Today I tweeted: “Hmmm, what is it that makes bands miss Birmingham on their tours? I have no idea how it works but I’d like to play a part in changing it..!?”. From the responses it seems there is a lot of interest and frustration surrounding this. I already knew this but my interest was sparked afresh by yet another band I’d like to see avoiding Birmingham (or anywhere close) on their UK tour.
So, what’s going wrong and is there anything I can do to help change this? I imagine it’s a VERY complicated issue. Does Birmingham have the venues? Do the band promoters suffer Birmingham blindness for some reason? Are some promoters in Birmingham failing to book stuff they really should? I imagine it’s a mixture of all these issues, and more!
I don’t know what will come of this but I am willing to put in some time to help change this, however marginally. I’ll be happy if I can make just one more band book Birmingham on their tour. The thing is I have NO idea at all how all this stuff works. Who should I talk to? What processes need addressing? Who, what, where?
If anyone reading this knows how I might proceed, pop in a comment to this blog post and I’ll follow it up. I am not trying to suggest I can do better than anyone else, I just hope that an extra bit of help might result in some change…although, then again, it might not.
This is an issue which has bugged me for years. The first thing to recognise is that the situation is much, MUCH better than it was 10 years ago. Until the end of 2000 Brum hadn’t had a medium size gig venue for a few years, and there didn’t seem to be anyone promoting the smaller touring bands even though there were plenty of venues putting on regular nights of local bands.
Now we’ve got 2 multi-room corporate places and a great bunch of promoters bringing in the smaller, frankly more interesting bands to a whole new generation of small venues (and the Flapper). The main problem that still seems to exist is just getting people to actually come to the damn gigs. I’ve seen bands pack out venues in Manchester then play to about 12 people in Brum. A lot of people cite public transport as one of the main reasons, understandably with the complete lack of buses or trains after midnight and with a lot of routes finishing much earlier (this is one area where some of the promoters don’t help matters – I’ve been at gigs at the hare and hounds which went on til 11.30, and since its 2 buses away for large chunks of the city the place was inevitably half empty by the end). Combined with the lack of a recent history of decent gigs its no surprise people are wary of coming out. Things are looking up but we’ve got a long way to go yet, I don’t know what can be done to speed up the process unless you think you can convince the council to bring back night buses…
Are you able to share the name of the band missing out Birmingham/West Midlands? Obviously who plays where in the UK is a subjective topic depending on your tastes…
Regardless, I’d suggest other factors in tour routing include:
– Availability (some venues book up to 2 years in advance, meaning less slots are available)
– Whether a decent fanbase does or doesnt exist in a specific geographical region
– When did the artist and/or similar artists last play the venue/city and level of success
– Venue capacity
– Contract and/or fees offered
– Whether an artist or tour is aligned, sponsored or contracted to a particular live music organisation i.e. Live Nation, Academy Group, HMV/Mean Fiddler as part of a 360 deal
– Relationship between venue and promoter (depends on success or failure of past bookings)
– Is there an option to collaborate with city based partners and promoters
– Reputation of city/venue/promoter
– Whether the artist/management/agent has requested a type of venue or a speific venue for a reason – historical, standing, seated, acoustics, visual, great audience etc
– What marketing and PR resources are available within the venue/city to market and publicise any one particular show or concert ie extensive and segmented mailing lists, effective hand to hand flyering, relationships with music journalists, are advertising deals available through the venue, is there an appropriate commercial radio station for potential partnerships, social media presence particularly for Facebook marketing
– Does the venue have an efficient Box Office team, good website etc?
Once all of the above questions or requirements have been answered or met I’d say trying to effect a noticeable change in who and what artists tour to Birmingham will, I think, take years of conversations with some very commercially minded organisations who are ultimately responsible for taking the finanical risk on touring a particular artist often running into hundreds of thousands of pounds, investment in some kind of effective and well lead organisation that can lobby London based promoters, agents, management, PRs, journalists etc on behalf of the Birmingham music scene, industry leaders hosting conferences/festivals similar to Liverpool’s Sound City, Brighton’s Great Escape, Canne’s Midem, Scotland’s Go North, Manchester’s In The City etc, a more powerful regional media landscape, more commissions which go on tour around the UK, more partnerships and collaborations with other cities and region, a destination marketing organisation and city council prepared to back a significant and long-term campaign to promote and nurture creativity in all it’s forms…
Thanks for your thoughts! LOTS to consider there. I’m going to give this some thought.
Further comments welcome.
Lyle: The band in question are Orkestra Del Sol. Of course I can appreciate that we have The Destroyers and who knows, maybe I even missed a local gig BUT this example just triggered an oft felt feeling…