organ

Sadly the Purple Turtle in Camden is beginning the slide into the P2P abyss. Responding to an ad they're running on myspace, seeking bands for weeknight gigs, this is the response:


ok cool

here is info on bookings for our in-house nights in case you havent been sent before

let us know if its something you can work with


We only deal with the smaller in-house nights ourselves, these are usually weekdays (for the bigger weekend shows you would need to talk to one of our promoters, some of which you can find on our top friends list)

If you are interested in playing one of our in-house nights we do ask that bands are able to get 20+ people down to shows, and will be required to sell 20 tickets in advance. 20 tickets = £100, out of which you will keep £50

However, we will need a deposit of £50 before we can send you the tickets. (This is to prevent sending tickets to bands that don't actually intend to play) selling all 20 tickets at £5 per ticket will therefore earn you your deposit back plus £50 on top for you to keep. If you have sold all your tickets and require more, we will send you as many as you need and you keep the money.

We have had to enforce this due to having been messed around by bands that don't want to put any effort into gigs. Obviously this is not right for everyone, we have no interest in cheating bands out of money. Bands that are unable to pull the minimum required number of people and that would have difficulty selling that number of tickets will probably find this not worth their while, but for bands that can pull 20+ people it's a great way to earn some money from shows.


If this sounds like something you'd be interested in we would be happy to have you play here when we have a suitable night available

Looking forward to working with you

Purple Turtle


They can shove it up their arses. If a venue like that, in London's prime musical location, can't attract a decent walk-in trade, or better still advertise the events and build a following, then somebody's just being a lazy, money-grubbing wanker (as usual!).

We were due to play a Monday night at the Turtle just a couple of weeks ago. Ultimately we couldn't do it but at time of booking it was a straight flyer deal. This forced ticket buy shit is a very recent development...

this is why this needs to be shouted about, every venue in London was doing that at the end of the 80's, there was no where for a new bands to play without having to pay

this is why this needs to be shouted about, every venue in London was doing that at the end of the 80's, there was no where for a new bands to play without having to pay

So we posted this up on My Space, no doubt it wil lbe taken down by the My Space police soon, here's what people are saying there....



Alert Artists: This is just getting totally out of hand, NOT good news and I am really peed off!!! thanks for telling us.....!!!!
Posted by Alert Artists on Monday, March 02, 2009 - 1:17 PM


Milk Roar: Bang on! we were offered something disguised as pay to play by a well known London venue last week. It's plain wrong and indeed a return to the dark ages and empty venues and invisible promoters.
DO NOT DO IT!

ORGAN@ well name the venue, name and shame them.... out them, warn others about them... and go do it on the Organ forum, 'cause no doubt, this will all be removed by the My Space police soon...
Posted by ORGAN on March 2, 2009 - Monday 5:20 AM


Ten City Nation - free album download: Gutted. I like the Purple Turtle, thought they were Good Guys. I had great fun telling the Water Rats to sod off (in no uncertain terms) when they offered us a Pay To Play gig earlier this week, and I hear many other bands are doing the same.
Hurrah!

Posted by Ten City Nation - free album download on Monday, March 02, 2009 - 1:17 PM

We've been offered a gig at the Water Rats. Somebody called Jeremy gave us two options:

a) You buy 60 tickets upfront at £3 each (£180 out of the band's pocket... Yeah, RIGHT!)

Or

b) You put the name of everybody attending on a guest list and then those people play £6 to get in.

We obviously went for option B. I don't understand why they don't just do a flyer deal. Faffing around with a guest list like that is just going to piss potential punters off. And who's going to be stupid enough to shell out £180 (I guess I already know the answer to that one...)

If anybody has any extra info about this guest list thing, please share it as we don't want to get ripped off (though £6 to get in is extortionate anyway).

Just don't play these places and tell them why, plenty of new venues and good promoters in London - these type of gigs are never any good, they stick the first four bands they can find on a bill, no kind of cross polenation, no kind of promotion, total waste of time for bands and total rip off for the gig going paying audience...

Just done it. Who needs shit like that?!

"Love the attitude - go get em!!
P2P venues suck.
We've previously been ripped off by Water Rats (Monto)"

said a band in a private message just now...

"Love the attitude - go get em!!
P2P venues suck.
We've previously been ripped off by Water Rats (Monto)"

said a band in a private message just now...

