Gigging bands that don't own their own PA

[Steve A]

My band (technically a tribute, although I hate that word) play relatively infrequently but when we do it tends to be festivals or our own shows at established music venues. I realise we're fortunate in that respect.

We don't own a PA system. Because of the type of shows we do we've never needed it and none of us have the appetite for compromising our reputation by doing things like mixing ourselves from the stage through a cheap PA we can just about fit in the car and so on (been there, done that, never again thank you). It's not our days jobs and investing at the required level to allow us to do a band in a box type show and achieve the quality we would want, plus associated storage and transport costs, doesn't stack up financially.

So, that being the case, we don't actively court the private party / weddings market and so on. Nevertheless we are increasingly getting enquiries about these sort of things. It's obvious that when I try and give people a cost estimate there is clearly a general expectation that bands like us can - or should be able to - rock up in a van and put on the whole production, even though we never advertise that.

I'm just curious if I am alone in this or if other bands at our level have similar dilemmas and how they deal with it. It's actually quite hard to find a nice way of saying 'sorry it's not worth our while' to people who seen us and want to hire us. Or are we doggedly out of step with the scene by not providing a band in a box service?

[TheChorltonWheelie]

My band (technically a tribute, although I hate that word)

I MD several tributes, I'm not embarrassed to play in tributes as at least I'm gigging and performing, rather than complaining from the comfort of a non-gigging keyboard at home. No need to apologise.

It's actually quite hard to find a nice way of saying 'sorry it's not worth our while' to people who seen us and want to hire us. Or are we doggedly out of step with the scene by not providing a band in a box service?

Yes, I'd say it's slightly out of step as most of the other tributes I know have their own PA (or access to a PA when needed). We do most of the big festivals, and quite a few venues where PA is provided, but we still have our own PA/lighting rig as I'd say 50-60% of our gigs we need to be self-sufficient. If you don't want those gigs, fair enough, but the vast majority of these are £1000+ net to the band.

I own the band PA/lighting, which I then charge a set fee to the band each time it's used, as well as doing the occasional dry hire, and although it doesn't make me money, it does at least mean we can operate in the upper tier of bands/tributes with regards to the show we put on. A nice PA doesn't have to be expensive, it's not as foolish as it sounds to have your own rig.

[Steve A]

I MD several tributes, I'm not embarrassed to play in tributes as at least I'm gigging and performing, rather than complaining from the comfort of a non-gigging keyboard at home. No need to apologise.

Don't get me wrong, I'm actually very proud of what we/I do and I'm much happier doing good versions of songs that someone else has written in front of a large paying audience rather than mediocre ones we wrote ourselves in front of a handful of bored friends and family! But we don't do the pretend to be another band thing which I think is what a lot of people tend to associate with the word tribute. "Covers band with ideas above their station" is perhaps a better description, but there isn't a word for that yet!

Yes, I'd say it's slightly out of step as most of the other tributes I know have their own PA (or access to a PA when needed)....

I appreciate your comments and what you say is more or less what I was expecting to hear. We're in Edinburgh and I think location works against us to an extent. If it's a local show, its easy enough to hire a rig and we have a good local sound engineer who helps us arrange it all. But it's not cheap - I don't know whether that's an Edinburgh thing or not (and you can effectively forget hiring anything or anyone during the festival season). We occasionally do shows in the Yorkshire area for one of the festival promoters and he is able to regularly get a decent rig plus crew for £200. I wish it were that simple for us! Up here, you'll struggle to get change out of £500 for that, and often more if you need lights. Plus delivery and pick-up (we don't have a van, and pick up is usually the following day which often means being back at the venue in the morning and the problems of leaving hire gear on site overnight which no-one will insure you for) and so on.... so it very quickly gets to the point where it's really hard to make much profit once you start throwing all that in.

It's even tougher when we get enquiries for gigs down south - travel times are such that it's almost impossible to get to a gig in time to rig it before doors open (plus the additional costs of travel and accommodation). It's so hard to bring it all in at price that flies for anything but the larger events. And I have to be really careful about that when most of these gigs oblige us to take at least a day off work to do them.

It's interesting and useful to hear what you say about the general level of profit you're getting per show. We'd be happy to reliably clear a profit of £1k per gig, and lots of fellow music types often tell us we could easily charge much more but it's proving hard to do so in reality. Quote much more than that, and people usually walk. That's actually one of the reasons why we don't actively target these sort of bookings any more unless the organisers are prepared to take that side on, because the amount of time I spend scoping and quoting for shows, pa hire etc, negotiating accommodation expenses and so on for gigs that never happen is, to be blunt, time more profitably spent on my own business.

