Putting on a Concert? - A Handy Guide for Avoiding the Worst When Planning or Booking a Show

Setting up and putting on a concert is a lot of work. When doing it for the first time, there can be many pitfalls that you would never expect. Someone is smoking the non-legal stuff in the middle of the crowd? A young kid who drank too much just vomited all over the bathroom? Someone vandalized the Coke machine outside?! (Yes, all these things have happened to me.)

So what do you do? No one can make sure everything goes off without a hitch. Throughout my years in high school I assisted with about 30+ concerts and each one ended differently. Not every one had some huge disaster, some went off without a hitch, but some were the complete opposite.

Book your bands wisely:

If you are looking to have a rowdy crowd, don't mind "moshing" or having beer bottles slung outside (or spilled all over the floor, along with the ever present risk of the bathroom vomiting incident) then it is okay to book bands who will bring along crowds who do just that. Punk, metal, any type of hardcore music, really.

But make sure that your opening acts are related. Don't book a country/folk singer to open for a band whose claim to fame is that they throw bags of blood over the crowd at the beginning of their shows.

Speaking of on stage theatrics, make sure you know everything that is going to happen at a show and make sure it is ok with the building codes and won't violate your deposit refund. Case in point: At one Halloween show I put on, one of the bands who is very near and dear to my heart forgot to add in one little stunt they would be pulling that night. Now, typically I wouldn't mind. They started by having a guy come up on stage and throwing candy out to the crowd. Harmless, right? Then he moved on to throwing slices of bread. Odd, sure, but still harmless. And then he started blowing fire inside the building with relatively low ceilings. Yeah... Not a good idea at all.

Make sure you book about 4 bands minimum, if doing local bands. Two or three is okay if you are booking big name bands, but remember that few people book Tim Armstrong or Metallica on their first show. You are going to want to give the concert-goers more bang for their buck, and you will want to have at least some diversity in the bands you book so that they will draw all kinds of crowds to the concert. Booking bands that are too similar will give you too few people coming to the concert, too diverse and you will end up with people not going to see their favorite bands because they hate all the other bands on the bill. It is a delicate balance you have to pull off, but it is easily done if you make sure and talk to the bands who will be playing. Ask them who they enjoy playing with, what kinds of crowds their music brings in, and what could compliment their styles.

Keep the time:

Keep in mind the set lists of every band and how long it will take to complete each set. I once had a concert where we booked 8 bands. It would have been fine if they had followed the half-hour set limit they were given, but a couple of the bands didn't. One went for over an hour, another went for almost an hour, and for the most part, none went only their half hour. I think one band made it less than 30 minutes. Adding in time for bands to switch equipment and set up (and disastrously long sound checks) the concert that started at 6:30pm went until well after 1am.

Also, you have to make sure your bands are okay with the time slot given. At the previously mentioned concert, one of the bands came from out of town, 5 hours out of town to be exact, and they were slated to play last. They had driven most of the day and were tired, however, with the set lists of every other band, they didn't end up getting to crash until around 2:00am.

It was a mistake I learned from. Keep sets short, at any cost, and take care of the out of town bands.

Advertise:

One of the best things you can do for your career (be it a serious thing or just something to do every other weekend) is to advertise your shows. Stop at nothing. Print full size fliers, hand fliers (a quarter of the size of a full sheet of paper) talk to everyone you know. Go to businesses and ask if you can put a flier up, go to the local high schools and ask if you can put some up. Hand them out to the students, and if you know any students you can trust, hand them a hefty stack of fliers.
Get the timing right, too. Make sure that if your concert is a month away, you advertise it properly. Don't put up fliers and expect them to last a month, and just forget about it. If you forget about it, so will everyone else. Put up fliers once a week until the week before the concert, and then start handing them out every other day, or even daily.
Yes, there is a cost for printing out all those fliers, but if you advertise correctly, then people will come and you will make up the costs in admission.

And don't avoid certain groups of people just because you aren't familiar with them or don't expect them to show up to a concert, or even if you just plain, flat-out don't like them. Each person who walks through that door is another price of admission, which will go towards financing your next concert and paying the bands for their time.

Pricing:

I have seen an amazing concert killed because of the cost of admission. There were some bands on tour from Virginia coming all the way over to California. They were fairly known bands within the circle of concert attendees. The person who put on the show thought that since they were coming from so far away and they would probably pull in a crowd, that it would be okay to price the admission at $10 per person for a 3 band concert.

