Hi everyone,

I hope you don't mind me using the forum to ask for any suggestions and advice you may have. Knowing that between you the Global Villagers have hosted EliteFest & Xmas by the Cut, not to mention helping to keep bulldozers off the green fields of Sussex I'd really welcome your input.

I have taken on the running of a monthly gig - nominally an acoustic night, but that doesn't have to be rigid - here in Leicester. This follows on from the gig David Francis did here a few weeks ago when although attendance wasn't the greatest, the venue manager was really impressed with the quality of the bill (even allowing for the fact I played too!!). We're initially going with a run of five nights - with more to come if successful - and slowly but surely the slots are filling up and it looks like we're going to have five great nights of music.

My question, I guess, is this. We're running the gigs as charity nights, and knowing how successful you guys have been in running gigs and projects to raise money for good causes, I wondered how you went about generating publicity and interest in those events? We're up and running on MySpace and Facebook, have got listing in the Leicester Mercury and on the Local FM "Whats on.." page, and there's a JustGiving page too. What would be great and really appreciated please is any tips and advice on how to turn "Mmm, sounds interesting" into "I'll drag myself down there, check it out and give a few quid to the cause". From my years on the acoustic circuit - and as the response to David's gig showed - I've got the contacts to put on a decent bill...just not as sure on how to get the punters in to listen to it!

Cheers and thanks in advance for any help and advice

Ian

www.justgiving.com/Ian-Babington

Hi Ian, as a Global Villager who gets stuck in you are welcome to post any time on here mate. getting bums on seats is always a bloody big problem..
1st thing to do is for the 5 gig run choose a charity as they should provide you with banners promo stuff etc, if you wanna email, me the best person to talk to is George Tortoise he is a guru on this stuff. I think you have covered most things but dont rely on myspazz face book too much as most people cant be bothered even if they live next door to the venue.

In the past we have used good old fashioned flyers which are handed out around the venue / town in advance to people that look like they support local music. Also word of mouth is good, try to build up a vibe, also talk to the artists it is also in their interests to get people there, too many just turn up without doing fuck all from their end and then moan at the promotor because there aint many people there, if there not prepared to do a bit of graft ( dont put them on the bill ) Also as Moll just screamed in my ear get a very bright orange B & Q bucket 99p and get someone to stand at the exit at the end of the night and cop em for their loose change, Moll excells at this and has raised a fair bit this way on the night, as an example CBTC 2 around 400 people, but Moll had we think nearly 200 quid in the bucket by the time everyone left, top and bottom line get em to part with loose change it all mounts up.

If we think of anything else we will post, good luck and well done

M & J x

Hi Ian, John’s advice is sound! mainly because I've had the pleasure of working with the looney duo on a number of charity projects. My interest here is purely a technical and logistic approach having worked in stage management and sound reinforcement.
You need to be able to put on a smooth professional show especially if there are going to be artist changes during the event(s) There is nothing worse than an audience being kept waiting in silence whilst you frantically change over from one band to another, a compere is essential and a prime opportunity to relieve the punters of cash while the sound guy gets on with dealing with the inflated egos of the acts, lol!

If I can help you guys with anything techy then please just email or ring (John's got my number)...good luck!

Evening all!

Thanks for sending me so much sound advice and so many good ideas so quickly, its really appreciated. Have got some posters done which are up in the venue and around, but will hopefully get out in next few nights to hit the suburbs. Loving the bucket idea too! Will contact the charity themselves too to see what promo stuff they have.

Mark, our first night is all solos and duos so should be Ok with the sound for those, but in a few month's time I've got a 5 piece bluegrass band with fiddles, whistles and banjos to contend with - so have your phone on!!

Cheers again - thanks,

Ian

Hi Ian.

Getting people to come to an event like this, well, nights like this are run down the Miner's Welfare down by where I live from time to time and this is a case of posters in the local shops (because apparently we look after our own,) and word of mouth. Then again it tends to be pantomines and fundraising nights, I could get on my high horse here about the need for such nights where, for example, a kid who needs a wheelchair should as a citizen of the UK should have one provided for by it's government, but that's not going to help...

Well, there's the whole bums on seats thing, I'll get on my high horse about that instead. Granted the nearest we've ever done to a charity gig with Crashpoint is the Ellfest we did about a year ago. We had about 40 people watching us then, of which about 15 of them were there to watch us. I don't think we've ever pulled a bigger crowd than that, and that's after a year. We really do struggle to get people to gigs, for example we did a gig last week with Little Sam at the Royal Oak in Amblecote, John and Moll you'll probably be familiar with this place as I more or less drove right by your old house trying to find my way home! And Sam gave us 25 tickets to sell. As a band, we sold 6 tickets and 1 on the door. 2 out of those 6 didn't even turn up. We tried, we really did, but all my drummer could get was 'ah, Stourbridge is too far [from Walsall.]' Yeah guys, there's this thing called a train, and if Cj can get his ass down to Stourbridge the rest of you can! Most of my singer's friends wouldn't come because we'd played the Varsity the night before, a funny thing to say really because no one turned up to that either. My bass player's friends promised to buy a ticket when they had the money together and then mysteriously remembered something they were doing that night in the week running up to the gig. It was £3 for fuck's sake! Fair play to my Mom, my sister, and my friends Jenn and Zoe for turning up to this one, they had a nice time. But even then, I shouldn't have had a problem sellling another 2...

Nonetheless, getting selling 5 tickets was an all-time record for me so Ian to move this post in the direction of relevance, I would suggest printing off some sort of ticket, don't rely on people to remember to come because trust me, they won't.

I guess this sounds really negative but a year's worth of gigs has made me very cynical...

Hi Matt....chin up mate!!

Thanks for the ideas chap. Definitely sounds like for all the myspaces & facebooks in the world, good old fashioned flyering and postering are the way to go - I'm off work tomorrow, and I'm heading off into deepest Leicester with my posters and my Blu-Tac to get into some shop windows. I like the ticket idea too...its a good way, especially for charity, of getting the commitment (& money) upfront - thanks for a great idea.

On a different note chap - don't get too cynical, let an old git tell you a true story. I first met my dear lady wife back in the mid-90s at a venue in Leicester called The Shed, on a night when I was playing there in a duo called Evangeline. Mrs B is a nurse at the big hospital in Leicester and went into work and was saying how we met. One of the nursing assistants was a lady called Pat, and Mandy came back and told me how she said that her lad was in a band (like I was), and they played the Shed too, and lots of other places like it around this way. Sometimes hardly anyone came along (same as with us), but he and his mates loved doing it, they were getting better the more they did it, and who knew where it would take them? Fast forward 13 years....Mrs B is still at the hospital. Evangeline never became famous, but Pete and I have played some great gigs (& some not so great), have been each others' best man, have written some half decent tunes and a fair few grotty ones, still go out there as solo,duo or band in various guises and love doing it and will keep on doing it. What happened to Pat? She's not working with Mand anymore - did I forget to mention her son's name was Tom. His band's name Kasabian. Keep going Matt - worst that can happen is that you're me and Pete, with lots of good stories to remind each other of when you've had a beer or ten. Best that cn happen...who knows?!?

Thanks for that Ian, I need a boost every now and then! A friend of a friend has a similar story about the Long Blondes...