This is perhaps wandering into areas better covered in the Music Business forum...

But it was good to hear about your experience. Lots for me to reflect on!

[TheChorltonWheelie]

Quote much more than that, and people usually walk. That's actually one of the reasons why we don't actively target these sort of bookings any more unless the organisers are prepared to take that side on, because the amount of time I spend scoping and quoting for shows, pa hire etc, negotiating accommodation expenses and so on for gigs that never happen is, to be blunt, time more profitably spent on my own business.

So let them walk: I gig 6-8 times a month, and although I could do more I choose to keep it at that level - none of those gigs are for low fees either.

Consider these:

1. If you're a builder, and turn up to quote, and someone asks where your van/tools are, and you say "If I get the work from you, I'll buy/hire them", then you're unlikely to get the work. You need to have the right equipment before you go for the work, that's what my experience tells me, and I know that's how agents feel too. I have a pretty decent rig, FBT, and quite often work will come my way because the agent knows we can do a 1500 seater room without any issues: the band with their Mackie SRM450's won't get the work, the agent knows it'll be a struggle and therefore the client is unlikely to rebook.

2. I don't work a function/wedding band, I just don't like playing that kind of music, but plenty of friends do and they're gigging 2-3 times a week, at rates of £1000+/£250 a man after expenses etc. The work is there, but the promo has to be right.

3. Is your media/promotional material up to the job? A guy that sounds nothing like Elvis, but has amazing promo will always get more work than the other way around: people (and agents) buy with their eyes, NOT their ears. As you know, the tribute world is full of awful bands/musicians, but because he looks like Liam Gallagher he'll get booked.

4. Is your tribute a tribute to a big/popular name? If it's not, that could well be why you're not getting booked, no matter how much you look/sound like them. A half-decent Take That tribute would get booked 4 nights a week, a note-perfect Dream Theatre would be lucky to gig once a month (thankfully).

The comment about original artists hating tributes, feeling that they're "stealing their gigs", is simply down to a venue, by definition a going concern whose aim is to make a living. They know that a Take That tribute will sell all 300 of their tickets, original bands never will. That's not down to tribute bands stealing gigs, that's down to the audience/punters choosing with the ticket choice.

[Mike Stranks]

In my latter years as a sound-man I worked effectively as a sub-contractor to three or four bands/groups/artists.

As far as the promoter (or whatever) was concerned I was part of the band. However, the band negotiated the rate and factored in my costs. I very rarely knew what the band got in total - they just paid me for what I provided and did.

People who are nor clued-up about costs and set-up times can be very difficult. It was all done very civilly, but neither I nor the bands were prepared to take-on a gig at any price. (Equally, if I felt the get-in/out and linked issues was simply too much hassle I'd simply decline to provide a service on that occasion.... 100 metre gravel paths from the car-park to the venue anyone? )

So it might be worth scouting around your area to see if there's a jobbing sound-person who'd be willing/keen to enter into the sort of relationship that I had with those few bands....

[James Perrett]

I'd echo Mike's suggestion of finding a friendly sound man. Most original bands don't own their own PA as the sort of venues that they usually play have a decent house PA. If they need to provide a PA for a gig then they hire one. Most large towns/cities have at least one place that hires out PA's and there are plenty of small PA operators like Mike who can help.

[James Perrett]

1. If you're a builder, and turn up to quote, and someone asks where your van/tools are, and you say "If I get the work from you, I'll buy/hire them", then you're unlikely to get the work.

Most builders that I've used have sub-contracted parts of the work out to other people and they'll often hire in specialist tools that are used only occasionally. However, the builder handles all of this and it doesn't affect the customer at all.

[Steve A]

Most original bands don't own their own PA as the sort of venues that they usually play have a decent house PA.

James you hit the nub of the situation we're in. We've been following the 'original bands' model (it's an 80s 'tribute' insofar as the material is all from or around that era but we've always presented it as a modern independent band that just happens to play other people's material). We've been fortunate to have been able to exploit that and grow it that way - my ambition remains trying to expand to doing similar in other cities rather than court the function market (but that's another story and a topic for a different forum). But rightly or wrongly, I do feel obliged to try and address enquiries when they arise rather than give a blanket 'no thanks'. Whilst I am no fan of the functions/weddings circuit either, occasionally they can be good if your client is wanting a full 'show' rather than just light entertainment and has the budget for the fun stuff like moving heads and video screens. I'm always up for that. But I am definitely sensing the frequent raising of eyebrows when I politely explain that we don't have our own PA and need to discuss the logistics of local hire, to the point where I feel I need to be apologetic about it.

