show etiquette

between that and the 'press' people who kept shoving past to shoot the show right in front of us (there is no special barricade or anything),

These are even worse than the obnoxious "passionate" guys...

what killed me is one of them didn't have any kind of quality equipment and was getting terrible angles so I'm like 'wtf is this *really* for'?

"...and the crowd were turning so you hear on the video they were whistling and it got very uncomfortable in the room."
Read more at http://www.nme.com/news/finley-quaye/86898#gZdRhYIhUYR3gz4L.99

Is whistling bad etiquette at concerts? I thought it signaled approval.

What kind of fucking show starts at 9pm sharp?

Quaye has encountered various problems in recent years. In 2012, he was found guilty of aggravated assault. The singer also admitted possession of cannabis in 2003.

What a troubled soul.

"I am sorry, I will not sit here and pollute my venue with bullshit"

is this guy the Yngwie of promoters or

"And I considered that there could be magic, so that we would get him on."

Am I the only one thinking the promoter was rather brave and OTM for pulling the show? If you watch the video, you can see why.

lol definitely: https://youtu.be/FcdA_4FlKuw

4:13
"I suffer from alcoholism and stuff"
"Woohoo!"

hahaha. I wonder how long that riff had been going before the video begins?

It says in YouTube description: video is last 5 minutes of 30 odd minute set.

What kind of fucking show starts at 9pm sharp?

― everything, Tuesday, July 21, 2015 6:40 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Uh, when do gigs usually start?

Finley Quay's second album stiffed because he's such a dick that he pissed off everyone he worked with at the label, at distribution, in radio plugging, in his management team, that no one wanted to work with him anymore. So a promoter pulling him offstage 20 years after he had a bona fide hit - not a surprise.

xpost. Last three shows I was at (Young Fathers, Owen Pallett, Spriing) all came on close to 11:30pm maybe? Maybe this is a regional thing.

an american thing, yes.

uk band shows still finish around 11 due to licencing laws. which usually means a 8 pm start.

Depends on the venue; the Cavern in Exeter was(is? I'm too old to go there now!) licensed until 1am or later as a nightclub, so bands would go on at 11pm when I went to shows there.

last night, at Rockstar Mayhem Fest, the show was so undersold that they decided to make it a General Admission show. This means that everybody who bought lawn tickets were upgraded to seats/pit, etc.

I bought a pit ticket, noticed this, and shrugged. Another fan blew up on social media and is publicly and loudly demanding a refund of the difference cos she paid premium price.

idk, what are thoughts on this? my thought is the promoter doesn't owe the fan anything if he/she got exactly what she paid for, and that this type of thing happens all the time (I got upgraded to a lower bowl seat at a Meek Mill show when I purchased upper for the same reason). Live Nation almost always offers a "pay $10 and upgrade to a seat" deal the day of for shows that haven't sold out, too. It seems to be arguing "other people should have paid MORE, so reimburse me!".

while I wouldn't argue with someone giving me back money, it seems a pretty o_O demand to make if your seats weren't downgraded.

(note the purchase of said pit ticket was months in advance - I didn't buy day of or anything, and neither did the fan that is complaining)

Yeah, feel like this is sorta like if you buy something that's 30% off and next week you go back and they've knocked them down to 50% off... that's the way it goes, and you got the benefit of securing the purchase early, which probably was worth something to you.

i dunno, i kind of empathise but i wouldn't throw a shit-fit. if i'd spent significantly more than the people who got upgraded for free, i'd kind of feel a bit annoyed.

My main source of annoyance would be my area suddenly being way more crowded than it would have been otherwise, more so than the cost.

people get upgraded on flights

eat the rich

NA that I could see - in this case, it was so undersold that the pit was like 40% full, so it didn't really make a diff.

Doctor that was exactly my thought - I got the security of knowing I had a pit ticket on the day tickets went on sale (also paid extra for a 'souveneir' ticket). so some other people spent less. who cares.

yeah, if the pit wasn't even full after they let everyone else in, then it's hard to fault the venue.

side note: Atlanta heat in July is nothing to fuck with. I almost passed out during the first set and my shirt was covered in a slime that, while technically was just sweat, felt like the shit in the subway in Ghostbusters 2 probably felt.

http://insider.ticketmaster.com/going-to-a-concert-alone-tips/?c=TMSM_fb_us&sf12756268=1

Real difficult to enjoy a show when every 30 seconds some asshole and his entourage is trying to squeeze by you. This must be the eye of the needle thing they talked about in the Bible.

