BOOKING SHOWS

A lengthy read, but a good one. One of the dudes from Phoenix Bodies wrote it up, pretty much nails it.

The Finer Points of Show Booking.

So, you want to set up a show for your favorite band in the whole world. You e-mail them every other day, and you send them nice little letters in the mail. They've never came to your town before, but they have decided to come through this time on tour because of your wholesome interest. They e-mail you and want you to help them out with a show, and you of course say "I can help you! It will be no problem!" But there is a little problem, you've never done a show for ANY band before. You have no idea what to do or where to go to set up this momentous event. Not to worry! The wonderful thing about punk rock is that ANYONE has the power to participate. This part is also one of the worst parts about punk rock, because often times people will get involved lacking know how.

Sooooooooooo, since I have decided that I know everything, I'm going to tell you what to do in the most condecending manner possible. I have not booked a TON of shows, maybe no more than 30 or 40, but I have probably played a few hundred, and been to some impossible amount. Here are some things I have noticed that bands like when you book a show.

-A nice comfortable location for the event.

-People coming to see them.

-The promoter being genuinely interested/familiar with their band.

-Getting paid a reasonable amount.

-Having a place to sleep at night.

-Being able to eat food.

-Having a lot of FUN!

If every show I've been too, or played had all of these things, I would consider myself to be in some amazing fantasy world. Look at that list. It is seven simple things. You would think that it would be very easy to accomodate these things if one took the time and energy, however it's now very rare that these amazing celestial spheres of show booking ever come into allignment. Let me now explain how you can make these things happen.

Finding a good venue:

So, you need to find a space for your show. If you are lucky, you may live in some place with a nice established punk rock scene of some sort. You can start your search by asking around at places you go to see shows, if you too can book shows there. If you don't know who to ask, try going to a show and talking to someone you saw playing in a band. Ask them who set up the show. Then go talk to that person, and figure out how to book shows at that space. You may be given the run around a few times, but you'll eventually figure out how to use that place. If there are not places for shows in your town, finding them can be hardwork. The best bets for a venue would be finding a nice large practice space from a local band, a nice big basement, or some sort of rental hall like an american legion or YMCA (ya know, anywhere that you've probably been dragged to some sort of wedding reception or something). Call around, walk around, and ask around, and I bet you can eventually find some place that will allow 50 people to come over and be as loud as they want for 4 hours or so. Another good thing to provide is some sort of area for bands to sell merchandise. It sucks trying to sell stuff out of the back of your van or in a back hallway. It also sucks for bands to have all their stuff in the way of people at the show and knocked over by brutal pit action. Also, make sure that the place you're going to be able to do the show is actually able to have it. By this I mean, if you're doing a show at a house, make sure that it's not likely to get shut down by the police. If the last 4 or 5 shows have been shut down at the place you're looking to do your show, maybe you should look for another place to have it. If you're going to attempt the "first show ever" at some place, make sure that the owners and neighbors know exactly what is going to go on. They may not realize that bands can be REALLY loud. Talk to people in the immediate area of your show space and make sure that they are okay with some noise. If they aren't, maybe you can work out some arrangement for the show to get over early so everyone is happy. If you can't work out an arrangement, maybe you should still keep looking for a place. If you have a basement, garage or something of that sort for a show and you think that your show may be too loud, you can try to soundproof the room by scavenging carpets and mattresses to line the walls of the room.

Now that you have maybe found a place for your show, half of your battle is done. You now need to figure out if this is a suitable and good place for your show. Think about things like, "hey will it be easy to haul a 125 lb. bass cabinet into this place?", "will people be able to sit down and hang out during the show and be comfortable?", "is there a nice place for the bands to be at when they get here?", "is there enough room for everyone to be there?", "is this going to sound like shit?", etc. etc. First let me say, SIZE MATTERS. You need to try figure out about how many people will be coming to your show. If it is going to be around 30 or so people, do not have the show in your local 400 person capacity ROCK N ROLL club. Conversley, if there are going to be 400 people, do not have it in your friend's garage. Try to find a place of suitable size for the crowd, and amount of bands you have playing. This way, everyone is happy. Bands like packed houses, but people like to have at least a little space. Once again the general neighborhood that your show is happening in is an issue. Try to make sure that people are respecting surrounding properties. If the Pizza Hut next door doesn't want people parking in their parking lot, let people know that. If the old woman across the street doesn't want kids leaving beer bottles in her yard, make sure that doesn't happen. If you're having a house show, having a bunch of people hanging around in the front yard is not always the best idea. Get people inside, or at least away from general view so you're not creating too much of a disturbance. If you're doing a show that is going to have some sort of age restriction, make sure the bands know this, and are okay with it.