A while back we shared a bill with an established touring function act at a charity event but I ended up arranging the PA for the whole show. They had sent the organisers a tech spec that basically said our fee doesn't cover a PA as we don't do that, so if your venue doesn't already have anything suitable here's a list of what we need on the night, please arrange it. Perhaps foolishly, I was somewhat influenced by that and thought ideally that's where we want to be too. This lot rocked up at teatime, got fed, did their show nice and easy and disappeared to the bar. I suspect they also got paid more than us, even though we were on after them. I had been on site all day helping lug gear, rig it, problem solving, basically event managing the whole technical side, effectively for free - and doing all that inevitably affects your form when you finally hit the stage later at night. I guess it was that experience in particular that encouraged me to try and divorce the aspect of show management / production with the actual performance but as you all rightly point out, the reality is clearly that whether or not we want to do it, it's unrealistic to expect event organisers to want to take it off your hands.

We actually have a really good sound guy on board but he doesn't own his kit or transport and he's often not available. The problem in Edinburgh seems to be that all the local freelance talent tends to get hoovered up by the larger events and hire companies because of the disproportionately large amount of big event work we have for such a relatively small city. Through our guy, we've hired stuff before from all of the main providers here but even then it's still clearly priced to discourage single day hires in favour of longer term stuff which is more profitable for them (and I've been told as much).

[James Perrett]

But I am definitely sensing the frequent raising of eyebrows when I politely explain that we don't have our own PA and need to discuss the logistics of local hire, to the point where I feel I need to be apologetic about it.

They don't want to know about your logistics problems - as far as they're concerned they just want a price. I'm surprised that locating a small PA hire operation is so difficult in Edinburgh as I can think of at least 4 in my area but I guess we don't have so many large operators here to soak up the talent.

[Mike Stranks]

I sense you're probably at a crossroads with regard to what gigs you want to do and how you're going to move forward as a band.

IME with the type of functions/venues you're playing, organisers won't want to know about sorting a system for you - however detailed your spec. The band will have to 'own' that. Either by getting their own kit and sound-tech - and you'll need to do the sums to see if it is viable - or by sourcing hired kit and transport for your operator or contracting with a local sound-tech with their own gear. Bookers want a 'one-stop shop' without added complications.

A cautionary word about tech-specs.... On two occasions when I wasn't available for one of my acts I prepared a very detailed spec for them which was sent to the bookers in good time with a 'let me know if any issues'. No; it's all fine - we've got someone who'll source the gear and operate it.

Act duly arrives at venue... Occasion one, "I didn't know what a DI box was so I just ignored that bit...". Occasion two, "I presume by stage monitors you meant the speakers. I don't like putting them on the floor - I use poles..." (Thus, no monitors...)

The sound system is the means by which you're heard and is a very significant part of how you're perceived. As a band you really need to 'own' that aspect in the same way you 'own' your stage presence and presentation.

The above is not meant to be critical or negative so apologies if it should read like that. I sense you're facing the issue that confronts many in all walks of business-life that significant step-changes are needed as the business grows from small and successful and wants to become bigger and remain successful...

[TheChorltonWheelie]

1. If you're a builder, and turn up to quote, and someone asks where your van/tools are, and you say "If I get the work from you, I'll buy/hire them", then you're unlikely to get the work.

Most builders that I've used have sub-contracted parts of the work out to other people and they'll often hire in specialist tools that are used only occasionally. However, the builder handles all of this and it doesn't affect the customer at all.

Who mentioned specialist tools, sub-contracted or occasionally: sounds like expansion of the point to suit the argument?

Or, are you telling me you'd turn up to a venue to promote you band/act, but when asked for your promo/stage-plan/rider, you'll just say "I'll sub-contract it all when I get the work, and you, as the customer, won't be affected"?. Hmmm.....

[Scramble]

Out of interest, CW, what PA and mixer are you using?

[CS70]

We don't own a PA system.

...

I'm just curious if I am alone in this or if other bands at our level have similar dilemmas and how they deal with it. It's actually quite hard to find a nice way of saying 'sorry it's not worth our while' to people who seen us and want to hire us. Or are we doggedly out of step with the scene by not providing a band in a box service?

We usually play places which have their own PA, but for the occasional pub-down-the-road gig we simply rent it for the evening. It has happened about once every three four months this year so the math so far has made it worthwhile. Normally they don't come with stage monitors, so I actually got myself an old PA speaker which works perfectly for the part, and the drummer has his own as well. Were we to play more gigs requiring a PA, we'd probably look at purchasing a second hand one.

