organ

Sad to see the Bull & Gate have an Emergenza night on tonight...

Ditto. Unfortunately I like playing at the Bull & Gate enough to not boycott it on those grounds.

you'd think the Bull &Gate people wouldn't sink that low though, they're in bands and such themselves...

----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: Outback Eskimos
To: ORGAN
Date: 20 Apr 2009, 11:53
Subject: What are you doing on the 2nd May??


We are in the Emergenza Edinburgh final and would love if you could come and support us. We are offering the tickets at a discount of only £5 rather than the £8 you will get charged on the door. So, if you're interested then contact us via our myspace and we will give you all the details!

Much love Outback Eskimos

----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: ORGAN
To: Outback Eskimos
Date: 20 Apr 2009, 12:12
Subject: RE: What are you doing on the 2nd May??


you've been suckerd in to entering that Emergenza crap have you... why do you bands fall for that bullshit? Go read our old blogs or our forum and don't support these damn rip-off people! There is no place for pay to play and forced ticket buys in music...

----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: Outback Eskimos
To: ORGAN
Date: 23 Apr 2009, 17:25
Subject: RE: What are you doing on the 2nd May??


Somebody sounds bitter...
We're well aware of all the problems associated with emergenza, but the entire business is all about making money. It's nice to follow the ideaology that bands can just play and that'll be fine, but that's not how it works, even if it should be. The only bands who have a problem with it are the ones who can't pull a crowd, and maybe they need to think about why that is?

Appreciate your input, but we'll take our chances.

OE

----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: ORGAN
To: Outback Eskimos
Subject: RE: What are you doing on the 2nd May??


Well you made your choice. If you're willing to support these pay to play band abusers then you're part of the problem and thus you'll not get coverage, support or anything else from us. There are ways to make money that don't involve ripping off bands or indeed those of us who pay to get in...

goodbye

-----------------------------------------------------------------------


And of couse it goes without saying the finalists for the Edinburgh leg of what we're told is a compitition featuring the most exciting new unsigned cutting edge next big thing bands, are in fact a dreadfully boring tediously flat clueless waste of time and space pub rock band... You kind of get to automatically know that any band you've never heard of that tells you they are playing these kind of events are going to be shite, don't even have to waste time checking really....

some shit band wrote: We're well aware of all the problems associated with emergenza, but the entire business is all about making money.

Really? F**k... 20 years of promoting, reviewing and managing bands under the impression it was about making music, that's where I've been going wrong........

....... but seriously, people like this pretty much deserve to be charged £50 to play in front of their parents.

kind of what I was thinking. Maybe we should actually be thanking these Emegenzia people for putting on these awful bands and pretty much pointing out who and where they are so we don't have to bother wasting time checking them out... I mean we all know damn well they're going to be at best very very very average. I have yet to hear a decent band via all the spam we get for these kind of events.

It is all about making money though, none of us actually care about the people or the music or any of that do we...

round the crap bands up, sideline them, make them pay to play and keep them all out of our hair... they damn well deserve it when they say things like that...

I'm in the band who you have just slagged off, and have stayed out of this debate until now.

I fully agree with your argument, pay to play isn't the way things should be done in the music business and I would definately play for a genuinely good promoter before I would go anywhere near Emergenza, but the fact is they are so hard to find for new bands and no matter how 'good' they say they are, they are only interested in how many tickets the band can sell at the end of the day. If a band couldn't bring a crowd, what interest would a promoter have in them?
The people who run competitions like Emergenza are a bunch of money grabbing b******s, and I have said that all along. But aren't all (or most of) the companies in the world the same?
We have actually made money out of this and we have had 3 gigs so far. If a promoter asked your band if you would like 3 or more gigs at half decent venues, and said you would be paid £140 or more for it, would you say no?

And finally, I don't care what you think of my band, I don't really care what anyone thinks to be honest, I do it for the enjoyment which I'm sure many people on this forum will agree with, and I would appreciate it if you didn't slag us off on the internet, we didn't do anything to you. Grow up.

L

oh dear me Lewis, that makes you look even more clueless and stupid, you really do like shoot at your own foot don't you. There's hundreds of good promoters out there if you bother to look (and if your band is anygood and worth actually promoting), you'll find a lot of information on these pages for a start...

Yes, you're right, it is getting tougher to find places to play but the good promoters are still out there. Thing is Lewis, if people like YOU didn't support these pay to play scumbags then they wouldn't be getting themselves a stranglehold on all the good venues - they don't care about you, they don't care about music, they're laughing all the way to the bank, laughing at your clueless stupidity. We all made a stand and got rid of them once and now people like you are letting them back in again, you're part of the problem here Lewis...

YOU are helping to kill live grassroots music with crap like this. What a shitty attitude you have... You are helping create the problem and if you bands carry on like this then there really will be no other option besides the pay to play option you say you are being forced in to right now...

Wise up Lewis, listen to what everyone is telling you, take your head out of the sand.

