from these starting out bands.. i think they stink!

a reasonable condition would be 10tix per band or sumthin..
other than that, i actually feel that every band has their privilege of CHOICE.. if you guys think you cant fufill the conditions, then go look for gigs else where.. im sure there are.. dont be too depended on that one organiser..

 

[daryl]

hey.. 10 tickets per band is miserable. $100 per band x 10 bands = $1000 is that enough to cover the rent for Gashaus? Perhaps the organiser should make clear how much the rent costs, so we know if they are profiting from the bands or not.

 

[hay88]

if i'm organising and my band is playing...my band will have to sell the equal amt of ticks or more.

 

[LobinHoot]

From what i noticed..
even if a band is GOOD or WELL KNOWN...
there will b no such thing as invite..
i see almost the same bands playing at almost all the gig...


if u say that no one is stupid enuff to fork out their own money to cover cost..then i suggest that u should not even organise a gig in the first place..

Well with regards to the first part, if that is the case locally, that i have nothing else more to comment. With regards to the second part of your post...are you saying that organziers should be prepared to lose money for the sake of the band(s)? That doesnt make sense no?

Ehhh by the way i am no way related to gashua or any other gig organizers

 

[AgingYouth]

I met a doode from Hong Kong recently. He's playing in one of the more well-known bands there, The Academy. He told me that the crowd there are used to paying up to 200 - 300 yuan (which works out to be ard SGD40 - 60) per person to catch a show of all local acts (up to 4 on the bill). He was shocked to find out that our shows are so cheap and around $10 (with a drink - for clubs).

When I explained the situation about how kids are willing to spend more than their savings on a Bathing Ape T-shirt and not willing to pay to catch acts. We have quite a few free shows.

He shared with me that 2 years ago, all the gig organisers in HK got together and decided that they will not do any more free shows. All the bands would be paid and everyone will have to pay a certain amount to catch the acts. It was very painful for the 1st year but the crowd all started coming back in the end.

So it seems to me: it's more about crowd education.

Well, I could probably ask my fellow dodgy gig organisers like saito, Awakening, Voideck, DoubleYellowLine, HeartRockSingapore, Platform, X-treme Productions, Fruit Records, RockStarCollective and many others out for a meeting. We could start implementing a $20 door charge for all shows. And all the kids under 16 would get no venues to play.

Based on what chapter2 has said, since no one is willing to fork out their own money, be it the bands or the organisers. Why should I as an organiser get a band which average age is barely 16 to perform as I know for sure I cannot cover my costs?

The theory of "If you are a DGO (dodgy gig organiser), you should bear the costs and risks" is very true. So I should minimise all my risks and NEVER go for some young/ upcoming acts. I did shows with relatively unknown acts. The turnout was pretty bad but they were nice people so it was all good.

If you are not happy with any terms and conditions a DGO lay on you, you can walk away. There's no legal binding contract. If you have the balls to try to sell that 30 tickets, go for it and play that show.

Muse, My Chemical Romance, *insert your favourite band* all started from this route. What makes you so different and special from them?

 

[soft]

Well, I could probably ask my fellow dodgy gig organisers ... out for a meeting. .

we should work on this one.

 

[AgingYouth]

But bro SOFT bro, if all of us start charging $20 - 25 for a show, folks will start posting on why we are charging so much for a show. And then all the DGOs will start getting the same few acts which have greater pulling power. Then you'd get a new thread posted in this forum on why the DGOs only work with the same few acts.

Then sooner or later, after the bitching on the ticket pricing reach a high and people are unsatisified, you'd get another bunch of folks throwing in their conspiracy theories on why the Singapore music scene cannot take off...

Tell us how to get some LURVE on this forum PLEASE!!!

 

[GrimBrody]

LMAO

u speak volumes of prophetical estimation my beer guzzling friend.hehe.
but hey, if that group of DGOs take off and organise chart topping gigs...
then bands should strive to improve and aim to get into a DGO gig. it should be a cycle...instead of posting threads and lamenting on the fate of Singapore's music scene

rite?

 

[biopromax]

well, well

well, from my experience. I have to sell at least 40 tickets the other time.
but we were only have 5 days to clear selling the tickets.
In the end, we have to pay up the Unsold tickets. If not, I will be sued.

So my advise is , NEVER Sign on any paper they give you .

Gig at your own risk. Now I still owe them money

No offence to anyone in this forum. Thanks For Reading.

LOCAL SCENE ALL THE WAY !

 

[AgingYouth]

But wouldn't some peeps start posting that they don't get a chance cuz no one's giving them a chance?