[TheChorltonWheelie]

But I am definitely sensing the frequent raising of eyebrows when I politely explain that we don't have our own PA and need to discuss the logistics of local hire, to the point where I feel I need to be apologetic about it.

It's not often I'd tell you to ignore advice to the contrary on this forum, but in this instance I absolutely will: 90% of what we do has to be self-contained, the client requires it, the agent requires it, and the show requires it as we need to maintain a high level of consistency. We do occasionally hire rigs in, and we do often have rigs provided (i.e. Butlins), but those are very much the minority. And, you're absolutely right to think that people raise their eyebrows when you explain you don't have your own PA. An agent will give the self-contained band the gig over those that don't every day of the week, assuming they're both musically equal.

Sadly, it's a case of you deciding how serious you are, and if you're still serious you have to bite the bullet and invest in a PA and lights. If you know what you're buying, you could get a decent rig (second hand, of course) with lights for around £2k, possibly less if you take your time.

PA - for example, wedding/club/pub gigs, you can probably get away with a single sub, and if you look for second hand DB Sub18's, Turbosound Milan M18B's etc., you'll get a great 18" sub for around £350-£400. I use a pair of Alto Truesonic TS112A's as monitors, but they're also good enough to double as tops at rehearsals. £200 a pair second hand, so for £600 you'd have a decent enough starting base. You can buy a single TS110a/TS112a for monitoring too, they often go for £80 as a single as people generally want a pair.

Lights - ignore any old HiD/bulb technology, Thomann for the Stairvile MH50X moving heads, of which I have 4, and they're fantastic, well on par with the more expensive American DJ Vizi Spot Pro's I also have. £250-£300 a pair second hand, £200 if you go for the less bright LED in the MH25X units. 4 par cans, go for the Beamz Alu Quads, 180w full DMX, and you'll get 4 for around £200.

Mixer - you can find some great sounding desks for peanuts, like the Behringer Xenyx range (the never ones have Klark Technik effects on them), and even the mid-range unit has EQ, 8 outs for monitors, and even a USB interface. £100 would buy one of these, second hand. If you want to go for something a little nicer, an Allen Heath ZED, or a Soundcraft.

So, a bit of careful buying above and you'd have a decent rig for well under £2k, leaving you room for mics/stands/bags etc. People HATE posting bulky items, so I've regularly bought kit for peanuts because it's collection only: granted, I had to drive 500 mile round trip, but for £80 fuel I saved £600-£700 on the price of the item.

Hope that helps.

[Mike Stranks]

Good, pragmatic post Chorlton W...

The only thing I'd query is the recommendation for Xenyxs... I'm not a Behringer-hater by any means.... but my experience of the larger Xenxys (3 of 'em) has been universally far from satisfactory. The seem to have a very short life before problems of one sort or another occur and for all practical purposes they're irreparable.

OTOH I've had and used far more than three small Xenyxs... all proved reliable over several years...

With the rise of digital, there are good analogue mixers to be had at good prices. My recommendations would be Allen & Heath, Soundcraft or Yamaha.

... and a great tip about 'Collection Only...' I have some similar experiences to yours.

[Scramble]

CW, do you have a dedicated sound engineer as part of your crew? And a roadie to help humping gear and setting up? How do you manage all that?

[TheChorltonWheelie]

CW, do you have a dedicated sound engineer as part of your crew? And a roadie to help humping gear and setting up? How do you manage all that?

No, no sound engineer and no road crew either: we do it all ourselves.

I have an FBT rig, 2 of the 2*18 active subs, and 2 of the 215 active tops, and that's capable of even the biggest rooms. That helps, having only 4 boxes to setup at each gig (albeit the subs are the size of a small dining table), and being of a touring quality it's easier to get a decent tune out of them. All of us are on in-ear, wireless Shure, so that saves plenty of time in sound-checks as you can simply recall the buss settings on the X32 from the last gig: 99% of the time, that works fine.

Lighting is pre-wired on a Chauvet Trusst Arch, so from packed to fully-functional is 30 minutes. I did spend an entire day pre-wiring it, so that has paid dividends at the gigs.

As for mixing, the larger gigs we have someone fly the desk (their own staff), but if you have decent players, with dynamics, then you don't really need to fly your own desk mid-set/song.

[Scramble]

Thanks for that info, CW. I'm planning to start a new high-end function band, so I may have to get a new PA setup. Mind you, the last tribute band I depped for -- and they were a very good one -- told me they don't bother owning a PA anymore, they just hire in every time. But that seems like it would be very expensive -- hiring makes sense if you do it occasionally, but if you're doing it twice a week then within a year you'd end up paying ten times what you'd spend if you bought one. (They play a lot of festivals, though, so perhaps that's why they hire in when they have to).

