Your Scene Sucks & It’s Your Fault
It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these (because I’m a slacker, which means that my scene sucks and it’s my fault), and if you go back to September, you’ll recall that the last one was about “promoters.” Truth be told, that one caused a bit of a stir, and I had some people pretty pissed at me over some of the things I said, which I took as a sign of success. The reality is that if I’m pissing you off with the things I say in these little write ups, then there’s a good chance you’re probably part of the problem, which is only reinforcing the notion that “your scene sucks and it’s your fault.”
The whole point of this series of posts is to bring to light and speak plainly about the problems that cause any music scene anywhere to suffer. I’m not the end-all-be-all of things, nor do I know it all or have all the answers. What I do have is experience, both in playing shows and setting up/booking shows, working with promoters, venue owners, national bands and local bands, and I’ve learned a hell of a lot in 20 years about what not to do. I’ve seen what works and what doesn’t work, and while I can say pretty confidently that what works in one scene/for one band/for one promoter/for one venue isn’t universally true, I can also pretty confidently say that what doesn’t work is universal. My goal with these posts is call out the folks contributing to the problem with the things that they’re doing that hurt not just the scene, but -themselves-, while offering some casual friendly advice about what might work. The deal with the things that work–they tend to help everyone, from fan to band to venue to promoter, and build rather than tear down. I may not have all the answers, but I’ve got a damn good idea, including that mysterious “insider’s understanding” of what it really takes to “make it” in the industry (I work in radio), and if using my voice to put my experience and knowledge to good use is what I can do, then here I am doing it. I mean, c’mon: I was called the “Gandalf of the local scene” a while back. Which only made me feel old….
The thing is, your scene probably doesn’t suck, at least not as bad as you think it does. And more specifically, it isn’t any one person’s/band’s/venue’s/promoter’s fault. It’s a mix of things, and the truth is that each of us involved in the local scene (whatever/wherever your local scene is) plays our part in either building it up or tearing it down. The simple math is that if you’re doing -any- of the things that I talk about as part of the problem, it is YOUR fault if you think your scene sucks, and my finger pointing is all about making you stop and think, and maybe (hopefully) you’ll realize that you can look out for your own best interests without being divisive or destructive to the other folks in your scene. I realize–because let’s face it: metalheads in particular are assholes–that a lot of people won’t care about any of the points I’m making, or they’ll tell me that I’m wrong, I need to shut up, I’m part of the problem or THE problem, etc. That’s fine. As long as they’re engaging me, I win. And we all know who -those- guys are anyway, and we all know why they never seem to succeed. The reputation you build sticks with you, and negative reps stick with you and spread faster far more than positive ones.
The final hard truth I want to mention about this stuff is that not a single damn one of the “your fault” problems belong solely to those doing the things that aren’t cool. They belong as much to the people that perpetuate them by tolerating or even rewarding them (bands have fault for taking shitty booking deals, like I’m gonna talk about in a minute; venues/promoters have fault for booking bands that suck or are known to be assholes/don’t promote/leave gigs after their sets/etc; the list goes on). So, if you allow/tolerate/accept/reward/encourage/cause bullshit in your scene: YOUR SCENE SUCKS AND IT’S YOUR FAULT.
So… all that said, let’s get to the actual topic of discussion in the title of this post:
Pay-To-Play
I’m gonna be clear and up front about how I feel right now: It’s bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit. In case I didn’t make it clear enough:
PAY-TO-PLAY IS BULLSHIT.
Are you a “promoter” who charges bands to be on shows? Are you reading this and thinking, “Fuck you, Rob!” GOOD! Let the butthurt flow through you. Because your scene sucks and IT’S YOUR FAULT! Yeah, I said it. I went there. I’m gonna go ahead and tell you why your little scheme of taking advantage of bands so you can make a quick buck is bullshit, and nothing but a wagon full of fuckery that you need to shove up your own ass, realizing all the while that it’s not going to make a damn bit of difference to you; that’s cool, because the reality is that this, while about you, isn’t for you, it’s for the bands you’re fucking over, in the hopes that maybe enough of them will quit buying into your tactics and you’ll either be forced to change your ‘business model’ (let’s call it what it is: nothing more than a poor man’s Ponzi scheme) or you’ll be driven out of business altogether.
