Booking Sucks!

Subject: RE: Booking Sucks!
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 08:13 PM

As someone who's mostly on the other end of the phone/e-mail, I can say Bev and Jerry have it exactly right.

I work for a small non-profit, out of my home, amid the rest of my life. If I've not heard of you and/or if you don't immediately seem like a good fit for my organization's limited energies - budget - genre - schedule, then I may not take the time to reply to say "sorry". (I also spend a certain amount of time and energy feeling guilty about this, for what that may be worth to you.)

Sometimes, those who persist get past that, if they sound like nice folks on the phone and they can convince me otherwise. (Yes, it's highly subjective.) For the record, I do get impatient with those who persist in spite of my clear answers that there is not a good fit.

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Booking Sucks!
From: michaelr
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 08:05 PM

Jed, I hear you loud and clear! Our regular St Patrick's Day gig just fell through (the club owner didn't want to cancel his regular Monday night hip-hop karaoke nightmare) and I've spent the last five days on the phone, scrambling to get a booking at this short notice.

So far no luck... it may be the first St Pat's in ten years this Celtic band doesn't play!

That said, I like Bev&Jerry's Rule #1. It's the persistence thing that wears me down...

Cheers,
Michael

Subject: RE: Booking Sucks!
From: Bev and Jerry
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 07:50 PM

Jed:

Here's three rules that might help a bit.

Rule 1. When you contact someone, always be sure the next required action is yours, not theirs. If you call and don't reach someone, call back. If you leave a message, don't ask them to call you, say you'll call them. In a letter, don't write "call me if you're interested", write "I'll call you in a week".

Rule 2. Persistence furthers.

Rule 3. See rule 2.

This is our advice after contacting more than sixteen thousand schools and booking nearly ten percent of them.

Bev and Jerry

Subject: RE: Booking Sucks!
From: harvey andrews
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 07:25 PM

Get an agent. They take all your rejections and only give you the good news.Oh, by the way, welcome to the asylum.

Subject: RE: Booking Sucks!
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 06:41 PM

Stephen Fearing closes his email with this quote...

"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic
hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs.
            
There's also a negative side."--Hunter S. Thompson

Subject: RE: Booking Sucks!
From: DonMeixner
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 05:53 PM

Quit whining you bunch of gutless sops! Get your chins off your chests and sing! You are not a bunch of Doctors or lawyers that have just buried another patient or lost that deathrow appeal for your client! Jesus you could be worse off than that! You could be school teachers instead.

Remember you are the best thing there is to be,   

ou are Folk Singers and you .... are....

Nuts

Nevermind.

bye

Don

Subject: RE: Booking Sucks!
From: Kim C
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 05:47 PM

And Oh Jed, don't you just LOVE all the people who say how much they loved your show, and OH we'd LOVE to have you come and play at suchandsuch can we have your card... then you give them your card, and maybe a CD, and you never hear from them again?

Subject: RE: Booking Sucks!
From: Susanl
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 05:28 PM

Geez, I thought it was just me. I've sent out countless CDs, e-mails, made phone calls and sent more e-mails and haven't heard back from anyone. I sure don't expect to hear back from EVERYone but I thought at least SOMEone might respond if only to tell me not to quit my day job. I have this pathological fear of annoying people and this only exacerbates it. I wish I knew what the RIGHT thing to do is.

Subject: RE: Booking Sucks!
From: MMario
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 05:01 PM

Jed - on the other hand - I have people call the help desk - frantic to get a repair. They do not provide enough information to process the ticket. e-mail them. , phone them, leave voice mail, - wait three weeks, repeating calls daily

they call back - why hasn't this been fixed?!?!?!

I explain.

But somehow - it's my fault.

Subject: RE: Booking Sucks!
From: denise:^)
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 05:01 PM

Or, as one of my partners puts it, "You can make TENS of dollars in folk music..."

It's always fun, too, when they book you for an event, and then call a day or two beforehand to tell you it's been cancelled. Or, perhaps they call and change the requirements completely.

(You may have a contract, but is it really for enough money to bother taking them to court? And what will that do to your/your band's reputation?)

Having had period costumes made for a cancelled event(which *you,* of course, pay for) only adds to the general hilarity.

Denise:^)

Subject: Booking Sucks!
From: JedMarum
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 04:56 PM

I am so frustrated with the business end of this job that I could just kick somebody!

Try to get a phone call, a reply to a letter, or a response to an email in this f*cking business and you'll know what I mean. Damn! I've knocked on so many doors that I'm back around again knocking on the same ones that wouldn't open the first time.

A man could go hungry in this business!