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Post by johneppstein on Sept 17, 2017 19:31:56 GMT -6
Starting over means performing in living rooms and lofts. Bill Graham created the current live music business out of living room bands in around five years! The thing is that you've got to begin at the begining which most people aren't willing to do. Until you can reliably fill a living room you have no business in larger venues. The problem with this is that in many locations there arer very few lofts left that have not been torn down, converted to yuppie condos, or both. And the problem with living rooms is yuppie neighbors making noise complaints. The odds of a real grassroots scene of that nature coming out of a city like San Francisco are slim to none. My guess is that it's about the same in NYC. City noise ordinances and the local police are a major impediment.
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Post by yotonic on Sept 17, 2017 19:38:13 GMT -6
If you're in an "A market" you are competing with large corporate interests like AEG/Live Nation and landlords with large massive real estate holdings. I disagree. If you're in an "A-Market" the big guys aren't really interested in competing with you. What they WILL be interested in is cherry-picking your top acts for openers. You have to be in it for the lopve of music, not the love of money. If you're in it for the love of money, get the HELL off my lawn! No. You have have totally missed the point. You need to build and support a local scene, not rely on outsiders. No I haven't missed the point. I am in the venue business. And while I appreciate the good vibes of your opinion you are not well informed on the reality of the venue business.
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ericn
Temp
Balance Engineer
Posts: 14,937
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Post by ericn on Sept 17, 2017 19:39:14 GMT -6
Starting small scale means an evolutionary process, not sure we are patient enough Bob. And so the industry dies. Greed. Big greed, little greed, it's all greed and it's no way to build a music industry. Love of MUSIC, not love of MONEY. Not disagreeing, but greed and money are what makes the world go round and round.
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Post by Bob Olhsson on Sept 17, 2017 20:39:39 GMT -6
I'm not talking about a venue business. I'm talking about living rooms owned by the artists, their families, friends and fans.
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Post by jazznoise on Sept 18, 2017 3:25:58 GMT -6
I'm not talking about a venue business. I'm talking about living rooms owned by the artists, their families, friends and fans. Some of my friends play a huge amount of house shows. We've had a band from the UK before who did a house show for us - made more than they did in some venue dates, despite being sold out. Also no one filthy drunk, it was all ages, there was food. It's quite big in the underground, but mostly for acoustic music. LA and NYC aren't going to have that happen? That just means they wont get shows. There's plenty of people, artists will move on - seriously.
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Post by thehightenor on Sept 18, 2017 3:46:51 GMT -6
When I look at how my two boys (aged 13 and 16) view and value music and how I viewed and valued music at their age .... well it's not at all difficult for me to see how this industry is in decline both in cultural significance and also income streams.
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Post by Bob Olhsson on Sept 18, 2017 9:02:06 GMT -6
Success in music and entertainment is all about creating relationships. That's easy in a living room.
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Post by rocinante on Sept 18, 2017 18:01:08 GMT -6
I don't know who you guys hang out with but I have gone to (and still go to) dozens and dozens of house shows in New York City and San Francisco and here in Minneapolis and Chicago all the time. It may have dwindled in the past few years from 3-5 a week to 1 or 2 but they're going on all the time. Some of them are really really awesome and you can catch some real quality bands some of them the cops show up. I actually enjoy playing house shows a lot as I am level with the crowd (stages are boring) and my bands belly dancers make us a lot more money passing the bucket around then they do at clubs. Usually the house having the show lets the community know and keeps things super respectful.
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 18, 2017 22:22:17 GMT -6
I disagree. If you're in an "A-Market" the big guys aren't really interested in competing with you. What they WILL be interested in is cherry-picking your top acts for openers. You have to be in it for the love of music, not the love of money. If you're in it for the love of money, get the HELL off my lawn! No. You have have totally missed the point. You need to build and support a local scene, not rely on outsiders. No I haven't missed the point. I am in the venue business. And while I appreciate the good vibes of your opinion you are not well informed on the reality of the venue business. The "venue" business? What sort of venue would that be? In what size market? My experience is in San Francisco, where there was a definitely tiered system, back in the days when Bill Graham was top dog, and there was definitely plenty of room for small and medium venues which functioned as "farm clubs" (to use a baseball metaphor) for Bill's upper level operations. If you want, I can go into detail, but at the moment I'm ill and don't have a whole lot of energy, so I'm not going to go into it now.
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 18, 2017 22:26:32 GMT -6
And so the industry dies. Greed. Big greed, little greed, it's all greed and it's no way to build a music industry. Love of MUSIC, not love of MONEY. Not disagreeing, but greed and money are what makes the world go round and round. Yeah, but if money is your goal there are an infinite number of better ways to do it.
