This is a gig against greedy organisers,Support local music the right way!

[fruscianteisjesus]

fruscianteisjesus, many like you have come and gone. I only hope you are the one who will continue. Do update us regularly of your gigs.

When is the next one?

yea. i'm well aware of it. but prob is this gonna be the only gig for a while til maybe after my Os. studies first. yea 45 is ok i guess, one of the bands didnt even want their share coz they felt they let us down coz their guitars went out of tune when they performed, but we persuaded them into still collecting their share. and thanks for the support! we'll update u guys for sure.

 

[soft]

fruscianteisjesus, you mean we will have to wait at least another year before you are organising another 'un-organised' gig?

 

[fruscianteisjesus]

almost a year tt is. but i hope the other bands who performed will continue. they liked the idea and we're still in touch, so we'll definitely encourage them. and im sure they will continue.

what to do.. cant screw the Os....

 

[Likui]

For organisers,
would it be better if lets say you just collect the money for 20 tickets and let the band keep the rest instead of taking everything? that would give bands more incentives to push the ticket sales.
or
if the band sells 20 tickets let them keep $2 or $3 for every ticket they sell and those who sell less than 20 just take all the money but don't make the pay for unsold tickets. By doing so you give small bands like 3 piece or 2 piece band or even solo artist incentives to participate in the gig because small bands will find it hard to sell all 20 tickets like solo artist 1 person has to sell 20 tickets and on top of that he has to pay the sessionists too. So far I've not seen any solo artist playing in such selling ticket gigs. Well unless you are like addy cradle then yea u can sell at least 20 tickets but for new solo artist chances are not likely to sell all, they probably want to play and hopefully people like their music and be their fan. And for door tickets maybe you can ask the people which band are you supporting then can add that ticket bought to their ticket sales. If lets say they are not supporting they just want to have a look then u can count it as u sold the ticket.

For those people playing in the bands tell me your opnion about this.
What is the real reason you all want to play. A lot of new bands tell me exposure but is it really effective exposure? After the gig does many strangers come and say cool stuff you have? Who are the main bulk of audience probably your friends whom already have heard you play before maybe on youtube or live. I think exposure should be play for more strangers to see rather than friends.
About posters the organisers put up are they effective? I think is not because people would they just walk pass the poster and see and go buy the tickets if they didn't know any band there? If they know a band there because he has a friend in the band the friend would probably have told him there's a gig going on. So posters are actually i feel more for the organisers people walk pass it the find out they buy the ticket at the door the money goes to the organisers. And some friends of the band they cannot comfirm if they are coming until the actual day they probably get the door tickets and the organisers get the money and ticket sale.
And about all these organisers they are indeed surviving well doing these stuff if not they would not keep doing it. Which means irreguardless of how much we complain bands still sign up to play so there's really nothing much we can do unless everyone boycotts the organisers.

I've played for this kind of gig before twice 1 with a power metal band 1 as a solo artist. After the power metal gig i feel i see no difference we didn't seem to get new fans I doubt if any strangers can even remember our band name. We sell the tickets and for what? we are also not recognised, people hear our music is nice but after that they don't care. For the solo artist one I played instrumental rock guitar. Most people there are my friends because I sold tickets to them. I sold 14 tickets total and I made $28 but considering 1 person selling 14 tickets I have to sms call and take mrt/bus to meet them to give the tickets I think the amount of money and effort spent is more than $28. And after the gig what I got was 1 extra fan so happen 1 stranger liked my stuff and I made friends with him.

Some possible soloutions I can think of how to solve the problem.
Open mics some places like ministry of rock do have open mics where bands can perform for free and there's many people there. You can contact paul danial for that.
For me I like to go pump room I perform there just 1 song only but nevertheless i had a chance to play but 1 song did make a difference also people like my stuff they congratulate me they talk to me. If you guys want to play just bring you band there on tue night and ask the guitarist addy can let my band play 1 song? I'm sure he will let his a nice guy. but if your band is screamo then i think that might not work I haven't figured out a solution for that. For accoustic you can play at singapore arts museum every mth there's an event organised by singapore arts cafe and power 98 and it's held there. For jazz, jazz @ south bridge has open mic on sunday if I'm not wrong.

So what you guys think of these stuff?

