Friday, July 21, 2006
Hard Work
So, we announced most of the line-up for Screwball Cabaret today. As I mentioned it's been a real struggle getting stuff booked up but we've got there in the end. Doing anything in the music world takes a huge amount of work and effort. With Screwball we have a 4 person team and for various reasons each time it has tended to be a different pair of people who are doing most of the booking for an event, although with a lot of input from the others. This time has been the first time I've really felt like I've been one of the main two responsible for the line-up and it's been quite stressful. We've (eventually) got a fantastic line-up, better than I thought we were going to, but it has shown me a little bit how out of touch I've got with the local 'scene'. I used to go to a local gigs most weeks, no matter who was playing now I very rarely do. On the other hand, from the Fringe side of things we've got in touch with people like fire jugglers and installation artists that we might be able to use which has been great.
One thing I never appreciated when I was just a band member and had never got involved with anything like promoting or the Fringe Festival was how many bands there are out there who don't put in what I would consider the minimum amount of work to promote themselves or get somewhere. Getting your name and music out there is really hard work. When I was only in a band I'd figured that sending a CD to a promoter and asking for a gig was basically all that's required to get gigs but now, seeing it from the other side, I totally understand why promoters have a tendency to book bands they know or have booked before or who've played locally before. You want to book bands you have worked with, or know something about because you can prevent a lot of problems just by booking bands you know will be easy to work with, will work to promote the evening and have some fans. If you take those criteria and add that the band has to be really good to keep the reputation of your night as high as possible it makes it more difficult to book 'new' bands. That said we booked Suitable Case for Treatment to play the first Screwball because the songs on their MySpace were really great and exactly what we were looking for. On the other extreme, I am using one demo I was sent as a coaster for my tea mug.
It annoys me sometimes with the Fringe Festival how few people are prepared to muck in and help with the organisation compared to how many people are saying "great idea, can we have a gig?". I've been doing a moderate amount compared to someone like Luella our Project Manager who's put in a heroic workload, but all it'd really need is 2 or 3 extra willing volunteers to do even the small amount I did and we'd be able to lessen her load and really expand. The amount of events this year is significantly up on last year, and we've got some great events but I think that's going to have to be a focus for next year. How do we get people involved nice and early, in areas we haven't covered this year and how do we inspire them to really get involved. It's amazing looking at the list of events now and seeing what we've achieved (hey, I did a little bit at least...).
One thing I never appreciated when I was just a band member and had never got involved with anything like promoting or the Fringe Festival was how many bands there are out there who don't put in what I would consider the minimum amount of work to promote themselves or get somewhere. Getting your name and music out there is really hard work. When I was only in a band I'd figured that sending a CD to a promoter and asking for a gig was basically all that's required to get gigs but now, seeing it from the other side, I totally understand why promoters have a tendency to book bands they know or have booked before or who've played locally before. You want to book bands you have worked with, or know something about because you can prevent a lot of problems just by booking bands you know will be easy to work with, will work to promote the evening and have some fans. If you take those criteria and add that the band has to be really good to keep the reputation of your night as high as possible it makes it more difficult to book 'new' bands. That said we booked Suitable Case for Treatment to play the first Screwball because the songs on their MySpace were really great and exactly what we were looking for. On the other extreme, I am using one demo I was sent as a coaster for my tea mug.
It annoys me sometimes with the Fringe Festival how few people are prepared to muck in and help with the organisation compared to how many people are saying "great idea, can we have a gig?". I've been doing a moderate amount compared to someone like Luella our Project Manager who's put in a heroic workload, but all it'd really need is 2 or 3 extra willing volunteers to do even the small amount I did and we'd be able to lessen her load and really expand. The amount of events this year is significantly up on last year, and we've got some great events but I think that's going to have to be a focus for next year. How do we get people involved nice and early, in areas we haven't covered this year and how do we inspire them to really get involved. It's amazing looking at the list of events now and seeing what we've achieved (hey, I did a little bit at least...).
# posted by Mike @ 12:14 
