D. M. Gremlin Productions - Forums

[D. M. Gremlin]

Recently, a band we were recording informed me of just how ridiculous the 'pay to play' situation in this city has become.

Apparantly, Sean Healy Presents, in order for them to book you at one of their events, requires that you sell 60 tickets at $10 each. How much do the bands get if they sell all these tickets? $0. Essentially, each band pays $600 to play at the club, and extra if they want a sound check.

Let's run the numbers.

$600 x 4 bands = $2400 PER NIGHT that these people are raking in.

That's pretty severe.

This topic is to brainstorm alternatives, real world alternatives for this crap. If bands are really willing to put $600 each, and four bands could be organized to put forward this kind of money based on the belief that they could actually recoup it by selling tickets, what would it really cost to put on a show, and how much more money would the bands make than $0 to do it this way?

Let's take a look at what might be needed for a show:

1. A venue The venue would have to have at least a 240 person capacity (60 tickets X 4 bands) and a reasonable amount of parking.

2. Sound Equipment Sound equipment could be pieced together from whatever the bands had, and I would be willing to let my live sound equipment be used. I've got 2 2x15 PA speakers and 2 18' subwoofers, 2 1500 watt power amps and a crossover to drive them, a 24 channel mixing board and a whole ton of mics. Anything that nobody had could be rented, but keeping costs down (without sacrificing the quality of the show) is the primary goal here.

3. Security Guards / Bartenders May or may not be necessary depending on if it's going to be an all-ages show, and how rowdy people are expected to get.

4. Any required permits If this is going to be a regular thing, it would suck to get shut down by the city.

5. Advertising / Promotion Clubs really don't do this for you anyway, so this would just be icing on the cake.

So, you put all these 5 elements together and you've got yourself a show. The trick is going to be finding the right combination of these elements that ends up costing less than $2400. If this can be accomplished, then independent bands can finally start gaining some ground on Sean Healy and all these pay to play fuckers.

Let's figure this out. Post any ideas / resources you've got here.

[wynnesome]

You know I'm right with you on this issue. Plus willing to contribute my time as a sound engineer for any show of this type.