 

[fruscianteisjesus]

i get u man.. so do u think this idea. of paying bands, instead of organisers, and asking them to sell tickets work? like for example for this gig, ther was the first band the silent killers who invted 20 ppl, and most of them stayed long enough for all the other bands and they were all cheering, and some of ou friends also said the other bands were good and we transferred the message, some of the bands' fan number on thier facebook fan pages have also gone up. to me this was effective.

 

[Likui]

u know for new bands other than friends, other people maybe skeptical of their standards and woudn't want to pay to watch, especially if they are the 1st band probably all their friends and the 2nd band that are playing will watch only, not really much exposure, the later bands probably will get more exposure. Well if organisers are reasonable I don't mind paying them, if they make an effort to advertise the gig and maybe can treat them as ticket selling outlets too like sistic. But if they give the band no incentives I don't see why I should sell tickets to play.

 

[Travis Jai]

yeah but watever it is all the bands that played last nite was awesome ...welll done to them and i feel more of such gigs shud go on i mean i was in the first band and i stayed to watch all the other bands andman they rock ur balls off soo yeah and i would love to see the roses play again....haha

 

[EzaRitualBella]

So is this about money?

or is this about promoting Local Talent ?

 

[fruscianteisjesus]

So is this about money?

or is this about promoting Local Talent ?

its about promoting local talent. the money part. is just like what thjjfng said, to try compensate the band's jamming payment, and a gesture of appreciation. and yea we can say the same to silent killers. hope to see u guys play again.

 

[Travis Jai]

i feel the gig was more on promoting local talent man cos we earned 45 bucks a band and thats aint enough to cover jammin , equipment etc ... but the amount of fun we had man was awesome ...

 

[fruscianteisjesus]

another thing was tt. unlike other pay to play gigs we've played for, we actually became friends with most of the bands at this gig, and some of the bands also promised tt they would look out for us if there were any good opportunities for rock and roll bands.alongwith the audience support its definitely good exposure.

 

[Likui]

for me I've got a few new songs to play for a gig, but if the gig requires tickets or money to be paid i'm not going to do that anymore because i'm bad at selling tickets i sold 14 tickets for a gig and I really went through a lot of shit, so yea not going to do.Yea so i hope there's some free gigs going on that i can play which i only got 1 so far. Lucky that i've got a good contact, but yea it's just luck

 

[Likui]

see people are still willing to sell tickets, so how? we all complain also never work, people sell organisers earn, and it just repeats the vivious cycle. how? it will never end unless the organisers are boycotted

 

[the heimlich maneuver]

organizers are out there to make a profit.

if u dont like it, make ur own gig. thats what i did. what i do is make the bands share the cost of the rental with me.then, divide the money from the door sales equally. no tickets.

u play music to have fun, mingle, make new friends, listen to new music/bands.

not come 10mins before your slot, play, then go home and dont care about the other bands that are playing. its not a job. its a hobby.

bands who just want to play for FREE, please dont think too highly of yourselves.

i believe if u want to play for FREE (and get paid), you should:
- have an album, or EP at least.
- have a record label, be it indepedent or major
- be well known and people would actually pay to watch you.

If you're a new band, still playing 80% covers, and you want to get paid, well, go work in a pub. and be a cover band.

this is just my opinion, and if you ask me about the local music scene, i would ask you , "what local music scene?"

 

[theunknown]

I definitely agree with the heimlich maneuver.

You guys are new. You don't expect to be paid to perform. Covering costs for jamming? That's NORMAL. Now this is only about jamming. How about those bands who already went for recording, pressing CDs, intensive promotion. Do they really earn alot? No they don't. Most of the time, they lose money.

The "biggest" band in Singapore *hinthintnationaldaythemesong" - each member earns around $1k per month from their band activities. Most pub musicians earn more than that I think.

Anyway, since the bands are paid $45, who forked out the money for rental and everything? The "organiser"? There's no organiser here. So bands share the expenses and the earnings, and the $45 are net profits, you guys have quite a good turnout, congrats.

Side note: It saddens me to see some posts in the "Musicians Available" section saying that they don't care what music they play, they just wanna have a band/jam/play gigs.

 

[fruscianteisjesus]

I definitely agree with the heimlich maneuver.

for our band it's like our 9th gig so far this year, and for the first time we played 4 originals and 4 covers.. usually we just do 8 covers or something, aand the rental charges were already subtracted from the earnings, and then came 45. it was fun, and 45 was not tt good, but we didnt care. we don'tr diss these organisers coz they dont give us money.. we diss these organisers, coz they make performing be all about money.. ttts all. u PAY to PLAY... tts dumb. Play and get paid, isnt tt hard of an alternative, and one of the bands actually jammed 6 hours a day, which is madness, but they showed their levels of commitment, and when they only got 45, they weren't pissed or whiney or wtv, they were still happy it was something, and thaht they had a great time putting up a show. and basically mos tof the bands stayed throughout the whole show to watch each other, and now all of us have new local band friends. which is great.