It's a real shame the Water Rats has decended to this. It's a really nice venue, and a nice venue to play as well. Only spoiled by the shitheads running it.

and to think one of the main guys there was in a band we worked with lots, you'd think people who had been through it themsleves would know better... I kind of expect it from the Purple Turtle, only ever put one gig on there and got bag loads of bulshit from then, I would have put good money on them doing the Pay To Play thing, but the Water Rats Monto people, that's a real disapointment

I think the most important sentence in the original Purple Turtle quote is this:

"We have had to enforce this due to having been messed around by bands that don't want to put any effort into gigs"

As if learning to play an instrument, forming a band, writing a set of songs and rehearsing them to death counted as "not putting any effort in"...

Why are these promoters so unwilling to put in any effort or take any risk?

well the Purple Turtle do have a point there, bands should promote themselves and work gigs like mad, and so many never do, these days bands seem to think promotion starts and ends with a My Space page, sending out a add request, never ever saying hello and then leaving dumb comments like " thanks for the add and support dudes, thanks for being a fan, we love you so much".

Bands on the whole do not promote themselves and their gigs, but hey, thems the breaks when you promote, just don't book 'em again, there's always another band around the corner who wil ltry a little more, one thing we are not short of is new bands!

Bands, promoters, venues, labels, we should all be in this together and all working our arses off to make gigs happening exciting rewarding events for everyone.

IT IS YOUR BAND, IF YOU CAN'T BE BOTHERED THEN WHY SHOULD ANYONE BE EXPECTED TO...

We put a gig guide up on the Organ website a few weeks ago, packed with info and links it is, but can we get bands to send in their info? Can we f***, we regularly tell people about gigs and play tracks previewing gigs on our radio show on Resonance FM, can we get bands to send stuff in? Can we f..

Last week a band who we had given a really good review to e.mailed us and said "come see us tonight, we're playing in Camden", didn't even say where in Camden, sent them a reply saying in might just help to tell us where, and if you had said last week we would have played something on the radio, told people, put it on the gig guide, spread the word and such, they didn't bother to reply until after the gig and then just to tell us how crap Organ is because we didn't bother coming and supporting a "hard working new band"...

Pay to play sucks and what the Purple Turtle and Water Rats are doing is well out of order, there is no excuse, but if you bands don't work your shows then it kind of serves you right, the atittude of we play the instruments so why should we do anything else is not good enough...

promote your shows and support the venues and promoters who are putting you on, cost them money to do it, if you don't all you end up with is what we're getting from the sold-out Water Rats people right now

YOU BANDS GET WHAT YOU DESERVE, UP TO YOU TO MAKE THE EFFORT, IF YOU DO THEN YOU'LL ALSO GET WHAT YOU DESERVE.... wE WERE ONCE PUTTING ON TWO OR THREE GIGS A WEEK IN LONDON, WE GOT FED UP WITH BANDS PISSING ABOUT AND NOT PUTTING IN ANY EFFORT... WE ARE NOW VERY VERY SELECTIVE...

Yeeeeeeeeeees! Get your gig info in, I'm having to chase it all up, you bands are dead lazy...

SOME OF THE MY sPACE REACTION, WE'LL POST IT HERE BEFORE IT GETS REMOVED FROM OVER THERE....

This is just getting totally out of hand, NOT good news and I am really peed off!!! thanks for telling us.....!!!!

Posted by Alert Artists on Monday, March 02, 2009 - 1:17 PM


Milk Roar: Bang on! we were offered something disguised as pay to play by a well known London venue last week. It's plain wrong and indeed a return to the dark ages and empty venues and invisible promoters. DO NOT DO IT!
Posted by Milk Roar on Monday, March 02, 2009 - 1:17 PM


ORGAN: well name the venue, name and shame them.... out them, warn others about them... and go do it on the Organ forum, 'cause no doubt, this will all be removed by the My Space police soon...
Posted by ORGAN on Monday, March 02, 2009 - 1:20 PM


Hilda: Thing is dude.. as we've been saying for donkeys years... bands should just not do gigs like this... there's plenty of gigs out there that don't do the P2P so don't be suckered in! Once you get yourself a following of reasonable size these feckers are practically begging you to play. Stick with the good guys/promoters. The Drugdealer Cheerleader tour takes in some hand picked venues and promoters as follows - Pure Rawk Promotions (Nix also plugs the bands on her weekly Total Rock Show on Thursday mornings) - www. myspace. com/purerawkpromotions promotes in London and Croydon, Riot Promotions - Jaimz is a top geeza and knows just how hard this shit is - always treats his bands well and provide rider etc... promotes in Nottingham www. myspace.com/theriotpromotions , Rockers in Glasgow (speak to H), Gasworks in Bradford and Yardbirds in Grimsby. All of these venues / promoters kick major league arse....
Posted by Hilda on Monday, March 02, 2009 - 2:27 PM


