NWB - Community Blog

I've mentioned this before. Some venues are great. Other venues use this site like their little black book. I'll be glad when it becomes a pay site to weed out the abusers.

WHEN it becomes a paysite??? when is that then?

I don't know, but I think it should be. Just my opinion.

It would certainly stop the abusers, the trolls, the timewasters. Too many benefits not to at least consider it.

There's nothing like the personal touch, go in and talk to them.

Dont just expect an answer from a mail or blog. Yes its polite to get and answer but these people do have businesses, and probably a lot of emails.

Don't take offense, just go see them

We had an experience of this with a certain venue recently. Earlier on this year I had to re-arrange a date I had booked with them as our guitarist was away on holiday. I gave lots of notice and we agreed, during the course of the phone call, to move the date to October. This done, it was put on our Google calender and I was told it was in the venue's diary. Then approx a week before we were due to play there I noticed on the venue in questions Facebook page, that another band had been advertised to play on the date that had been re-arranged. I continually phoned the venue....No reply....So I left a meassage on the venues facebook page, no answer.....Finally after nearly a week of trying to contact the venue, I recieved a message from the managers daughter to apologise about the double booking and that they would be in contact to re-book the band for replacement dates. I have heard nothing from them since and it's now nearly four weeks since contact was made. I wouldnt mind but this venue is a very established venue who I thought would do the decent thing and book us again as it was their "cock up" and not ours....Again I'm still awaiting a response from this venue, which I'm pretty sure isnt going to happen. Since it was the venues mistake I would have thought they would have been in contact by now, but alas not. The venue is established and has been going for years. If it was us who had double booked, which has happened in the past and amends have been made, our name would have probably been mud. Although I am pleased to report that 99.9% of the venues we play have always been contactable and it has always been a pleasure dealing with them.

yep, its f'kin annoying but understandable I suppose if they re gettin 50+ messages a week

Mark

Exactly.......And you would think since the venue was at fault it would have been courtesy to contact us instead of leaving us with false promises.

To be fair, in my opinion, most venues are sound, it is a minority that are the culprits and yes, it is good manners to at least acknowledge your message even if it is to rebuke you .....Tex Itseriously

This was one of my rants when I first came onto NWB Daz. I stillsupport what I said then that it takes seconds to reply, especially when iys multiple replies or individual PMs - just, as you say, "sorry we are full but will keep you in mind.." etc. Copy and paste, would take no time.

I agree with you on this Daz. All my pm's get a reply from venues who know me but the others tend not to reply and you then think to yourself, why bother?,

Rick.

Correct Daz

Hey ive messaged bands and not got replies so its 50/50 situ and as for the 'help help i need a band for tonite' if a venue needs a band and a bands got no gig its a favor for a favor.
When I book gigs for the band I manage and my other half band I look into what type of music and what kind of bands they book I wish bands would do this with my venue!!!

It is a two way thing and I will confess to not messaging some bands back especially the 1 band who messaged me every week and text me at daft oclock in the morning its a good job it stopped because i was very close to putting a CB on about them which would of been very embarassing for them to say the least.

I agree with GA deffo a 2 way thing. I asked for demos to be sent in to the pub as the landlady wanted to sitdown with the sound engineer and listen to them instead of trolling round the web as there is no internet down stairs. How many replies did we get???? 2!! 2 demo discs were sent in and the 2 bands in question were both given gigs. I myself run our website and i do all the promotion,vids meeting and greeting and i get hammered on here with PM's asking for gigs some polite some not. You cant please everyone fact its just about getting the balance right. How many bands have turned up at The Griffin for a pint on there night off and actually spoken to us? Off the top of me head, We have had Kingpin,Sticky Fingers,LGIT,Dyehouse,Hallowed im sure there are a few more but they evade me at this time of night!! Everyone of them bands has been to the griffin in the last 4 months and everyone of them except Dyehouse has a gig already booked in for next year. As soon as Gord has sorted Dyehouse he will be given his dates. Customer also have there favourite bands aswell so trying to balance new blood with The Griffin Favourites can be a nightmare. Its going the way that the bands are out numbering the Live Music Venues. So next time someone doesnt reply to you sit back and think Jesus they must be busy!! lol

@ Wez, tell you what would be good. If L/L's, managers ect of pubs pm'd each other about bands that work for their venues. Two venues where we play have just given us NINE gigs between them for the New Year. The Griffin is a venue The 45's would love to play, we've heard some nice reports about the venue. Just tell me what you need to know Wez,

Cheers,

Rick.