Pay-To-Play schemes typically involve a “promoter” (see my previous post on why I use that term with quotes) telling local bands they have to sell X amount of tickets to play a show, which usually involves a fairly well-known ‘big name’ national touring act. The deal usually goes something like this:
“You have to sell 20 tickets to be on this bill. If you don’t sell all 20 tickets, you have to pay us the difference. Anything over 20 tickets sold, and you get to keep the money–that’s how you get paid.”
Seems like a fairly reasonable deal, right?
Fuck no it’s not. And here’s why:
“…you have to pay us the difference.” Most “promoters” prey on local bands looking for a chance to open for a big name band because they want two things from that experience: first, to play in front of the crowd that big name -should- bring; second, to be able to say, “We opened for [insert band name here!”
Most tour packages already have 3-4 bands on them, including lesser- or unknown opening bands. Those packages are built the way they are for a reason, and anyone who goes to ‘big’ concerts with any regularity knows that no one really cares about the openers anyway. We’ve all seen it. Mega-Awesome-Famous-Band is coming through your town with a couple of lesser known or unknown support acts, and there might be ten thousand people going to that show, but most of them don’t bother showing up until right before the headliner plays.
Let’s scale that down to a national act that’s past its prime, who has gone from playing arenas and stadiums to playing smaller concert halls and clubs because they just don’t draw like they used to–they’re out touring hanging on to their name alone, supporting a new album that no one cares about with a line up that barely resembles that of the band’s hey day, and the people going to their shows only care about older material. A few hundred people show up. Of those few hundred people, how many are there for the support acts that are -on- the tour package? Count that in the tens, at the most. Now, what happens when you add two or three local bands as openers on that package?
They play to each other, their girlfriends, and probably their mom and dad. Because no one gives a fuck about a local band that plays in the area on a monthly (or weekly!) basis, isn’t that good, and couldn’t sell 20 tickets. These bands buy into these shows hoping to play in front of a national band’s crowd, or maybe even the national act themselves, thinking it’s good business, when the reality is that they’re probably playing in front of the same people they always play to. And odds are, if the national act is even in the venue, they’re doing everything -but- paying attention to the local openers, because they’re either sleeping, taking the chance to enjoy some off-the-road-time, or just don’t care because your band is no different than the last thirty local openers they’ve seen–besides that, they aren’t there to scout for record labels, they’re there to put on a show and sell some merch (which is the only reason your band should be there as well).
That part about being able to say, “We opened for Mega-Awesome-Famous-Band!”? No one cares. Unless you’re out on tour as part of the tour package, and people are showing up to shows for -your- band, no one cares. I’ve got a list a mile long of ‘big name’ bands that I’ve shared the stage with, and that includes playing arenas and stadiums, and no one cares. They care about whether or not your music, and your show is good. They care about you standing on your own, rather than trying to stand on the name of someone else. Just because you opened for Mega-Awesome-Famous-Band doesn’t mean your band is actually any good ya know. It just means, in the context of this article, that some shithead “promoter” duped you into spending cash you probably don’t have (that would be better served elsewhere) for a crowd you didn’t get to play to and a “resume builder” that means nothing to anyone but your girlfriend and your parents. You probably thought, “This is for Mega-Awesome-Famous-Band, we’ll sell 20 tickets EASY!” but then reality hit… and you became a victim of pay-to-play.
Now, the bands that fall into these schemes do so with certain hopes and expectations, which we know aren’t true for the most part (yes, there are some exceptions, but these aren’t the norm, and anyone who has dealt with this scheme knows that). What typically happens is that a “promoter” gets any band that tells them, “Yeah! We’ll sell tickets!” to buy into the deal, not caring about how good the band is, how established the band is, or even where they’re from. They’ll tell any local band, “You guys are awesome! We’d love to have you on this show!” even though they’ve probably never heard of them, and they’re from two hours away from where the show is happening. Why? Because the band tells them they’ll sell the tickets. The “promoter” knows they -won’t-. They don’t care. They care that they get the money from those tickets, which the band has agreed to pay for if they don’t sell them. Which means that the “promoter” doesn’t even really care how many people are actually at the show. For them, the bottom line is the money.
