Battle of the bands advice please

[lonfire]

Hi,

I'm currently looking into doing a battle of the bands type gig in a few months.. the bands we have in mind are all young people bands (i.e. aged between 15-18) so it will be a youth event.. and they are rock/punk type bands..

 

what are your experiences of doing such gigs..

how many bands?

how many songs per band?

how much per ticket?

band extrance fee? (or wave the entrance fee if the band sell 20 tickets or something like that or insist the bands sell 20 tickets)

 

do all the bands assume they will be using each others backline and drum kits? or will I need a massive desk and loads of room?

 

pa power? the hall is around 10m wide and 15m long with big sliding doors down the back end that open it into another room thats about 10m wide and 8m long..

was thinking around 2k..

 

staging? we haven't got a stage but I could possibly get one.. is it definately worth getting one?

 

no of stuards and anything else you think might be relevant..

 

thanks for your input..

rgds

chris

[James]

Chris,

 

Hey, lot of questions there,

 

what are your experiences of doing such gigs..

how many bands?

how many songs per band?

 

This depends on many factors,

 

You only have a finite time, you need to fill the time, assume 15min for a band changeover w/o backline and 30min for one with, allow 5 min / song and you can work out how many bands and how many songs per band to fit in.

 

how much per ticket?

 

You must cover your costs, Assume only 75% of those you are sure will buy tickets will buy, divide costs by this number and this is your ticket price.

 

EG, You have 5 bands, you know they will bring 20 people each, therefore 100 people. Your room can hold 250. Assuming the following figures,

 

£100 hall hire

£200 PA Hire

£100 Lighting hire

£100 Marketing

 

and you have costs of £500, divide this up with the 75 people you know will come and its £6.50 per ticket. Anything on top of this is profit for your charity, yourself or whatever the aim of the gig is.

 

band extrance fee? (or wave the entrance fee if the band sell 20 tickets or something like that or insist the bands sell 20 tickets)

 

You could get the bands to underwrite the event in the case of no show (Worst case scenario bands pay £100 each to cover costs, Or you could get bands to chip in on PA hire, Up to you

 

do all the bands assume they will be using each others backline and drum kits? or will I need a massive desk and loads of room?

 

Massive desks cosy money, big stages and lots of mic's and long sound checks.

 

You can't assume, many musicians don't like other people using their rigs without permission. You could settle arguments by hiring a drum kit and allowing people to use their own cymbals and snare.... Shared backline does make things easier and allows for quicker changes.

 

pa power? the hall is around 10m wide and 15m long with big sliding doors down the back end that open it into another room thats about 10m wide and 8m long..

was thinking around 2k..

 

PA isn't measured in kW It's like saying a motorbike can pull more than a car beccause it has a higher HP engine.

 

It depends on what volume you want to achieve, If you want this to be a strong gig then something in the region of 100dBa shouldn't be too unachievable

 

staging? we haven't got a stage but I could possibly get one.. is it definately worth getting one?

 

Yes. You want people to see the band, and the band to see people therefore raise them up, in the same way get enough to build a drum riser.

 

James

 

no of stuards and anything else you think might be relevant..

 

thanks for your input..

rgds

chris

 

I assume you mean stewards.

 

It depends on what bands you get, I've been to botb's where bands start smashing up the stage and hype up the audience where I want 10 stewards at the front alone, I've done christian gigs where you can have 200 people in the room with only 4 stewards.

 

It should be covered by your risk assessment and agreed with your stage manager.

 

Again look at your exits. Personally from a PA supplier point of view, I want to see a steward at each stage endurance and one by FOH to dissuade interested parties. you need doors and exits covered. and enough to cover meal breaks and toilet breaks.

 

Anything else. If you don't have already get a competent stage manager, I have a sample job description I use when recruiting a SM for this type of gig that you might find useful (PM'd to you Personally)

 

Radios for SM, You and FOH stewards.

 

Check the terms of your PEL and be open with your licencing authority, They would rather be shown a problem and be demonstrated how you have dealt with it rather than discover it down the line by themselves.

 

Good luck and have fun

 

 

James

[lightbulb789]

The Battle of bands we last held had about 6 bands and they played between 5 and 10 songs each. We charged £3.00 per ticket. And alot of people said it was worth it. It really all depends on how good the bands are really. We didn't charge the bands to play.