Another show essential is sound equipment. You are going to need some sort of PA system for the bands to use. You should always check with whatever venue you are doing the show at to see if they have a suitable sound system. If not! you will have to borrow or rent one. This is where you once again have to talk to people in local bands, rummage through the yellow pages, or straight up go out and buy one and some speakers. Another thing you will need are microphones. As a bare minimum for punk rock sound you should have 2 microphones w/ stands, a 100w power amp PA, and 2 speaker boxes. This will scrape you through pretty much any show. If you are lucky enough to live some where with a venue that has good sound equipment, acoustics, etc, bands will love you if they can play there. It's always nice to have good sound. The bands like it, and so do the people at the show.

Getting people to come to the show:

Now that you've figured our where your show is going to be, you just need to get people to come to it. A good way to start is by getting a good solid line-up for the show you're working on. Sure, you have your favorite band coming to town, but maybe not everyone else in your town is as down with the Finnish hardcore scene as you are. You're going to need to help those guys out a little bit by having other bands that people want to see play the show. However, you're also going to want to get a crowd of people at the show who are going to appreciate most, if not all, of the bands playing. This can be tricky for sure, but if you can pull it off, it makes the show a whole lot better for everyone involved. It might help to ask the touring band if there are any bands from around your area that they would like to play the show, or are friends with or something like that. Having bands that are excited to be playing with each other is great, and can usually even help get more people excited about the show. If you know of a band or two that would be genuinely interested and happy about playing your show, you should probably ask them. They will probably help you out in dragging people to the show as well. Another trick you should also try to pull is to not necessarily have all the bands playing the show sound exactly the same. A diverse line-up of bands will be more interesting to a broader range of people than say, "A NIGHT OF PURE INSTRUMENTAL METAL MADNESS." Try not to have shows with more than 2 touring bands. People may not be familiar with so many bands from far away, and it might not be a good idea to have them all play together. Combining diversity with the earlier thought of making a line-up of bands that almost everyone attending the show would enjoy can be quick the magic trick, especially if you live somewhere without a lot of local bands. If you can pull it off though, your show will rule. If you don't live in scene heaven, you can always just ask reliable popular local bands to come and play your show, or young bands of high school kids. Something that will draw some sort of crowd to see what you have going on. Shows like that can be fun for touring bands sometimes, just as long as the people coming to the show will actually want to watch this random band from 2,000 miles away. A good line-up will only get you so far though. There is a lot of other work that will need to be done to get the word out about your show.

You're going to have to make some flyers. No really, posting about this sweet show on some message board is not going to cut it! You're going to have to make some flyers, and you're going to have to go give them to people. Going out and talking to people and giving them something to take home with them to remember your show, is far more effective than posting a bulletin and hoping that maybe someone will read it and remember. I suggest going to at least 3 shows in your area a decent amount of time before your show happens, and actually handing flyers to people and telling them about what you have going on. If you can go to more shows, that will only help you out even more, but if not (there are no shows, you're broke, etc.) try dropping off flyers at all the venues, record stores, tattoo shops, skateshops, cool restaurants, houses with lots of parties, book stores, bars, clothing stores, malls, hair salons, police stations, pet stores, etc. you know of in town. If you don't think that will work, give flyers to people in the other bands playing the show. Make them get their parents, boyfriends, girlfriends, uncles, and friends to come to the show. Give them to kids to pass out at high schools. High school kids are always bored and looking for stuff to do, like ruin their lives with punk rock, so help them out. If you're still at a loss of places to put your flyers, just stick them to telephone poles in areas with lots of pedestrian traffic. You can also pass out your flyers to people you run into while you're out and about putting them up. If you can't find the time, or find someone else with the time, to put up flyers for your show, maybe you shouldn't really do the show. Making flyers can be a lot of fun. I personally enjoy it a good deal, and I am in no way, shape, or form an artistic person. It's always good to make sure your flyers are at least legible, and at most visibly interesting and memorable. Cut out funny pictures from newspapers and magazines, stick them on a piece of paper, write your show info on it, make some copies, and you're set. Your flyers should have all the information a person might will need to get to your show, starting time, if the show has to be over at a certain time, cost, bands, city, address, etc. Not everyone in the world knows that "THE HUT" is at 314 5th street (however, if you're doing a house show, make sure it's allright for you to put the address on the flyer. Sometimes people don't want their landlords finding out about such activities and what not), and not everyone knows that THE DUDE DUDES are an awesome Slayer and Exodus influenced thrash metal band. You should give people as much information as possible so that they know exactly what is going on even if they haven't been indoctrinated into punk rock. I (ab)use computers at my school to design and print TONS of free flyers for shows I book. If you think for a minute, there's pretty much always some place in your reach with either a copy machine or a fast laser printer you can get a hold of for an hour or so and make a few hundred flyers for free.

