21 Nov 2009
Filed Under : Music , Other
Posted By : Absolute Heroes | Comments : 9
We are interested in what works best for your band!
We are interested in what works best for your band............
depends if you wanna hand over 17% + vat of your fee or not..my advice..you use agents, dont let them use you..handy for gig volume if you do what they want, when..but you start turning down gigs and watch how fast the work they put your way dries up!
Ya the best way to get gigs is to go round knocking on doors and sell the band Dirk
venues are on a much more restricited budget these days, thus the mark up that agent's take is proving the deal breaker for acts like my duo at the moment... my singer can now go solo for say £140 (inc 20% agent fee) but the duo cannot get work for £200+ to make it worthwhile for the singer to continue duo work. re bands.. better to do leg work with venues.. pay them a visit.. hand out cds, posters, urls etc.. ie the agents role.. and then ask for the gigs yourself as if you say want £160-£200 as a fee for a 4 piece pub covers band, a venue could just stretch to this, but add an agent fee on top and you'll be lucky to find many venues paying £250 plus these days....
i would do it yourself, at least you can choose where and when you want to play,
As a venue booking agent I much prefer talking to band members. Agents have their place in the business, mainly for the pro and semi pro bands, who are more prepared to travel around and work any night.
Best to do it yourself. Get out and promote your band and though you will draw many blanks you will get gigs. Arm yourself with a DVD or cd of you playin 'live' and get a myspace or website and then its just patience and legwork.Worked/works for us so .
I think it depends on the type of work your doing. If your doing corporates, functions, weddings or the older club(working men, british legion etc)it's better to use agents. Even though you'll end up pissed off that they take a chunk or your pay for merely picking up the phone you'll get more work. You may have to look around for a specific type of agent for tribute work, but since the smoking ban I think most decent agents are diversifying to stay in business anyway. Some agents only have shit clubs/gigs so choose carefully, they may also give you the crap they can't fill if your new. It ends up being an enjoyment or regular work type toss up in my experience. Also something to think of is if you have more than four members the agent will get more money than than you.If your doing more of your own thing or don't want to do that type of work it's better to get gigs yourself. This is the route that I chose due to the fact that I've been down the above route and I find I enjoy myself more which filters through to the audience who in turn enjoy the gig more and we have better gigs.It is not my job but it's labour and cost intensive so some decent money needs to come in to cover everything. Most decent venues know this and will pay accordingly. I think it depends on what your aim is, enjoyment or work. I've been into rock and metal all my life so the doin the normal circuit was a mistake for me personally. This is my perspective, hope it helped.
We have worked thru agents, but don't want to play all the nicey-nice stuff you have to trot out on WMC's and social clubs. Agents are particularly good for bands who hate getting stiffed by venues. A certain Altrincham venue on here cancelled us with less than 24 hours notice and a very sh*tty attitude and if we had gone thru an agent that wouldn't have happened.
Cheers for the comments, looks like we need to get a demo done and knock on some doors....
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