Oh and if money really is your only motive then then associating yourselves with events like this is really no way to move your band forward in terms of making money... have a look at where entering these things got last year's winner, or the year before that... kiss of death, commercial suicide... selling tickets to family and friends may make you a couple of quid this week, but they don't really care about your music and the rest of us already know to avoid any band who's name we see on one of these bills, even if your music was to be interesting, the industry knows well to avoid investing any time, effort and money in to any band stupid enough to fall for this crap... Industry people don't just judge you on music, they look at your business and how you conduct yourselves, so if you want to talk in those terms you really are messing up badly by even having your names on the flyers of these bills, let alone spaming the in boxes of labels and magazines about it. You may as well just send out spam saying something like "hello, we're a clueless band with no idea what we're doing, don't bother checking us out"

Grow up yourself Lewis, wise up, listen to the things those of us who have been through it all and know are telling you..

Lewis wrote:If a promoter asked your band if you would like 3 or more gigs at half decent venues, and said you would be paid £140 or more for it, would you say no?

Yes, I've done so twice today as it happens on behalf of a band I work for. Well, similar stuff anyway. Gigs where they could be quids in on a forced ticket sale job cos I know what crowd they can pull. And yes, they're happy I don't even bother them with such offers and reject them straight off. They'd rather do decent gigs.

And on the money point, Sean's original blog on the subject that kicked all this off quoted some maths someone had done, that showed that even if money was your primary motive you'd be better off DIY. In the simplest terms, by hiring some hall or pub room for £100 you get to keep £5 from each £5 ticket sold after the first 20, as opposed to £1 or £2. Not hard is it?

Lewis wrote:I'm in the band who you have just slagged off, and have stayed out of this debate until now.

I fully agree with your argument, pay to play isn't the way things should be done in the music business and I would definately play for a genuinely good promoter before I would go anywhere near Emergenza, but the fact is they are so hard to find for new bands and no matter how 'good' they say they are, they are only interested in how many tickets the band can sell at the end of the day. If a band couldn't bring a crowd, what interest would a promoter have in them?
The people who run competitions like Emergenza are a bunch of money grabbing b******s, and I have said that all along. But aren't all (or most of) the companies in the world the same?
We have actually made money out of this and we have had 3 gigs so far. If a promoter asked your band if you would like 3 or more gigs at half decent venues, and said you would be paid £140 or more for it, would you say no?

And finally, I don't care what you think of my band, I don't really care what anyone thinks to be honest, I do it for the enjoyment which I'm sure many people on this forum will agree with, and I would appreciate it if you didn't slag us off on the internet, we didn't do anything to you. Grow up.

L

Years ago I was researching the European Final of Emergenza in Germany. The previous years finalist was on the local board I was on, sucking the cock of the regional Emergenza organiser. He was stating about how his band got through all the heats and had "30,000 people eating out of the palm of his hands". I did a search to find pictures and reviews of this. I found just one write up of it that wasn't written by Emergenza themselves. It was a written by someone who'd followed the Luxembourg winners. I mailed the guy to ask him what it was like. Bear in mind this is the second highest final in a worldwide competition. This is what he told me:

I think you very much for your e-mail about the Grand Final of the
Emergenza newcomer contest. Unfortunately I didn't see Toupé from the
United Kingdom. As 26 national Emergenza winners were playing on the
three festival days, it was impossible to see them all.

Concerning the number of spectators, I have to disappoint you that there
weren't many present. You certainly remember that 2003 had a very hot
summer and until late afternoon, many visitors preferred resting at the
camping instead of running around on the festival site. For instance, on
Sunday, there was a band from France playing in front of exactly 12
people. They were on stage about noon.

I was also watching Inborn from Luxemburg who played at abou 1:30 pm.
They had more or less 30 spectators, all friends and family from
Luxemburg. Most spectators were entering the festival site at about 5
pm. The Taubertal is a festival with a quite commercial programm and so
it is attracting a quite commercial interested audience who is not very
much interested in discovering itself new bands. They prefer consuming
what MTV is dictating to them. Maybe you know that the Emergenza bands
could play about 25 minutes when the soundcheck was done on the main
stage between two bigger bands. Even when at this time 10000 - 12000
people were present, most preferred waiting in front of the main stage
in order to get a good place close to the artists instead of moving 300
meters in direction of the smaller Emergenza stage. There were never
more than 300 people watching there.

The best time to play at the Emergenza stage was in the night after 1 am
when the last act on the main stage had finished. Then there were more
people watching (maybe 1000). The other 11000 returned to the camping or
went into one of the disco tents. But only two bands had the chance to
play at that schedule.

It was also telling that Toupe were far up the arses of the Emergenza UK staff. I am sure it was a coincidence they got through.

I'm glad to see evidence of the numbers at the Emergenza Finals in Germany. Emergenza now claims that you'll play in front of 30,000 people (it was previously 20,000) but the photos don't really show that. In fact, all their photos are mostly shot close to the stage so you can't see the crowd. But there are a few. Check out the photos I found from the 2008 Festival. Be sure to check all four photos and notice the three kids at every performance!

http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewImage&friendID=210168171&albumID=1485441&imageID=20606584

Thanks! The guy that wrote me the e-mail I quoted previously had photos like that on his review but he's taken the review done (it is years old now). The ironic thing about that final is I like to be able to show bands actual photos of the "great prize" but so few people go to watch it's hard to find independent media.