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Post by yotonic on Sept 18, 2017 23:27:48 GMT -6
No I haven't missed the point. I am in the venue business. And while I appreciate the good vibes of your opinion you are not well informed on the reality of the venue business. The "venue" business? What sort of venue would that be? In what size market? My experience is in San Francisco, where there was a definitely tiered system, back in the days when Bill Graham was top dog, and there was definitely plenty of room for small and medium venues which functioned as "farm clubs" (to use a baseball metaphor) for Bill's upper level operations. If you want, I can go into detail, but at the moment I'm ill and don't have a whole lot of energy, so I'm not going to go into it now. Yeah a lot has changed in the music business and some things are still the same. I own a 1000 cap venue in western New York. Like most medium sized markets we have a player at each tier, 5000 cap, 1000 cap, and a few smaller 300 cap rooms that also serve as bars or craft breweries etc. We all still do it for the love of the business/music because it is a grind for all of us to stay as busy as we would like. The smaller rooms that are feeder rooms struggle, because there's not a steady enough flow (3 days a week) of quality acts routing through to keep more than the best 1 or 2 of them afloat and most of them survive primarily as bars. And it's harder and harder to get people to come out to see up and coming artists. For a larger room like me I have to book every decent act that comes through from Mastodon to Brothers Osborne, to Victor Wooten. And I have to put the smaller developing artists out of WME and the other big agencies "somewhere" so that I have a relationship with the artist down the road should they develop into an act that could sell 1000 tickets. And there's never enough meat left on the bone, it's a super competitive business and it requires a lot of money to pay the bills. In the "A" markets like Philadelphia and New York you can have a couple of larger rooms battling it out and staying afloat but when you move out of the City and hit the routings, most medium sized cities like a Buffalo can only support one viable tour stop. And in markets like DC and NY you have AEG and LiveNation sinking large corporate dollars into venues (Fillmore Philly) and buying up the tours as well. It's like competing with a casino for a booking, they have "silly" money to overpay guarantees and drive the independent guy out. It's hard for all of us, the artists, the tour personnel, the venue, no one is doing it for the love of money today. If they are they won't be around long, not when they see how little money there is!! LOL And I forgot to mention that most of the large arena venues in medium cities keep busier with sports because there are fewer and fewer recording artists today who can fill an arena, generally it's legacy artists, and cheesey pop stars. The next day Disney on Ice, then Monster Trucks and the night after that a hockey game..
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 19, 2017 11:12:50 GMT -6
The "venue" business? What sort of venue would that be? In what size market? My experience is in San Francisco, where there was a definitely tiered system, back in the days when Bill Graham was top dog, and there was definitely plenty of room for small and medium venues which functioned as "farm clubs" (to use a baseball metaphor) for Bill's upper level operations. If you want, I can go into detail, but at the moment I'm ill and don't have a whole lot of energy, so I'm not going to go into it now. Yeah a lot has changed in the music business and some things are still the same. I own a 1000 cap venue in western New York. Like most medium sized markets we have a player at each tier, 5000 cap, 1000 cap, and a few smaller 300 cap rooms that also serve as bars or craft breweries etc. We all still do it for the love of the business/music because it is a grind for all of us to stay as busy as we would like. The smaller rooms that are feeder rooms struggle, because there's not a steady enough flow (3 days a week) of quality acts routing through to keep more than the best 1 or 2 of them afloat and most of them survive primarily as bars. And it's harder and harder to get people to come out to see up and coming artists. For a larger room like me I have to book every decent act that comes through from Mastodon to Brothers Osborne, to Victor Wooten. And I have to put the smaller developing artists out of WME and the other big agencies "somewhere" so that I have a relationship with the artist down the road should they develop into an act that could sell 1000 tickets. And there's never enough meat left on the bone, it's a super competitive business and it requires a lot of money to pay the bills. In the "A" markets like Philadelphia and New York you can have a couple of larger rooms battling it out and staying afloat but when you move out of the City and hit the routings, most medium sized cities like a Buffalo can only support one viable tour stop. And in markets like DC and NY you have AEG and LiveNation sinking large corporate dollars into venues (Fillmore Philly) and buying up the tours as well. It's like competing with a casino for a booking, they have "silly" money to overpay guarantees and drive the independent guy out. It's hard for all of us, the artists, the tour personnel, the venue, no one is doing it for the love of money today. If they are they won't be around long, not when they see how little money there is!! LOL And I forgot to mention that most of the large arena venues in medium cities keep busier with sports because there are fewer and fewer recording artists today who can fill an arena, generally it's legacy artists, and cheesey pop stars. The next day Disney on Ice, then Monster Trucks and the night after that a hockey game.. I don't see much conflict there with what I said...
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Post by yotonic on Sept 19, 2017 18:41:41 GMT -6
Not looking for conflict, just sharing my experience. Take it or leave it.
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