And why shouldn’t it be? That’s what they’re in the business for, after all. I don’t fault them wanting to make a living doing show booking, it’s honest enough. Except when it’s not. “Promoters” who run these kind of schemes will tell you “It’s NOT pay-to-play!”, citing that they’ve offered the bands the opportunity to make money by selling tickets above and beyond the buy in amount. Then they’ll accuse the bands of being lazy if they don’t sell enough to get paid, let alone to cover that buy in. To be fair, plenty of bands -are- lazy, and the lazy bands kind of get what they deserve if they buy in to these schemes, but there are plenty of other bands who aren’t lazy. Another thing “promoters” running pay-to-play schemes like to do is accuse the local scene of not being as good as another one, that the fans and bands suck (because attacking the people you’re trying to make money off of is a sure way to win respect…), etc. The point is… if a “promoter” starts blaming the scene, its bands, and its fans for not making them their money, it’s a pretty good sign that the “promoter” is the core of the problem.
So what do we do about it?
Stop buying into this bullshit.
Yes, it’s that simple. Stop. Just fucking stop already.
That said:
There’s not a damn thing wrong with telling a band they have to sell tickets to play a show. Not a damn thing. Why? Because that’s part of their job. To get people to shows. To self-promote. To be part of making a show successful by helping the venue, the promoter, the other bands, and MOST IMPORTANTLY themselves out. But the negative reinforcement of making them pay to play is bullshit. Instead, give them their tickets, and REWARD them for selling them by making those tickets how they get paid. “Here ya go, New Guys. Ten tickets. We’re charging $8 a ticket for this show. You can charge as much or as little as you want, or give them away for free, up to you. But whatever money you make on ticket sales is how you’re getting paid. Keep it all. Just let us know how many you moved.” BOOM. Now the band has an incentive that actually helps them.If you’re a promoter who does this, mark the tickets with the name of the band, and then count them at the end of the night. You’ll be able to see quickly, easily, and definitively which bands actually moved tickets and brought people to the show, and you’ll have a better idea of who is worth booking in the future. The bands that don’t have any tickets show up in the till at the end of the night? Fuck those guys. Those are your lazy bands, THEIR scene sucks, it’s THEIR fault.
Smart bands will charge a couple bucks less than the promoter or venue or the at-the-door price. Smarter bands will bundle ticket sales with merch (“$15 gets you a ticket, a shirt, and a CD!”–and suddenly there are ten people at that show wearing that band’s shirt…). And the bands that want to give away the tickets free? That’s cool too, and will probably get people to the show. The potential problem with giving away a ticket free is that the person you gave it to isn’t invested in the show, so they lose nothing if they don’t go–after all, they didn’t pay for it, so it’s not that big of a deal. But if they’ve actually spent money on it, they’ll be more likely to stick to the investment and commitment they’ve made.
The Bottom Line
Bands: Stop buying into pay-to-play schemes. Unless you KNOW you can move every single ticket you’re going to end up buying otherwise, you’re wasting your time and your money. If you -really- want to play with Mega-Awesome-Famous-Band, for the money you’re going to spend on tickets, getting to and from the show, and probably drinking while you’re there, you might as well pool your resources with other local bands, book Mega-Awesome-Famous-Band yourself, and bypass the “promoters” altogether. But as long as you’re buying into these bullshit schemes, your scene sucks and it’s your fault.
“Promoters”: Rot in hell. Seriously. Stop taking advantage of the people you’re pretending to “help.” You’re not giving anyone their “big break,” you’re not doing anyone any favors, and you’re certainly not contributing to any scene anywhere. You’re nothing more than scum-sucking leeches who are sucking the very life out of scenes, and are the exact reason that a lot of scenes are divided and dying–especially when you pull bullshit like tell one band that they have to sell 50 tickets while telling another they only have to sell 20 for the same show. That said, I appreciate you. Why? Because you’re walking, shit-talking examples of what not to do, and guys like me don’t have to make up “what if” examples–you’re providing the reality with every pay-to-play show you book. If you can’t afford to cover the cost of the shows you’re booking, then maybe, just maybe, you shouldn’t be booking them. And if all you’re doing is booking the shows, but not actually promoting them, stop calling yourself a “promoter”–you’re giving the real promoters bad names.
Pay-To-Play is bad business, boys and girls, for everyone, except the “promoter”. They don’t care about you, your band, your scene, or anything but what they’re getting out of it, and if they tell you otherwise, they’re lying motherfuckers who hopefully will get what they deserve. If you are one of those “promoters” putting on a pay-to-play show in any form, or if you’re one of those bands that buys into these kind of shows, well…
Your scene sucks, and it’s YOUR fault.
Don’t like it?
Do something about it.
The Forge 