 

Find out if any bands are using and special or certian equipment or a different set up then other bands. if there mostly all the same you could just use all the same equipment for each band.

 

We just used are standard Pa system which is 2x 400w Speakers and chucked in some additional 2x 250w, 8 Ohms + 2x 600w, 4 Ohms by the side of the stage.

 

If don't really need a stage but if the bands are higher then the dance/seating area it sounds better and you do get the crazed fans who try to attack the band. (Something that happened last year when a female fan jumped up on stage and started hugging the lead singer and wouldn't let go :) )

 

And it's worth setting up something like a BBQ and charging people or you could charge extra on the tickets and do the BBQ on the price and have something like 1 burger and 1 hotdog per person etc.

 

Hope it all goes well.

 

Adam

[lonfire]

hi,

cheers for the info guys..

 

I've got my own ideas about what we need todo...etc just useful to see what people that have done this before have done..

 

the event will be run by a church but not necessarily for church yp.. there is a similar event run in the next town down from us but it ain't great..

 

was thinking of having two drum kits one either side of the stage to make the setups easier.. the area for the stage is quite wide (around 9m).

 

the staging I might be able to get hold of is that steel decking (wooden top) stuff that you put scaf poles for the legs (8'x4').. that would give me a nice sturdy stage.. the other option is to use wooden stage blocks (about 1 1/2' high ish and put 8x4' sheet of mdf ontop.. not such a good stage, but the blocks and some wood are already at the venue..

 

probably use the same rig setup as the carol service I did but add an extra set of supports about 1 1/2m in along the front and fly some of the speakers off the trussing inbetween the legs.. Carol Service (got more lighting than was there..)

 

if I fly the speakers (will be getting the correct kit from the hire company todo this!) do you think it will have an adverse affect on the projector that we are hanging in the middle of the trussing..

 

how does the PEL work for such an event..

 

thanks

 

rgds

chris

[the kid]

Stewarding - from my experiance it will depend on the age group going if it is 11-16 then you will need few. Above that then use your descresion, the area that the concert is in. Im not sure how to explain it but you know wether there will be trouble buy the people about.

 

At ours we had 15mins per band and had 5 bands. Make sure that they know this, we had one group do about 45 mins.

 

If it is a battle then see about getting judges, if the bands are school age get 1/2 teacher's plus others, and get them to mark on -

 

performance

audiance reaction

quality of music played

band energy

style

 

Hope it all makes sence.

[peternewman]

was thinking of having two drum kits one either side of the stage to make the setups easier.. the area for the stage is quite wide (around 9m). 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

If you are doing this it may make sense setting one up as left handed possibly, or certainly checking with the bands, we had a left hander at one show and it adds a fair bit of time for the changeover.

 

PN

[lonfire]

hi,

I'm looking at getting somebody from the "industry" to judge.. got a few people in mind that might do it.. friends of friends and such..

 

the people that we will get shouldn't cause too many problems.. but will have a good number of people on hand anyway..

 

thanks

chris

[paulears]

JUDGES

you need to make sure they actually can mark fairly, and not give marks only to styles they like (VERY common) In a talent show you just get aggrieved parents, at a battle of the bands you get aggrieved friends and fans, which can be very unpleasant for the judges. The venue is very important - Church style and young peoples events often then don't get the drink induced agro, which is a relief.

 

James is talking a lot of sense. getting bands to share kits is normally very problematic. Would you like someone beating the s*it out of something you owned? Think punk in particular. For any size gig, getting the turns off the floor is essential. Steeldeck, metrodeck or any of the similar products are where to look.

 

PA size

 

You need to decide if the room is big enough to have a large PA and mic everything up, or to just concentrate on vocals. Many bass players now have huge stacks that don't seem to have a volume knob. Couple this with a couple of distorted guitars and the kit and then work out how loud a system you need to get over the top. My experience with these style gigs is that it is IMPOSSIBLE to get them to turn down enough to have any real control over the sound, hence why in many cases it sounds simply awful. God sound requires proper soundchecking and in a multi band situation with short change overs this doesn't work (bring on more digital desks).

 

PEL

The venue should have one if this type of event happens frequently - the music, singing, dancing type thing. The small print is the thing to look at. It usually specifies areas the local council are concerned about.

