Pay to play?

[scorpio01169]

A friend in I did a video shoot for a band at a fest today that had four local bands and Krokus as the headliner.All the local bands had to sell a certain amount of tickets and I get that. But what happened after every local band played is what I don't understand. Once the band was done, they had to load their equipment back into their cars/trucks and had to turn in their wristband passes and to get back in had to pay. Is that normal or is this some bs Krokus wanted. Krokus was being very demanding. They told us that we couldn't go backstage nor could we go on stage to shoot the band we were doing the video for. needless to say we were like fuck Krokus and went backstage and onstage anyway. But yeah as soon as the band we shot was done we had to turn in our wristbands.

 

[B36arin]

That's not right.

 

[Terminus]

That's when I would just go home, if they made us pay to get back in.

 

[smy1]

I totally understand not wanting local support in your backstage if there are no separate rooms. But paying for getting back into the venue is ridiculous.

These kinds of things usually happen when the promoter paid too much in guarantees and is trying to squeeze every possible dollar out of the event to not lose too much money. It's pretty shitty behavior.

 

[scorpio01169]

That's when I would just go home, if they made us pay to get back in.

That's what three of the bands did....loaded up and went home. I didn't know if that was the norm of the pay to play or was this just some one time thing. Back in my day we got paid when we played....$30 here $40 there....but we got something.

 

[HCL]

If you draw you should be geting paid, bands should concentrate on releasing quality music and getting a fanbase, you need demand if you're going to be supplying something [performing your music]. Otherwise you're either relying on another bands draw, or regular concert-goers, which is kind of a stupid idea in the internet age. Also if you're playing in your home town, put the gig on yourself, it's really not a difficult thing to organise. You get to keep the profit then.

 

[bryan_kilco]

Yeah that is just totally fucked up.

I absolutely hate having to sell tickets because my band literally and simply cannot sell 50 tickets at $10+ each. We are in a shitty area where the single closest venue is an hour away, anything actually decent we have to travel to Philly area. And we are all in our early 30's and all of our friends are about our age so they don't really feel like coming out to see us play when they have "life" to deal with. Then we end up eating whatever tickets we don't sell and pay for them with our band fund $. Just to make us look good. So we loose money, don't have many actual friends their to "support" us, and usually make no $ for playing. Not to mention cost of fuel and wear and tear on a van.

That just turned into me ranting a bit, sorry.

 

[HCL]

Yeah that is just totally fucked up.

I absolutely hate having to sell tickets because my band literally and simply cannot sell 50 tickets at $10+ each. We are in a shitty area where the single closest venue is an hour away, anything actually decent we have to travel to Philly area. And we are all in our early 30's and all of our friends are about our age so they don't really feel like coming out to see us play when they have "life" to deal with. Then we end up eating whatever tickets we don't sell and pay for them with our band fund $. Just to make us look good. So we loose money, don't have many actual friends their to "support" us, and usually make no $ for playing. Not to mention cost of fuel and wear and tear on a van.

That just turned into me ranting a bit, sorry.

50 tickets per band is quite a lot, I'm used to small UK venues though. On the other hand if a band can't sell at least 15 tickets to a local show they're fucking up somewhere.

 

[bryan_kilco]

50 tickets per band is quite a lot, I'm used to small UK venues though. On the other hand if a band can't sell at least 15 tickets to a local show they're fucking up somewhere.

See, even 15 tickets for us is questionable. It depends how "local" the venue is. I really, really, reallllllly wish I had the experience of today but was 12 years younger. It was way easier to get friends out when we were 22 years old or whatever because everyone was looking to go out to bars and do shit. Now everyone has kids and families and don't have time for shows.

 

[HCL]

See, even 15 tickets for us is questionable. It depends how "local" the venue is. I really, really, reallllllly wish I had the experience of today but was 12 years younger. It was way easier to get friends out when we were 22 years old or whatever because everyone was looking to go out to bars and do shit. Now everyone has kids and families and don't have time for shows.

It depends how old you are I guess. If you're too old to realistically mingle with the 18-24 crowd [to a point this has less to do with age and more to do with presentation IMO] then don't concentrate on your local area so much. Network with bands and promoters in other cities near you and play there.

 

[scorpio01169]

It depends how old you are I guess. If you're too old to realistically mingle with the 18-24 crowd [to a point this has less to do with age and more to do with presentation IMO] then don't concentrate on your local area so much. Network with bands and promoters in other cities near you and play there.

I wish my band had thought of that 25 years ago. We did a small tour up and down Texas in 1992, I think we made about $250 after gas and food...lol but we did that all on our own without networking. I told myself I would never join a band again that wanted to play gigs, and this pay for play shit confirms my decision.