[Scramble]

I'd be very nervous playing with no engineer/mixer, when I had a PA in the past we always got someone in to do the mixing. (And sometimes we had a friend who'd come in to control the lights, which always improved things lighting-wise.)

Having to transport, set up, and pack down a PA was always the worst thing about running a band. That's another reason why I'd like to have a sound guy on-board, to help with all that.

[TheChorltonWheelie]

told me they don't bother owning a PA anymore, they just hire in every time. But that seems like it would be very expensive -- hiring makes sense if you do it occasionally, but if you're doing it twice a week then within a year you'd end up paying ten times what you'd spend if you bought one. (They play a lot of festivals, though, so perhaps that's why they hire in when they have to).

All of the high-end bands that I know all have their own PA, not only for the saving in hire, but also for consistency too: I can ring a room/get a tune out of mine in 10 minutes, and that brings a level of comfort that messing around for 2 hours with an unknown entity can never bring.

A modest rig would be £200+ for hire, and if they're bringing medium-range RCF, Mackie, Yamaha etc,, then it'd only take 5-6 of these gigs for you to have bought your own rig. There are some decent PA hire guys around, but by the same token, some of them are awful and not particularly good. We'd rather rely on ourselves, good or bad, as at least we always know where the buck stops.

[TheChorltonWheelie]

I'd be very nervous playing with no engineer/mixer, when I had a PA in the past we always got someone in to do the mixing. (And sometimes we had a friend who'd come in to control the lights, which always improved things lighting-wise.)

If you set the desk up properly in the first instance, and you have dynamic players, then it's not normally an issue. All of our lights are DMX, MIDI to the clicks, so the lighting show runs of its own accord.

Having to transport, set up, and pack down a PA was always the worst thing about running a band. That's another reason why I'd like to have a sound guy on-board, to help with all that.

That is still the worst thing about a band, tearing down at 12:00am and facing a 3 hour drive home (as we will tomorrow). However, I'm not sure it's £200 worth of terrible, not least because I take £100 for the PA, £50 for the lighting, and then whatever the travel is, from the proceeds of every gig............ £10k worth of FBT and £5k worth of lighting has to be paid for!

[robare99]

I'm similar. We play private parties, weddings etc. I own the PA & lights for our band. I get an extra $100 for my efforts. Everyone helps load in, set up, tear down and load out. We have 5000W for our front end and slam it 2000W for monitors. Everyone has their own monitor mix. We control our dynamics and mix from the stage.

That being said I'm training a sound person to mix from out front. Just to look after some small issues.

It all fits in my 5x12 gear trailer and that trailer fits into my garage where it says safe and sound, ready for the next gig

It would be hard to hire lights & sound each time, there's myself and another provider in town. I don't have a clue what he charges, it's more than the $100 I charge the guys lol.

[Sam Spoons]

I wear both hats, I play in a couple of bands and usually supply PA for them but I also hire my rig (inc me as sound tech) to other bands and work as a freelance for a local PA hire company. The bigger bands we encounter (the PA company) seem not to supply their own PA, though one this weekend brought their own rig for monitors and supplied clean splits to FOH for us to mix (they were all on IEMs and supplied all their own mics etc). That is unusual though and most expect it all to be provided with everything and very few even bringing their own engineer. Personally I prefer to supply my own PA or, at least work with a known provider (bearing on mind my band are very much the bottom of the food chain) and quite often mix from the stage or hand off an iPad to a trusted mate to manage FOH levels for us.

[Steve A]

I've been away for a few days but I wanted to thank everyone for their helpful comments which I've been catching up on tonight. We've been caught with our pants down a little as we've been used to only playing at venues with in house systems and suddenly had a rush of enquiries that we weren't anticipating or ready for. As has been mentioned above, yes it's very much a case of deciding how we want to take this from here but I certainly won't be making the mistake in future of trying to pass the buck on PA supply. We're now urgently trying to source a local partner to team up with to get us over this first hurdle but I agree that it would make sense to invest if we end up doing this regularly enough.

[Scramble]

There is also the issue of how do you transport a large PA and lighting system? I used to have a trailer for my PA, and I hated it. Hated driving it, hated parking it, hated packing it, hated the fact that it took up all the much-needed space in my garage to the great displeasure of my wife.

A van would be much better. But that's a lot more expensive than a trailer, and takes up even more space.

(If you only need a smaller PA and lighting setup then I'd be looking at one of those tall, thin line array tops, with a couple of medium-sized subs, a set of 4 LED lights on a stand, and a small digital mixer, because they will all take up much less space. You might be able to fit all that into your own cars along with your other gear.)