THD - "evolution of our decay" album

Jeremy epistemology at gmail.com
Sat Oct 25 00:34:02 EDT 2008


If a promoter asked me to sell tickets to a show that I was playing
in, I'd say, "If you need me to sell tickets, what do I need you for?
I don't need you to help me play, and you shouldn't need me to help
you do your job." It's generally an unprofessional promoter who will
try to get bands to sell tickets, or who will blame a band for a lousy
turnout.

I mean, think about it. When a band tours, how in the world is that
band supposed to get people to buy tickets in a town that they have
never even been to yet? If I'm going to play a show in Seattle, how in
the world am I, while in Pittsburgh, supposed to get people in Seattle
to buy tickets? That's the entire reason you get a promoter in that
city. To get people to buy tickets to the show. That's the promoter's
first, and biggest job. I can pick up the phone and schedule a time at
a venue just as easily as anybody else could. It's not hard. It takes
about three minutes. That's not what a promoter is paid for. A
promoter is paid to promote.

Some promoters take out big ads in periodicals, put up large
attractive color posters all over town, distribute attractive
professionally made fliers at key locations with the assistance of a
street team, get radio coverage, and then consistently get people to
arrive to see bands play. Other promoters hand out shitty black and
white fliers at arbitrary locations at weird times, maybe post to an
e-mail list now and then, and then blame the band who just drove into
town that afternoon when nobody arrives to see the show. Sometimes
they also blame those damned lazy music fans for not seeking out
information about which bands are playing where. And sometimes they
decide that bands don't actually deserve any money for hauling their
asses into town and doing their job.


On Sat, Oct 25, 2008 at 12:13 AM, John <anhedonia77 at comcast.net> wrote:
> I realize it is a promoter's job to promote a show and I typed my response
> out wrong. What I meant to say was that it's usually on them to sell some of
> the tickets to the show. You've never been to one where the bands had a
> certain amount of tickets to sell on their own? I still think a band that
> wants a decent audience at their show should take it on themselves to get
> the word out as well. I'm not in a band but if I was I would never rely
> solely on the promoter, no matter how good they are, to bring people to the
> show.
>
> John
>
> Jeremy wrote:
>>
>> "I've heard a lot of bands complain that they don't get enough for a
>> show, but it's usually on them to sell the tickets to the show."
>>
>> I'm not sure what you're talking about there. It's a promoter's job to
>> promote a show. It's a band's job to play a show. Bands make music.
>> Promoters sell tickets. If bands sold tickets themselves, they
>> wouldn't need promoters.
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Oct 24, 2008 at 10:27 PM, John <anhedonia77 at comcast.net> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> No problem Manny. I've never heard any concrete proof of anything major
>>> come
>>> out of these discussions. It always seemed like it was someone trying to
>>> make a big deal out of something small. Almost any promoter I know has
>>> been
>>> accused of some bullshit at one time or another and 95% of the time it
>>> was
>>> usually the bands fault. I've heard a lot of bands complain that they
>>> don't
>>> get enough for a show, but it's usually on them to sell the tickets to
>>> the
>>> show. If they don't sell a decent amount, they won't get paid what the
>>> other
>>> bands who did pull their weight were payed and they don't deserve to be.
>>> As
>>> for the comment about the knife incident. I don't know anything about it
>>> but
>>> if it was in self defense, I really don't have a problem with it.
>>>
>>> John
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Thanks, John.
>>>>
>>>> Even more importantly, based on whatever has been discussed on this list
>>>> in the past ten years,
>>>> there's very little that I've really even done "wrong" per se.
>>>> We talked so far about my being late for radio shows, my rubbing a
>>>> handful
>>>> of people the wrong
>>>> way at a radio station which caused them to take undue vengeance, and my
>>>> trying to defend myself when physically attacked three times. Anything
>>>> else?
>>>> If that is the absolute worst that can come up (and I guarantee you that
>>>> it is), then the rest is just shit-talking and either falsifying
>>>> incidents
>>>> or blowing them out of proportion.
>>>>
>>>> -mt
>>>>
>>>>  Sure, he
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> may have done some questionable things in the past, but who hasn't. I
>>>>> just can't seem to understand why people would want to attack a guy for
>>>>> a few things he's done wrong, when he really has done a lot of good for
>>>>> music in Pittsburgh.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
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>>>>
>>>
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