There are still other things you can do to get the word out about your show. If your town has a weekly arts/entertainment newspaper or magazine, you can interview bands you are doing shows for, and submit them to said paper. You can also send out cds to local or college radio stations that actually have free format programming. Better yet, get the radio shows to do interviews for you, or have the bands go on them during the day to promote the show. You can also go to local record stores and ask them to order music by bands that you have coming to town, or drop off cds to them to play in the store during the day. All of this stuff is sort of going the extra mile if you haven't been sent a large promo package from the band(s) you're doing a show for, but it's really awesome if you have the time and resources to do it.

Try not to get ahead of yourself in this department. Don't promote shows until you have all the facts about them straightened out. No one likes to hear that their favorite band is coming to town, only to find out that they are really playing 4 hours away that day. You don't want people showing up pissed off to your show space and smashing windows when Madball isn't in the parking lot. Try your best to make sure that all the bands you say are playing will be there, the show will start at the advertised time, and will be at the advertised address.

Know what you're getting into:

From a band's prospective, it's really nice to have shows in towns that you're looking to play in on your tour route, BUT it's not too much fun to show up and be playing a show set up by someone that knows nothing about your band. If you don't know much about a band, or don't really care about them, DON'T DO A SHOW FOR THEM. It's more than likely going to be a waste of your time, and a waste of the band's time. If you're really that desperate to meet new people that you're going to book a show for some strange people just to hang out with them, then you're probably not socially adept enough to get people to come to a show, and you shouldn't be throwing one in the first place. Being excited about and involved with bands you're doing shows for will make the process a lot more meaningful and fullfilling. It will also make for a fun time for most of the people involved in the whole affair.

Also, make sure the bands know what they're getting into. Keep in steady contact with them before your show. Send out an e-mail every now and then to let them know and the definite status of your show, or of any changes. Make sure they know how to get a hold of you, and that they have directions to where they are playing. Be sure to give bands your address, as they may want to mail you promotional stuff like posters or cds, and give them a phone number that they can contact you at before the show and the day of the show. You should also try to get a cell phone number or something like that from the bands so if something crazy happens the day of the show you can get a hold of them. Everyone needs to be informed about what's going on at the show, and communication should be made as freely and easily as possible.

C-R-E-A-M, get the money, dolla dolla bill ya'll:

