Getting Gigs In Bristol Pubs

The question that we get asked more often than any other at Bristol Rocks is “how do we get gigs in Bristol?” So here my hard rocking friends, is the rather unpalatable answer. There are two types of booking that you are likely to get and that is unpaid bookings and barely paid bookings. Bands that I have played in have been paid between £0.00 and £250.00 to entertain the good people of Bristol.

Open mic

The easiest gigs are open mic and unpaid acoustic gigs where the venue pays for a guy with a PA to organise a free show for the benefit of the pub. In practise, what happens is that people that go to play at open mic play to others that have gone to play at open mic night. The result is that pub hosting the event pays fifty quid for the guy with the PA and gets the profit on the drinks sold to the musicians during the evening.

For the unpaid musician it is an easy night because they don’t need to lug any heavy PA gear around with them and believe me, this sort of event is way more fun than sitting at home watching East Enders. To play open mic, all you need to do is turn up on the right evening with your instrument and book yourself in with the PA guy.

Unpaid Acoustic gigs

The musician may get invited to these events if they put on a good show at open mic night. This is an opportunity to try out a whole set in front of an audience and once again the PA will be supplied by the venue. Here, the pub is relying on the fact that you are likely to bring along some alcohol loving friends to fill the tills and pay for the guy with the PA.

Some pubs will get bands to play whole sets for no pay and then allow the band to pass a glass around for the audience to throw their loose change into. The band gets this money which can either be useless shrapnel or in some cases where the audience has had a good time and stayed until the end it can add up to a reasonable sum. Generally the venues that run these events have their own PA.

Paid Gigs

This is where things get a bit trickier. The pub will pay in my experience between £100 and £250 for pub rock bands. Tribute bands with a reputation can command much higher sums. The best way to get these paid gigs is to make personal contact with the pubs booking person. This means getting to a venue when the relevant person is also there and selling your band to them. All that the venue is interested in is filling the pub, so all you have to do is convince them that your band can do this. It is no good lying about this because you unlikely to get a return booking after a bad nights takings.

People that book bands in pubs get inundated with demo CD’s from local bands, generally they are given a CDR with a contact number inked onto the top. You will get a better response if you make your ‘product’ stand out from the rest. A professionally finished pack describing the band and it’s past successes and containing a demo may do the trick, but be prepared to phone the pub on a regular basis to get that booking. Never rub the person that books the band up the wrong way how ever many times you have to call back.

Having done all of this hard work to get the booking, you are not yet finished. Now you have to fill the venue in the hope that they will ask you back, so relentless self promotion is necessary.

Agencies

Agencies can be good if you want lots of work, are not fussy about the venues you play and you are willing to go out and play at short notice. Agents, like most of us like an easy life and bands often let them down for any number of reasons. If your band is willing to gig at the drop of a hat, you will do well with these guys. You help them out of trouble whenever you can and you will be working all of the time. Some of the bookings will be inappropriate for your type of band, but you are in it now for the money. There are also agencies that book for specific venues DCB Promotions is one of these and there site is HERE

Organise & promote your own event

The most difficult option of all, but potentially the most rewarding. You need to find a venue, hire a PA & lighting, sort out the licensing, organise the bands, sort the advertising and pull in the punters. This is a risky business and could either earn you or cost you a lot of money depending on the success of the event. Bristol Rocks is in favour of this type of event and will be holding one of it’s own soon. We will let you know how well or how badly this goes. If you are organising this type of event, let us know and we will help where we can.