Ruined Anthrax's set for me.

what's your alls opinion about requesting to know when a specific band goes onstage? Obviously this applies mostly to shows at smaller venues, and in this instance, I'm not talking about local shows, I'm talking about national touring acts with local openers.

lots of people, me included, have asked. one promoter often posts the set times in his FB invites. many local promoters here won't give them out. One has stated the reason being "they want to promote everybody supporting all of the bands". I can appreciate what they're trying to do, to make it worth the opener's while, but I didn't buy the ticket to see the local openers...and, being a frequent concertgoer, I've often seen the locals enough to know whether I like them or not. Additionally, I have a hard time sitting through 5 sets (my mind wanders, I get tired, I drink more due to boredom, etc). it depends on my mood - some nights I do stick around for the openers, but on nights where I just left work and am mentally gassed, I often only have the energy for two bands. seems kind of lame to be held hostage to watch a band simply because I guessed wrong when they might go on.

But, I do know they want to prevent situations where the openers play and nobody is around to watch them. they also aren't under any obligation to give that information to me, either.

but sometimes I also need to know because I might have other plans earlier in that night and need to know if the headliner is going to go on before I can get there (in that case they're often more accommodating).

I always appreciate it very much when promoters post set times. And I would bet that it's beneficial for them to do so overall. Posting that information allows people who are on the fence about going, due either to time constraints or fatigue concerns, to make an informed choice. That choice could go either way, of course, but my hunch is that you'll get more people deciding to go based on that information than deciding to stay home.

And even if some people do stay home, that could still be good for the promoter in the long term. If a concertgoer ends up having to leave without catching the headliner's full set (because they have work in the morning, or have to catch the last bus/train, etc.), or shows up too late to catch the whole thing due to earlier commitments, then they might well develop some resentment for the promoter/venue and be less likely to come to shows in the future. It may actually be in the promoter's interests to let them know they should skip this one.

I would love it if all shows posted show times. I had to really badger a venue to let me know that a band was going on at 11.30pm. If I'd gotten there at 8pm I'd have gone home fuming by 10.30 (was heavily pregnant at the time). It definitely made me wary of going to that venue in future without finding out times.

I don't give out set times on the rare occasions I set up a show with multiple artists. Most of my shows as a promoter are single artist evenings -- if there is more than one artist on the bill, either they are touring together or it's a show where all the artists and I agree that the bill works as a whole evening. Frankly, I have to fight harder for and am a little more dependent on the goodwill of the artists than the punter who just wants one out of three acts in a three hour evening. Then again, I am not putting together pop shows and am doing them in theatres and halls that aren't primarily loud stinky places.

I get the impression from upthread that US shows may have more variable timings than UK ones? B/c I get a bit annoyed by the badgering of promoters for exact set times - really "there are 3/4 bands, this is the running order, doors are at 8.00 and curfew is at 11.00" is all you need to work out roughly when you should be there, any extra information will probably turn out to be wrong due to amps blowing up or touring band getting stuck on the motorway or anything else that could possibly go wrong. If it's an early show or a late show then it's essential that the promoter tells you this (like, if the doors open at 9pm and you have one act who will go on at 1am... yeah, people need to know this). Also most people assume no bands go on until half an hour after doors, so if you know you've got to get things started before that, then give warning.

Mostly my annoyance is due to a certain sort of entitlement that permeates through the typical requester's post, though. Actually having full information can be great and useful. It's just the posts all reek of "I'm only going to see my friend's band, fuck the rest of your show and all your effort, you will cater for my every whim". It reminds me of the guy who tried to barter the door price with me because he only wanted to see the first band b/c it was his mate. NO, FUCK YOU.

US shows vary wildly. Doors could open at 8 and nobody goes on til 10 and the last act isn't done til 1:30 or whatever. I hear where TWU is coming from, but I also think kinder and others make great points - it's not unreasonable for people in all kinds of circumstances to want to be able to plan their evenings a little more precisely than a five-hour block standing on a hard floor in a loud dark place. I don't know how to reconcile that with not wanting to screw the first act, who in a three-act bill probably "needs" the show more than anybody else and will obviously be the first to get trimmed if it's a completely a la carte kind of situation. I'd like to imagine JRN is right that in the end more business and goodwill would come to the promoter who makes all information available, but even if that is the case, it doesn't help the no-name local opener playing to an empty room.

I think the most useful might just to be extremely clear about when doors open and when the first act is really, no bullshit, supposed to go on. Let people do the math for the rest if they want to.

emil.y otm, this is what normally happens (and I quite like when you get to a venue and set times are posted up). The 11.30 show time was a bar in the UK though (not a typical 'gig venue' but does put on a lot of shows. The same bar, I turned up for another gig at like 9pm and the headliner had already been on.
I went to see a support act in the US and thought I'd stick around for the headliner, luckily I asked when they'd be on because it was like 1am.

If this was typical I'd think long and hard about buying tickets for shows. I think as long as you have rough start and finish times for the whole thing that's enough - it's when this is lacking I get pissed off - and people on really tight schedules should be able to find out about a specific act.