Today, the average DIY punk band needs a good deal of money to get around the country. I'd venture to say that the average distance traveled between shows on a US tour is about 300 miles a day, and that the average punk tour vehicle gets only about 12 mile/gal when fully loaded with people and musical equipment. This works out to 25 gallons of gas a day. At about $2 a gallon, a band is going to spend $50 just on GAS to get to your show, and another $50 to get to their next show. I'd also say that the average band has about 4 people in it, and eats about 2 or 3 times a day. Punks are thrifty and get easily get by with spending around $5 on each meal a day, so at most another $60 will be spent on food. If this band has no where to stay after your show, they will either toughen up and sleep in a rest area or drop around $40 on a motel room somewhere. This works out to about $200 being spent everyday by a band on the road. Yeah, that's kind of inflated because it's including 2 drives, but things are tough on the road, and every now and then you get stuck with little money from shows. I like to make sure that bands I do shows for are covered coming and going. So, since I always make food and always have a nice place for touring bands to stay, I try to make sure that I always give them at least $100 when I do a show for them. (When I'm out with my own band, I'd say we reasonably need $50-$60 for food and gas most nights if we were able to sell some merch and whatnot) If you're not going to be able to make food or find a place to stay for bands, you should try and make sure you can give them more money to meet these accomodations (Now maybe you can see why it's not the greatest idea to have more than 1 or 2 touring bands play a show together). I'm a broke ass college student, so how do I make sure the bands are paid well? I try to carefully judge how many people will come to my show for a given price and weigh it against how much the show is going to cost me to put on. If you know the show you're doing is only going to draw about 30 or 40 people, and it's going to cost you $100 to pay for the venue and sound, and you're going to need another $200 to meet bands' expenses, you probably shouldn't charge $3 at the door. However, you probably shouldn't charge $10 either. In fact, if you're not going to be able to bring in a good deal of people/money for a show, and you don't have enough money of your own to make up the difference, you probably shouldn't do the show at all. Yeah, this may be a grim reality for you to accept but both the band, and your pocket book will be thankful later. You may be up in arms right now saying something like "keep your capitalism out of my hardcore show!" but believe me, you'll be better off doing shows in the future if you are not completely broke all the time, and bands will be better off touring if they are also not completely broke. You will be rarely helping anyone out by just doing a show for the sake of doing a show. No one is going to be able to trade a copy of your zine to a Shell station for a free go at the pumps. So you should really make sure that what you're getting into isn't going to be a financial disaster before you confirm it (This goes for bands too. You shouldn't tour at all if you don't think you can bring in a decent amount of people to your shows out of town to keep scenes alive in those cities). Now don't get bent out of shape. I've definitely done shows to help out my friends, lost money on them, and went home without complaining or feeling like I've "failed". I've definitely driven for hours upon hours to play a show, been paid $4 and made the most of my evening anyway without complaining. Punk is definitely not a money making endeavor for me or anyone involved in it, and it should never be something done for profit. BUT people shouldn't be losing their asses, bands shouldn't be breaking up, and venues shouldn't be closing because people don't have the money to stay involved and active. So make sure that whatever you're doing is going to be economically feasible before you get too involved. This will assure that you and the bands you are helping out can continue doing what you both love. So when the time comes around for your show, have a fair price of admission in mind and make sure that people pay it. Passing around a bucket for change and loose ones at the end of the night should NOT be acceptable if you are doing a show for touring bands. These people are spending a lot of money to come play shows for you, and they deserve to at least cover their costs. If you have to do a "donation only" show for legal reasons, make sure that people give you a reasonable amount, and suggest to them some sort of minimum donation. Yes, your friends need to give you money too. Just because you gave someone a ride to the show, doesn't mean they shouldn't have to pay you. In fact, they should probably give you more money anyway, ungrateful bums! However, don't go overboard. Don't try to charge the residents of people at the house you're doign a show at or anything like that.

"Thank you and goodnight":

Pretty much everyone loves sleeping. Especially people that have been traveling day in and day out. You should make sure that you can find places to stay for any touring bands that may be playing your show. These quarters need not be extravagant. I know I am pretty damn well happy with a 6′x3′ piece of carpeted floor in a room between 60 and 80 degrees. It takes suprisingly little space for a band to get a good night's sleep at your house. I've definitely seen 6-7 guys sleep together in 16″x16″ rooms without destroying any pre-existing furniture. If you don't have room at your own place of dwelling, ask your friends that live in that old 3 story house if they can house 4 or 5 people for an evening. If you have a shower, let the bands use it, and you're house will not smell so bad the next day. If for some reason you don't know of anywhere for the bands to stay, make sure you can give them enough money from the show to get a room somewhere. If you know bands are staying at you house, try not to have a party. Most of the time people are tour are fucking exhausted at the end of the day, and do not want to be kept up until 5 am with your friends being drunk and gushing local scene gossip. A lot of times bands will even need to get up early the next day and drive for a good 8 hours and will need rest.