 

[bobby]

Honestly, after being in the scene for 7 years now, having three number one hits on the radio, having played more than 300 live shows (half of which we didn't get paid), playing to crowds of tens of thousands, and being the best selling English band in the history of the country.... I still am amazed at how much whining goes on here. Yes, I do sound arrogant. Yes, I do sound like a smug-know-it-all. But you know something? I never once whined about organizers, I never once whined about other bands choosing to do things their way (It's really their own choice), and I never complained about getting some hard-knocks here and there. Why? Because that's the name of the game. You're either in it, or out of it, and along the way you'll make friends and enemies. That's the be-all and end-all of it.

You bleed for your craft, or you die trying. That's the way it is.

You pay your dues, you pay them again, and you continue paying them. All the while, you accept it. Because that's the way life is when you want to get somewhere with your dream. Why do you give a damn what others are doing anyway? Do your own thing, let others do theirs, and hopefully it will bring you places.

My goodness. The 'scene' here has really gone to shambles. Too many teeny-boppers demanding to be spoon fed. When I started playing, there was NOTHING. No radio support, no media support, and very few organizers. But if you want to change the world around you, it first begins with changing the way you look at it. Don't bicker, weep and moan when the world doesn't fit into your perfect rose-tinted idealogy -- it never does!

I'm glad I retired from it when I did, and happily so, with a healthy bank balance to boot. Not happy with the way I did things? Too bad. At least I ended my game at the top of the hill. And did my part to help other bands where I could. My conscience is clear. But to see all this pissing and moaning is just bloody grating on the nerves.

In the words of DX..
"And if you're not down with that, I got two words for you"
"Suck it"

Quit your moaning and grow some bearings already.

 

[fruscianteisjesus]

yea urright. we just cant give a damn about organisers i guess. so if diy is the way u wanna go. go ahead. i support it and im gonna go down tt road. i just feel not so many ppl, know about diy, many of the new bands especially, which is why, they need to be aware of it. but of course, they need a bit of taste oft he rough road, which is paying to play. and tts not even the worst.

 

[bobby]

yea urright. we just cant give a damn about organisers i guess. so if diy is the way u wanna go. go ahead. i support it and im gonna go down tt road. i just feel not so many ppl, know about diy, many of the new bands especially, which is why, they need to be aware of it. but of course, they need a bit of taste oft he rough road, which is paying to play. and tts not even the worst.

When you perform in Australia or the US, you're expected, at most gigs, to bring your own gear. When I say 'bring your own gear' I mean that it includes your own amps, your own drum kit, and your own mic set up. You're given 15 minutes tops to set all of this up on your own. A lot of gigs at clubs or pubs just provide a PA system and a stage, and that's it. Still, you don't hear the bands there whining about the organizers. Singaporean bands are too used to being spoon fed for their own good.

If bands want to pay to play, so be it. Let them do it. It's their prerogative anyway. Perhaps they are unaware of the unfairness of the deal, or perhaps they are aware of it but are willing to do what they deem necessary to move up in the hierarchy. Either way, they have to pass through that trial of fire in order to come to their own conclusions, and decide from there what their next step will be. There will always be other shows to perform in. And if you prefer the DIY method of doing things, by all means, go ahead. And if organizers want to hold a gig where bands have to pay to perform, that's their business model, and that's their prerogative. They never forced you to agree with it. They never forced you to be a part of it. So why the Judas Iscariot name-calling? Why waste the effort and time whining about it when that same amount of effort and time can be used more productively by making your own show more awesome?

And trust me, because there is no real music industry here in Singapore for bands, almost every upstart band will be immediately aware of what DIY is all about. DIY = The Local Music Scene. You don't have to brand it as such for it to be so. It's not a niche, it's not a novelty. It IS the scene. I applaud anyone who dares to try in the first place, but it takes a special kind of grit and determination and the ability to withstand the adversities that will separate the cream of the crop from the rest of the pack.

 

[lars_ulrich]

finally! a bloke that posts some sense in this thread! kudos to bobby here.