I contact the FIRST band on the bill via either Twitter or Facebook and ask what time they go on. They will almost always answer before showtime (I think they know for sure after soundcheck) and just count out from there. In Seattle most shows are over by 12:30 in bars/clubs and much sooner in large venues.

All I got to say is dive bar metal band bills kinda suck as they always want like five bands or more to play in a night. You got to have some real mental and alcohol constitution to hang through 5-6 hours of death metal with an odd hard rock or doom metal band thrown in and still be wanting to throw down at 2am. The shit that really sucks is that the guys that live an hour or two out of town get "headlining" bill which means you are playing to a couple freaks and the sound guys dog while the local guys are home playing Halo, smoking bowls and eating nachos when your dumb ass gets to the stage.

Otm

I hear you. I just think I'm doing more for everyone involved by doing well-thought-out, my personal guarantee that nobody sucks shows at non-shithole venues than I would by telling people that Yob is on at 1:48 am unless Jimmy's Chicken Shack goes long but hey there are $1 drafts all night.

i've always wondered - in the US it seems de rigueur for gigs to go on significantly past midnight. is this just in cities with reliable night-time public transport? in most of the US cities i've visited, public transport's not that great in the day let alone at night. or do people just not drink so they can drive? or do they shell out for taxis?

(always want to know the stage times myself, i'm aware they might not be exact but people have lives to plan that might not involve drinking crap overpriced beer in scuzzy gig venues to the sound of bands they don't care about) (or alternatively if i assume the headliner's on at the usual 9-9.30pm time in the UK, i don't want to get there to find they actually started at 8pm)

I was actually hoping a promoter would respond to my query cos I was genuinely curious. I mean I get it - you have to do right by the bands you book or they won't want to book. for me I just have an issue sitting through that much music in one night.

I think that's why I prefer festivals where I can pick and choose.

or do people just not drink so they can drive? or do they shell out for taxis?

no they pretty much just drive drunk

when I went to Welcome to Rockville in Jacksonville this year, I was having trouble finding my car, and I was walking along the curb. Cop that's directing traffic was like "yo man I wouldn't be walking in the street like that, most of these drivers are drunker than Hell".

I was like well then I wouldn't be much safer on the sidewalk, would I?

In DC most (if not all) venues post set times on twitter. Very helpful.

Promoters here don't post set times pretty much ever, and they delay start times waiting for people to show up, which gets into a vicious circle of people not showing up til later and later because bands start later and later. Sorry, fuckers, headliner starting at 1:30 on a weekend is hard to stomach; 1:30 on a weeknight is impossible. i've pretty much stopped going out to shows now. WHERE ARE MY SLIPPERS & BATHROBE?

yeah where's my bathrobe, good question

Are promoters/venues not informing the public of lineup changes becoming a new thing? tonight I was gonna go to a local metal show cos there was an interesting death metal band called Masticator from West Palm coming. So I get there and they ask me who I'm there to see and after I give their name they're like "oh, they...actually won't be here tonight, they bailed". the FB event from the venue still had their name in the title, and the venue had been making posts about the show throughout the day, but all they did was go in and update the show description to remove the name of the band that bailed with no other comment (and then deleted my note warning other concertgoers that they wouldn't be there).

a few months earlier, I went to a touring festival show where the promoters/venue made no comment about two bands that would not be showing up that day and one angry fan posted a seething rebuke on their page as he had driven for hours to just see those two and then promptly peaced and went the fuck back home.

on the one hand, I can see that with festival shows (even if I disagree w/ not making the announcement), esp when the no-shows aren't the headliners, as you always run the risk of not getting the full lineup. but when the 'headliner' of the local show bails, what's with not saying anything and trying to sneak one past people?

the thing that has been frustrating me about shows for the last few years are the steady stream of rude fucks who decide they deserve to shove by you to get to the front even though you staked your spot out an hour ago.

to the point where I tend to pick shows at places where I know the layout makes that a non-issue. i have mild claustrophobia, I can't focus on a show if I'm constantly being banged into and have to turn my head and let you by. if I decide to tell you to fuck off and block you or tell you to sod off, that's another thing taking me away from the concert I paid for, even though it makes me feel better. one dude banged hard into my shoulder and i nailed him in the head with my still semi-full beer can a few years ago.

so I usually wind up either finding a spot where there's not much traffic, or get up front if I'm early enough. it's not an issue at 98% of the shows I go to, but those 2% frustrate me to the point where I can't enjoy myself.

is this just a 'me' thing or does this aggravate anybody else? I'm not talking about someone who went to take a piss and is coming back to the spot their friend saved them, I mean people who legit are latecomers who want to trudge their way to the front when there's no feasible way to get through and use your body as Jenga pieces.

tale as old as time ime

beauty and the beatdown