Capacity - someone needs to keep a check on how many bodies are in

Exits - how many, disabled issues, stewards

Volume - maybe strict limits on dB or possibly time curfews

Responsibility - who hold the licence? This is the person to suck up to. If they don't like what you plan, you are in trouble. Explain that moshing is not fighting - it looks very similar.

 

Small points

As the organiser you'l be responsible for providing enough info so the venue can fill in the PRS form - getting this info is VERY VERY difficult. Some venues may 'forget' to do it, others will plague the life out of you for it.

 

With pessimists hat on

 

Whatever you do, don't forge that everyone who loses will accuse you of being biased, providing a poor sound and light system, making them use sub standard equipment bla bla bla............

 

You never make friends running competitional events - EVER!

 

However, with a bit of planning, press coverage is good and you may even make a few a quid. Giving profits to a charity is also a good way to justify higher ticket prices giving you a bit more to spend on the hire equipment.

[bruce]

re judges - one option which might alleviate the aggrieved friends/parents/bands thing, and cause you less hassle, is to take the judging less seriously...

 

A friend was involved in a "stars in their eyes/pop idol/x-factor" type show. The first time they did it, they did "serious judging". Cue complaints from parents and friends. The second time, the judges did a "simon cowell", and just made ridiculous criticisms for a few of the acts.

 

The ones that weren't criticised and slagged off were the ones that complained afterwards!

 

So the third time they put on the show, the judging became "part of the cabaret", and everyone was happy!

 

Bruce.

[DSA]

Giving profits to a charity is also a good way to justify higher ticket prices giving you a bit more to spend on the hire equipment.

My experience of this is that as the tickets go up, the %age which the organisers (unknowing of hire costs) want goes up. Its like magic....

 

This problem is no doubt caused by inexperienced organisers.....

 

Do remember, less is often more with lighting these events, I find. Having also done one last year....MAKE SURE YOU KNOW AND FIX THE END TIME, and keep changeovers slick. We had about 5 or so bands - and each went over about 5 mins. By the end this meant a shorter time for the headlining band, and they were not taking note of my signals for how long left. You can imagine how annoyed they were when the house lights went on at 11.03PM, and the sound guys wanted to go home...

 

HTH,

David

[Brian]

Stewarding - from my experiance it will depend on the age group going if it is 11-16 then you will need few. Above that then use your descresion, the area that the concert is in.

There is no discretion when it comes to the number of stewards. It will be specified in the terms of your license or you will be referred to one of several HSE publications. And if it is mainly a younger crowd you need more stewards than for an 'adult' crowd.

 

For a non-seated event think in terms of 1 steward per 100 audience, for seated, 1 per 250. For a mostly under 16 event double the number of stewards.

 

Stewards must be 'competent' and know what their duties are. They should have no other role during the event.

 

If you really want to know what to look out for then get a copy of 'The Event Safety Guide' published by HSE

[lonfire]

hi

thanks for the info guys.. as for stewards I was thinking of around 5-6 and we are only having around 100-150 people.. the site is quite big so some of them will be involved in guiding people to the correct building and such like as people are arriving....

 

rgds

chris

[GeorgeL]

Stewarding - from my experiance it will depend on the age group going if it is 11-16 then you will need few. Above that then use your descresion, the area that the concert is in.

There is no discretion when it comes to the number of stewards. It will be specified in the terms of your license or you will be referred to one of several HSE publications. And if it is mainly a younger crowd you need more stewards than for an 'adult' crowd.

 

For a non-seated event think in terms of 1 steward per 100 audience, for seated, 1 per 250. For a mostly under 16 event double the number of stewards.

 

Stewards must be 'competent' and know what their duties are. They should have no other role during the event.

 

If you really want to know what to look out for then get a copy of 'The Event Safety Guide' published by HSE

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Also talk to your local licensing council....... they will have seen many similar gigs, and will be able to advise on stewards.

[IanG]

JUDGES

My experience with these style gigs is that it is IMPOSSIBLE to get them to turn down enough to have any real control over the sound, hence why in many cases it sounds simply awful.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

One trick I use is first to get the guitar/bass amps up off the round (on flightcases usually) and then aim them to fire off the other side of the stage. This helps as:

• The amps are nearer to the players ears, so they might turn down as they can hear them louder than usual
  
• The amps fire across stage, usually providing enough wash to the other performers to reduce the amount needed in any wedges
  
• The front row doesn't get a face full of whiny guitar