@Dresden Mark - annoying but understandable I suppose if they are gettin 50+ messages a week

Well....you can always copy and paste.

I've contacted quite a lot of venues on here and been very fair with them. I've explained what we do and signed off with the phrase "so if you fancy something a little different then give us a shout". I am careful not to approach what I would consider to be inapropriate venues. I would say that around 15% of the venues have replied to which I am very grateful. In fact I've had 3 replies in the last 2 days but my main point is that it is rude to not reply to bands on this site as we have a nice community here and people are usually happy to help others out which Daz also pointed out.

At the end of the day it doesn't matter all that much to me because TCS is for fun, we rehearsed tonight and I thoroughly enjoyed it I usually find rehearsing to be a chore but not in this band.

It doesn't bother me that much.

I agree that it would be nice for venues to recontact the bands messages especially if theyve double booked you by mistake ..we had one situation where we had booked 2 gigs at one venue & we only found out on this site from the other band that they was playing there on the same night & still after the 10 phone calls to the venue we had no reply & in the end we found someone from facebook who knows the management & he came back with the words "oh they"ve never heard of "the stories" ....well i"ve never spoke to a ghost over the phone to book 2 gigs ...talk about burying your head in the sand....

I'm always surprised and pleased when a venue gets straight back to me I find lots of Pubs are good enough even if it's a "NO!" or a "not right now but soon" there are one or two that seem to think they have the "whip hand" and treat you like a nuisance but they're few and far between and Karma say's they'll get thiers hopefully in the "end" or at least when I'm watching, Would I forgive them and speak to them again in the future? Mostly yes 'cause a gig is a gig and a chance to show them what they've been missing on the other side of the coin it is 2010/2011 and what with E~mail, Web sites (inc NWB), text, mobile's and landlines it's not like it's hard to get hold of us is it? I mean it's not like you have to send a wax sealed parchement soaked in vigin's tears via the forest D'ark, across the Misty mountains and fording the stream of despair by Unicorn riding messenger anymore is it (FFS)?

@Stories
We had the same thing happen to us earlier this year. Booked a gig with landLADY over the phone, then out the blue get notified on here by a NWB member that landLORD has never heard of us and booking doesn't stand. Phoned landLORD said "I booked it with yer wife"...he said "Well I've never heard of you"..."Right but thats not the point your wife has booked us". He just said well its not booked & call back next year then put phone down. Err yeah alright mate...like we're some lapdog! As it turned out we got on at another (much better) venue in the area of which we go down great..so their loss!

Rant over lol

PS. And yes it works both ways, there's plenty of incompetent bands out there too. It's about sifting through those bands & venues that are organised and reliable of which 99.9% on NWB are.

In the run up to summer 2k10 my band must of sent of around 60-100 e-mail's to venue's gathered from band-me-up.com to try and Book gig's across the UK to which we only got 2 booked gigs from :( to add insult to injury we turned up to a gig in Birmingham (at our own expense) only to be told we had to set up the house PA there was no sound engineer and the event hadn't even been promoted which ment nobody showed up bah! But try and try again I think this year will we'll send at least 200 e-mails and follow up with phone call :)

hiya, i sent loads of msgs to bands for gigs for 2011. i got a great response but some didnt bother to reply and i can tell they have read the message cos on myspace it tells you if they have read it or not. i dont think it matters so much for us if you dont reply cos there are always other bands willing and wanting to play, but for you i think its more of a personal insult if you dont get a reply. thats why i reply to everyone. good or bad. good luck to you all thats what i say. liz x