ORGAN: well all good Hilda, but others have told us different things about Rockers in Glasgow - bottom line is check it out you new bands and don't ever let any promoter or venue or anyone else tell you you have to pay to play or pay a deposit or buy tickets.... they're ripping you off, leeching off you...
Posted by ORGAN on Monday, March 02, 2009 - 2:29 PM


Ten City Nation - free album download
Gutted. I like the Purple Turtle, thought they were Good Guys. I had great fun telling the Water Rats to sod off (in no uncertain terms) when they offered us a Pay To Play gig earlier this week, and I hear many other bands are doing the same. Hurrah!
Posted by Ten City Nation - free album download on Monday, March 02, 2009 - 1:17 PM

Ghostfire: Please do as Sean asks and join the forum - repost your comments there. These blogs never last for long. I made the original Turtle post by the way...
Posted by Ghostfire on Monday, March 02, 2009 - 2:01 PM


Milk Roar: Ok, The Water Rats.
Posted by Milk Roar on Monday, March 02, 2009 - 2:14 PM

ORGAN: that's a shame, you'd think the people who run the Water Rats would know better, they've been in bands themselves... they've played on Organ bills... scumbags
Posted by ORGAN on Monday, March 02, 2009 - 2:31 PM

Ghostfire: It seems the Turtle's unwitting response to this is to spam up everybody's myspace with bulletins looking for bands to play (how shocking - nobody wants to play theremore??) - and just now one about that Godawful Emergenza Festival. How unsurprising they've got involved with that lot! I bet they're actively courting Surface Unsigned as we speak...
Posted by Ghostfire on Monday, March 02, 2009 - 4:15 PM

ORGAN: Emegenza, Glasswerks, they got the full set of 'em over there...
Posted by ORGAN on Monday, March 02, 2009 - 4:19 PM

Glyn: Thankfully here in Leicester P2P is fairly rare except at The Shed which I refuse to book gigs at on principle. Ripping off young kids is neither big nor clever.
Posted by Glyn on Monday, March 02, 2009 - 5:33 PM

call the doctor: nearly everywhere is doing this now
Posted by call the doctor on Monday, March 02, 2009 - 6:16 PM

ORGAN: more reason for EVERYBODY to shout about it and say no then... apathy is not what's needed here...
Posted by ORGAN on Monday, March 02, 2009 - 6:17 PM

ORGAN: "Love the attitude - go get em!! P2P venues suck. We've previously been ripped off by Water Rats (Monto)" said a band in a private message just now...
Posted by ORGAN on Tuesday, March 03, 2009 - 11:34 AM

The Outbursts: Interesting, I spoke to Paul at MONTO yesterday and we've got a gig there on in a couple of weeks (bottom of the bill but not much expected of us in the way of bringing a crowd because of that). Not a mention of P2P (in any of its nasty little forms) but I'm yet to be sent the contract ........... Posted by The Outbursts on Friday, March 06, 2009 - 1:59 PM

SonVer: Even with a new album to try and promote, and having love for The Water Rats as a venue, we've also told them as politely as possible that under no circumstances would we get involved in a P2P situation. We'd rather not gig at all than have to go down that route...
Posted by SonVer on Thursday, March 05, 2009 - 11:45 AM

SKOPJE: The water rats as well!! Now that shocked me
Posted by SKOPJE on Thursday, March 05, 2009 - 11:46 AM

The Outbursts: Virtually the same message I was sent by a 'promoter' called Karl who 'promotes' at The Loaded Dog in Leytonstone,The Bullet Bar and now at The Cross King, (www. myspace. com/nonstopmusicpromotions) when I politely told him that we don't do Pay to Play he mailed back saying that this policy isn't P2P but a neccesity and that it means that the bands work harder to get a crowd to their gigs.

Now forgive me if I'm a little retarded here but the band play on the stage and the promoter promotes, is that right? coz otherwise I've been sorely mistaken for years and have missed out on seeing some really good promoters singing and playing their hearts out !!

We've also got a gig at The Fiddlers Elbow with Club Fabulous on 19 March (plug, plug!) and there's been some online muttering about them imposing P2P but they've not asked us for any money (perhaps we intimidate them)
Posted by The Outbursts on Friday, March 06, 2009 - 1:59 PM