Are you excited about the future of eating?:

Making food for bands is really a lot of fun, and GREATLY appreciated by the bands themselves. For some reason this hasn't caught on too well with people in the US, but in Europe, people that do shows pretty much always hook up bands with an awesome dinner upon arrival before the show, and a nice healthy breakfast the next morning before they leave. Nine times out of ten I have some sort of healthy, filling, tasty pot of something or another to feed bands that I am doing shows for, and I'm just a dumb guy with no money and no particularly great cooking skills. Since this guide is being written under the greater umbrella of punk rock, you can pretty much always expect to have at least 1 or 2 vegans around, so you should probably try your best to have vegan food on hand. You can also easily feed 10-15 people for $15-$25 instead of giving them $75 to fork over to pepsico when they make a run for the boarder at 1 am after your show. You can make a big bowl of pasta, cook some vegetables, and throw it in spaghetti sauce, and people will be estatic. I usually make a giant pot of chili for bands, and bring some bread, tortilla chips, and drinks. Everyone loves my chili and it's the easiest thing to make ever. In fact here's the recipe:

Ingredients-
1 box of Fantastic® Vegetarian Sloppy Joe Mix
1 30 oz. can of chili hot beans
1 15 oz. can of black beans
1 15 oz. can of chili seasoned tomato sauce
1 15 oz. can of chili seasoned diced tomatoes
1 7 oz can of corn.

Directions-
Open all of the cans. In a large pot, add about 1 cup of water and bring to a boil. Turn the heat down to low-mediums and add the sloppy joe mix, then stir it up. After you mixed the sloppy joe mix together with the water, dump all the cans of beans and tomato stuff into the pot. Stir occaisionally to keep stuff from sticking to the bottom, and serve when everything is warm. This should only take about 15 minutes or so to heat up and will serve 6-10 people. The recipe can also easily be doubled, tripled, etc., and will survive a long drive to a show from your house.

I "don't like tomatoes" and I still eat giant bowls of this stuff, and it doesn't cost much at all for any of that stuff.

So there, cook for bands damn it. It's really easy, saves everyone money, and eating a meal together really brings everyone together. If you feel like being more creative than I with your cuisine GO FOR IT! If you're really inept, you can always just order pizzas for the bands. Bringing fresh fruit is always a nice touch as well. Telling bands you will have a meal ready for them before the show is also a good way of getting those lazy bastards to show up on time.

ARE YOU READY TO ROCK!?:

I shouldn't have to really explain too much about how to make sure your show is fun. Show up with a good positive attitude, and be excited and everything should be golden if you are well prepared. There are still a few general things you can do to make shows more enjoyable for people.

-Make sure they start and end on time. No one really likes standing around not knowing what's going on at a show. It's best to let bands know exactly what time they are expected to play before the show, and tell them when they need to be there to set up. Keep things moving steadily, and make sure that bands are getting ready to play when it starts getting close to their time. Getting a show over at a decent hour is always good. It assures that all the bands you booked get to play. Especially if you are doing a house show. You don't want to have the cops coming over with a noise violation for you. Do your best to kill punk rock time.
-Make sure there is plenty of time to promote the show. It's probably best to have everything set up for your show 3-5 weeks before it's going to happen. This means you have your venue and line-up all figured out, and are ready to start flyering and telling people about your show.
-If you don't have any local (within an hour or 2 away) bands to play, you could be in a lot of trouble and maybe putting on a show is not the best idea. It's usually a pretty bad idea to do a show for more than 2 touring bands at once. Not ALWAYS, but I'd say about 90% of the time shows with too many touring bands aren't that great.
-Don't put too many bands on your show. A lot of bands don't like to sit around and wait for 6 or 7 bands to play, and end up playing at 2 am, and a lot of people don't like sitting at shows like that either. 3 or 4 is ideal, 5 is pushing it, 6 or more is usually just too much.
-Don't make touring bands play first. That's just shitty, come on now.
-Don't make touring bands play after really popular local bands. If you know most of the people coming to your show are just coming to see the local hero pop-punk band, have them close out the show.

I think that covers about everything a person may need to know when booking a show. I hope I gave out useful information, and was not too preachy. There's really no "right and wrong" way to do a show. Be creative. It keeps things fresh and fun. However, these are rules that I personally try to follow when I book shows, and things always seem to turn out pretty well for everyone involved in the process. If you can't necessarily run a flawless show, and still want to do it anyway, let the bands know exactly what's going on. Communication is essential. Bands always like to know what they're getting into before they drive for hours on end to your town. Good luck and have fun. Do your best to keep the DIY spirit alive and strong.