Now, if you were going to see, say U2 or a Foreigner reunion show that would be a bargain. But when you are putting on a show that is aimed at a younger demographic, you have to be smart about it. I walked in the doors (without paying, perks of helping with setting everything up!) and looked around, and I saw the saddest sight I think I could have that night. There were all of 5 people watching those bands play. The third didn't even bother to play because no one was there. It was a tragedy.

Now, compare that to the big nights in concerts. Halloween was always the best night for a concert, so we planned accordingly. We knew that no one had anything to do Halloween night and that parents would rather their kids be at a concert than walking around causing mayhem. So we priced the admission at $4, $3 if you are in costume. This is one of the nights where we had about six different bands playing, so it was a relatively large show. As compared to pricing it at $10 and making $50 total, we priced our concert at $3 (most were in costume) and had about 250 people show up.

It's all about knowing who is going to come to the concert. If you are bringing in a big name, people will typically pay big bucks to see them. If you are doing local bands, make sure there is a bit of diversity and charge a few dollars and you will see your profits grow!

Profits:

The first thing to do with your profits is to make sure you set aside money for the next concert. Venues can cost anywhere from $50 to $350, and it isn't safe to rely on getting a security deposit back. Make sure you are covering yourself before you go too crazy spending that hard earned money.
Second thing to do is to make sure you pay the bands. They will want to play for you if you throw in some money here and there, and they will make sure that the followers of their music are as respectful as they are going to be. Pay according to the crowds they draw. Don't short them, but don't overdo it, either. If you feel a band doesn't need to be paid, for whatever reason, you don't have to pay them. I usually paid a couple of the local bands that were playing, based on the crowds they drew, and I always paid the out of town bands for coming, because now more than ever, gas prices are ridiculous. Make sure you help to put a dent in that bill they are racking up/

Thirdly, I suppose if you have any money left over after all of that, go crazy! It was hard-earned, let me assure you, so if you have your eye on something, buy it! Keep a bit of those profits for yourself because if you don't, it will seem more like a chore to put these concerts on than anything.

Major pitfalls:

There are some things that happen at concerts that cannot be avoided. You will have to spend a good chunk of time afterwards cleaning the venue. If you have a vomit in bathroom incident, I suggest you weigh the benefits and downfalls, and decide if your security deposit is worth cleaning up someone else's puke. (Let me tell you, in my world... it isn't!)

People are going to get in without paying. The best thing to do is to have only one entrance. Have all the bands bring in their equipment, if space allows, beforehand, so you don't have people trying to carry in a cymbal stand and get in for free. Make sure you set up a table and have someone trustworthy taking people's money. Get one dollar bills and five dollar bills from the bank before the show because you don't want to be stuck without change.
Roadies and girlfriends are another way you can lose money at a show. Most bands have a bit of an entourage (whether they are world famous or just famous in their own little worlds) and they will expect to get in for free. Let the band know ahead of time what you expect. If you are making everyone pay, let them know. If you don't mind having their girlfriends not pay (trust me, they are usually doing most of the real work, anyhow) then that's great. Let them know they can have x number of roadies coming in for free and the rest will have to pay.

Alcohol and cigarettes (and other less-legal smokeables) are other pitfalls. I have had everything happen from vomiting to drunken brawls, beer being spilled all over me to a guy too drunk for his own good trying to ride a unicycle back into the show he was thrown out of. I have seen people start smoking in the middle of the moshpit, the middle of the crowds, jabbing people with the lit end of their cigarette, and so many more atrocities. If you have someone who is big enough, have a bouncer-type guy there. If it gets too bad, call the cops. They typically won't bust up a peaceful concert unless there are a lot of underage kids outside smoking and drinking. Kick people out when they will comply. When they won't, make sure you call the cops because the person who signed for the building (you!) is responsible not only for the building, but also for the people inside.

Vandalism is one of those things that you really just do not want to see, obviously. You will lose your security deposit if someone starts breaking the soap dispensers off the walls in the bathroom, if someone bashes in the Coke machine in the front of the building, or if someone decapitates a lawn gnome. (Don't ask) There is no real way to keep these things from happening, but you can try to rein it in as much as possible. Kick people out who are vandalizing or call the cops. If you hear about something that has happened, go check it out and see if it can be repaired that night. But vandalism is one of those things that you really cannot control.

Have fun:

It's cliché, I know, but it really is the best thing to do. Don't stress over the entire thing too much otherwise you won't be able to enjoy the concert. Appoint other people to stand watch at the doors and have a good time. You cannot stop all the bad things from happening, so it is best not to worry about it too much. Take all the precautions you can, and then go with the flow!