Today, almost every local all-ages show is produced in the following manner. A small(often one-man) production company will make arrangements to rent one of the all-ages music/art spaces described above—a new club that just opened downtown. Next, the concert producer will find several “cutting edge” local and regional acts, he or she believes to be so talented that booking them will ensure that the show becomes fantastic success. These acts are tired of playing small, smoky bars that are half full of middle-aged people and are anxious to play somewhere new–so they excitedly agree.
Now, since the concert PRODUCER mistakenly believes he or she is a “concert PROMOTER”, promotion efforts will ensue. What he or she doesn’t realize is that true Concert Promoters work only with well-known touring acts who have a large national(or at least regional)fan base but are unable to promote for themselves because they won’t be in town until the day of the show.
So, almost literally no one who sees the flier or ad will even remember them a day later–let alone, come out and pay to see the show. Because of this, these “promotion” efforts will yield little to no results–neither in terms of show attendance nor name recognition for the bands. In addition, the concert producer will not be able to pay the bands as well as anticipated, because he or she has wasted considerable funds on ineffective promotion techniques.
On the day of the show, both the concert producer and his or her “cutting-edge” bands will arrive at the venue. Everyone will set up for the show. In spite of the fact that they prefer to play second, the most popular band on the bill (which is not necessarily the most musically talented but is always the hardest working) will be forced to play the last timeslot of the night, because they are “headlining” the show. Thanks to this well-intentioned concept (which only actually makes sense for national or regional tours), the hardest working band will be penalized–in essence–by not getting any choice of when they take the stage.
The rest of the bands will draw a combined total of 15 people to come see the show, for a total show attendance of 100 (=85+15) people. Depending on the price of admission and the size of the club, the concert producer may or may not have enough cash left to pay the rent he or she owes the venue. If rent is covered, then the bands will probably split the rest of the money.
The bands may split the rest evenly, which seems unfair to the band that brought out 85 people, but this will make the other bands very happy. The band that brought out 85% of the crowd is probably not happy about being paid the same amount as the other bands–and understandably so.
At the end of this show, the hard working band (which is the only one of the bands that has the drive needed to achieve widespread success) is left wondering if the show was even worth playing, and the other unmotivated bands are anxious for another chance to get paid for playing an event that requires little to no effort on their part.
As the dust settles, the concert producer realizes that low attendance and unnecessary “promotion” costs have left him or her very low on cash. He or she then informs the owner of the venue not to expect any more shows for a while, because it will take quite some time to save up the needed funds to produce his or her next event. Sadly, most of the production companies who rent this venue soon find themselves in a similar circumstance, so the club will likely not survive long enough to celebrate even a one-year anniversary.
Click here to find out more about Big Time Entertainment on www.isoniemisatama.com
