MSITBooking

Performance Venues

Week 224/7/20123

GROUP Hypothetical Question

You have asked a band to play at your gig on a Friday night in November in Brisbane via email and have had no correspondance with the band since asking them in August of the same year.

Three weeks out from the gig, you contact the band after learning that they have another gig that same weekend in Brisbane as a support for a global act on the Saturday night at a much larger venue then what you have booked for the Friday gig.

The venue you have booked is not happy because they fear that they may not make enough money via the bar to cover costs.

The band doesn’t want to cancel the Saturday night gig.

What would you do?

Perspectives: Promoter, Band, Venue

Promoter: You think you’re got the best gig ever and everyone is going to love your awesome event from the bands to the punters to the venue to the media.

Band: Most of the time, it’s just a gig, just another part of the job for them. If you’re promoting and there’s less $ to be made than if they did their own show then the effort they put in can be reduced.

Venue: Doesn’t really care, as it gets music non stop. At the end of the day most venues do care about supporting bands but they need to make money from the bar-that is the number one issue for them to survive.

Things to consider in booking a venue

What does it mean to ‘book’ a venue?

What venue do you want to book?

Why am I booking THIS venue? Location? Brand/Name?/Low fees? Do they make posters for you?/Disability access?/Cheap bar prices?/Riders for bands?/Good public transport or parking options?

What type of night do I want to put together? Theme?

How many artists should you book? 2, 3, 4?

How to contact the venue and following up and what happens when you’re at the venue- who to talk to.

What will the venue want you to have ready.

What will the venue require from you to book a gig. Questions they’ll ask you.

What date do you want to book and other dates you might have in mind

Have you booked here before? New owners/change of bookers etc

Where have you booked gigs before?

How many artists you have playing

Where those bands have played before

What the fees are for this venue. I.e. $2.50 p/h

How much you want to charge for tickets and where you want to sell them through

Questions the venue will ask you cont’d

The booking agreement/venue contract

What is required from you in terms of OWHS, Sound engineers, transport/load-in’s,

How many punters they can each hypothetically bring to the gig. A requirement that they must at least bring 30 or so is a general rule.

Are the bands playing anywhere else in the area 2 weeks before and 1 week after your gig.

What rider you require (generally sorted 1 week out from show)

Posters x 50-100 + replenishment stock closer to gig

Press release

Picture or gig image for their website/social media

All links to bands social media/music sites

How to make a venue booking

Face to face would be ideal but email/phone is usually the way it works.

Research the venue first to know that your genre fits in with this venue

Call (instant) rather than email (1-2 days). Follow up but don’t be harassing. Move on if no response.

Be professional and polite but be upfront that this is your first gig putting on a show at this venue so you might need some pointers.

Have all of your information for your gig in front of you and ready to email the venue.

Have a few other tentative dates around the same time in mind if your date is not available.

Venue Booking Sample Script

Call venue. Have all information/research in front of you.

Hi, I’m (your name) from (your booking business) and I’m hoping to be able to speak to (venue owner/booking agent) about running a gig at your venue.

Now, you’re either speaking with that person or they’re patching you through to them.

Hi, I’m looking to book (how many bands/name of bands/type of show/expected rough numbers) on (day, date, time) could you advise me if you have that date available and if not if there were any other available dates around that time and what I would need to do to book a gig at your venue.

They will most likely then ask you about the business/your experience/ probably wont get a weekend

I have all of the information available to send you via email and this includes the poster art, press release, band links, images etc.

My details are (your email, number)

Please and thank you x 1000

Groups: Booking Business Name

Split into groups of 3

Choose a genre that you all agree on to promote for your gig

Decide on a serious music industry business name for your group that will be used to book your bands and venue.

Make the following for your group:

Facebook, Twitter and any other social media sites for your group that you wish. Sync these together.

Choose a logo/font or design one (not urgent or applicable if you wish, but will look more professional) try DaFont.com

Email address. (Gmail or Hotmail will suffice but an info@... looks more professional) Try…

Venue Booking Guide

You are required to search and document a new venue each week, answer these questions and:

Include the name of the venue

Include a photo of the venue

Include the venues contact details including phone, street address, mailing address, website, social media sites, fax number, email address

Include any history/notable facts about the venue/ kind of like a bit of a bio but no more than a couple of sentences.

Brisbane Band List

Your job each week is to fill in the following on the class forum. You are to do this twice for two different bands/artists. Include as many responses as you can.

Find a local (Brisbane) band/artist

Post a photo of the artist/band

List the artist/bands’ links to social media such as Facebook, MySpace etc..whatever you want to include

List the genre of the band/artist

List the bands location if known

List the amount of members in the band

Include their biography