I'll Play At This Wonderful Place! Options

[Gabriel Leopardi]

We have had the same kind of experience last year at one of our country's big fests - w had the small stage and this year, we'll probably hit the big one, as this is how the circuit goes.

It will happen! All the best friend.

Nice pics (seen them on Your FB as well) One gig like this is worth many times more than a few club gigs in case of bands promotion. I hope it will have an impact on Your popularity

Definitely! This type of shows are so helpful to gain exposure while small clubs are good for gaining experience and connection between members and audience to be ready to blow minds when the big opportunity appears.

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[Darius Wave]

And it's an awesome feeling to send in front of such a huge amount of people

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[Cosmin Lupu]

Nice pics (seen them on Your FB as well) One gig like this is worth many times more than a few club gigs in case of bands promotion. I hope it will have an impact on Your popularity

Exactly - that's a good recipe: Gigging less, but gigging important It's what we try to do - have 1-2 gigs/month but always getting ourselves included in interesting contexts, with bigger bands and so on

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[Gabriel Leopardi]

Exactly - that's a good recipe: Gigging less, but gigging important It's what we try to do - have 1-2 gigs/month but always getting ourselves included in interesting contexts, with bigger bands and so on

Yes, this is a good plan to get more exposure and then be able to get more people into your own concerts.

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[jstcrsn]

biggest one I ever played was about 10 - 12 thousand. since we played the 2 nd day we didn't put our material out until then.
Everyone spends their money on the first day and we were out sold by bands that stunk just because people liked the cover and had the money

wish you guys the best
is her ear up to par ?

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[Gabriel Leopardi]

biggest one I ever played was about 10 - 12 thousand. since we played the 2 nd day we didn't put our material out until then.
Everyone spends their money on the first day and we were out sold by bands that stunk just because people liked the cover and had the money

wish you guys the best
is her ear up to par ?

That's a good amount of people mate! thanks for your words, and yes, she is right now.

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[Cosmin Lupu]

biggest one I ever played was about 10 - 12 thousand. since we played the 2 nd day we didn't put our material out until then.
Everyone spends their money on the first day and we were out sold by bands that stunk just because people liked the cover and had the money

wish you guys the best
is her ear up to par ?

Ah mate - we did the same 2 years ago and we learned our lesson: the first thing when we perform is to take the merch there in Day 1 and leave it through to the last day. People always roam around and you might lose the opportunity to sell stuff if you don't expose it thoroughly.

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[Darius Wave]

Exactly - that's a good recipe: Gigging less, but gigging important It's what we try to do - have 1-2 gigs/month but always getting ourselves included in interesting contexts, with bigger bands and so on

Exactly what I am trying to do right now 1-2 gigs per month (my main band, of course I play other gigs with other bands as well but those have their management working fine). It's easy to organize the gig (not the one that Gab just played ) But it's harder to make it profit in any kind of field - popularity, cd sales, ticket sales, public size.

Now I decided to focus on max 2 and to make a good promotion for both...

We all know that playing for free is never "for free" to both sides. I could play for free because I have my dayjob and I could do this just for fun...but...The costs of traveling, time wasted in the bus, food on tour, "soda" in the bar, sometimes the hotel or similar...those are money You have to get on the gigs to pay the duties...and that's when the gig is for free...not when You play for free and have to organize monety from different source to pay the duties.

Also I think it's very important to build Your audience by playing regular gigs in the same places. I have a few examples of bands how don't care at all about TV or Radio promotion. They've worked out their brand by doing what's above. I decided to try this way too.

Of course I'm not saying this in context of big festivals and sponsored events

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[Gabriel Leopardi]

Yes, "playing for free" is real when you can pay the costs of the production. We played for many years paying the costs with money that came from our jobs. We didn't find another way to do it and we took it as an investment. When you are a young band (without fans) you have to sell tickets to play with other bands, and if you can't sell them, you have to pay them. After 5 years of playing, we could start to play without selling tickets, but even paying the costs. Then, when we reached year 6, as we started to have our own fans, producers used to give us some money to cover the costs. As the band kept growing, we started to get a cachet which includes costs and profit.

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[Cosmin Lupu]

Mate, if you are to ask me, the minimum necessary for a decent concert, should include:

Organizer side:

- tech rider specification respected
- on time with the schedule
- accommodation (if performing in another city), food and drinks for the band and crew
- transport expenses covered (if performing in another city) and sound engineer/ tech crew covered - that could be covered from the payment, but normally, this should be covered by the organizer
- event promotion with enough time before the event
- payment (in respect to the band level of notoriety - i.e. how many folks does your band bring in?)

Band side:

- spotless performance
- having backup gear in case something happens
- on time with the schedule
- having a dedicated team (sound engineer, tech crew) that knows each aspect so that the soundcheck and preparations should be done on time and with best results
- having a PR who takes care of the promo done on behalf of the band

This is pretty much what my band requires and what we offer in exchange in order to have a good show going on.

It might seem like a lot, but it really isn't - it's common sense... but reality has very little to do with common sense sometimes And yeah.. exactly like Gabi pointed out.. if you don't invest in your band... who will? How can you make someone believe in your music if you don't believe enough to invest?

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This post has been edited by Cosmin Lupu: Mar 6 2014, 02:02 PM

[Gabriel Leopardi]

That's a very good list Cosmin. The bigger the shows are, the most organizing and personal needs to be successful in every aspect. At first, we are the ones that do everything.. press, rehearsal, drive the car to bring instruments, connect everything on stage, selling the tickets... musicians use to be multitask at first. Then, when the money allows it, we start to have professionals who helps on each topic.

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[Darius Wave]

I do agree with those. But again - the size of a gig counts Like You both said- I always treat the band as a product and ask myself a question...what kind of product we are to demand profits? If You're are sure Your band has worked out some status that will guarantee descent audience then You're at the position to have expectations from the organizer. But (as Gab said) at some point You have to invest some money to play regular in the same places to build Your audience.

10 years back it wasn't that hard. Internet was slow. There were less entertainments in web and people like me - around 20 back then, did go to the concerts a lot. Now it's much harder because many Poles had to leave to other countries to make living. There is not much of 30's in the town I live. Most of my friends live in England, Denmark, Germany, Ireland etc. They have no choice. Those who left have money for not much more than living costs so they are able to relay on "stolen" entertainment from the web.

My friend had a pub and he did something that has never before happened in here. He made gigs of really awesome musicians from outside of Poland. He took a lot of time on internet and making posters etc...overall promotion. And guess what...He could hardly get 30 people in the audience...in the city of total 50.0000 peeps....

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[Cosmin Lupu]

No one said it's easy - trust me, I see it EVERYDAY in the musical environment. Darius, you stated a very true fact - people are NOT coming to concerts anymore... THe lack of money and the entertainment lying at their fingertips is keeping them away from reality.

What if... Facebook and Youtube were gone from the internet? Can you imagine a world without them? How would bands survive and how would people react to the change? I can think of a lot of interesting scenarios

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