| Re: Organising a gig? Avoid this band!
As stated, £120 for a 13th Note show would be ridiculous. As a general rule it's always worth reading something before passing comment on it.
A lot of people have a knee-jerk reaction when it comes to gigs, but when you look at the reality of the situation things become a little more clear.
On the shows where we ask for a guarantee we have either four or five bands playing half hour sets. This is dictated by time constraints, i.e.. the venue's curfew when they need to kick us out to get their club night set up. This generates between £480 and £600 in income. Income does not equal profits.
A promoter has certain direct costs incurred in any event. These might include venue hire, gear hire, promo materials, ticket printing, booking reps, gig reps/stage managers. Direct costs on the shows where we ask this guarantee are usually in the region of £420. We try to stick to this, sometimes it gets pushed up a little, e.g. if you want to run a 14+ gig your venue hire fee will typically go up.
This immediately drops the "profit" from the night to £180. That's assuming we can get five bands on the bill.
Promoters also have indirect costs to consider. These are the kind of things that any business incurs including travel expenses, electricity, toner for the photocopier, insurances, postage, stationary, accountant's fees, business banking fees, etc. etc. etc. As a business grows these costs only increase. All of these eat into profits from shows.
If anyone can find a business model where you don't have to pay direct or indirect costs, I'd advise you to exploit it to its full potential. You're obviously very clever indeed.
If anyone thinks that promoters don't work hard, I suggest you offer your services as an employee to us, or Twisted Ape, or CPL, or DF. It will soon become apparent that promoting shows is a labour intensive, time consuming and goddamn expensive way to (hopefully) make any money. If you don't have passion, commitment and drive then I guarantee you'll get burned out or lose an awful lot of money quicker than you thought was possible. Pull a couple of 36 hour working days like I did for Sunday night's show and tell me if promoters do "fuck all." | 
