Fresher's Week Bands

[Pan]

^ she's also very, very boring.

[hr]

"Last time you gave me a pie, I cut into it, and birds flew out of it, hitting me in the face and chin. I was confused. It was a trick pie"

[David]

they should just get a good covers band instead of some band only 3 people in the uni have heard of

[Cain]

Quoting David from 15:01, 4th Aug 2006
they should just get a good covers band instead of some band only 3 people in the uni have heard of

Nouvelle Vague are playing Fruitstock, and they are brilliant.

Everybody will love them.

[hr]

I hold an element of surprise

[Phil Reid]

bands would normally be looking for around about 5000 (I think I paid that for Space, toploader were 7 I think, can't remember exactly but i think mull were cheaper). the VAT would be 17.5% (The VAT charities can reclaim is vat on sales, not on purchases i believe (I know i should know this as an auditor, but i do public sector at the moment, not charities, if you really care you can look it up on the acca website).

this gives it 6 grand.

sound hire will be about £1000+ (the technical rider for professional bands is beyond anything a medium size venue like the union could hope to have, and as we want them to play rather than them wanting to come to st andrews for exposure we have to meet their terms. The mojo safety barrier hire costs around about 500 i recall. catering and refreshment riders would come to about £500 (remember their are the bands, the techs and the management. Support acts could cost up to another 500, you would normally put on a contigency of around about 10% for extras, such as security last minute diva esque demands, tickets etc.

your £5000 quite big a couple of years ago or might be big this year band is then costing you somewhere near £10 000. meaning to break even you would look to charge at least 10. you'd normally budget for about 700 people, which would mean break even then moves to about 14-15 pounds.

you then also have to consider from a financial point of view you could have put on a 'vote for your own music because apparently st andrews djs are incapable of building a set' bop (oh union how you've gone backwards) and made 1-2 000 pounds, so really you should look to make that profit, and, even then ignoring that your letting al this student money which could have been spent in the union at a far higher net profit margin slide out of the town, you would need to charge £16-17 per ticket, and frankly whilst it would be a bargain in here in brighton, you won't find 700 in st andrews is going to pay that for someone like the coral or the automatic during freshers week when there's so much else on. the only sensible thing i'm aware of bonnie ever having done was having coolio a few weeks after when people still had money and things had cooled down a little.

Erik pryde or a lot of discos then.

[Jaspar]

Quoting cain from 15:39, 4th Aug 2006

Quoting David from 15:01, 4th Aug 2006
they should just get a good covers band instead of some band only 3 people in the uni have heard of

Nouvelle Vague are playing Fruitstock, and they are brilliant.

Everybody will love them.

[hr]

I hold an element of surprise

Nouvelle Vague are fantastic. I'd love to see them at the Union!

[LK Today]

sounds like you've done something like this before?

hope you're well phil

lee

Quoting Phil Reid from 09:11, 4th Aug 2006
bands would normally be looking for around about 5000 (I think I paid that for Space, toploader were 7 I think, can't remember exactly but i think mull were cheaper). the VAT would be 17.5% (The VAT charities can reclaim is vat on sales, not on purchases i believe (I know i should know this as an auditor, but i do public sector at the moment, not charities, if you really care you can look it up on the acca website).

this gives it 6 grand.

sound hire will be about £1000+ (the technical rider for professional bands is beyond anything a medium size venue like the union could hope to have, and as we want them to play rather than them wanting to come to st andrews for exposure we have to meet their terms. The mojo safety barrier hire costs around about 500 i recall. catering and refreshment riders would come to about £500 (remember their are the bands, the techs and the management. Support acts could cost up to another 500, you would normally put on a contigency of around about 10% for extras, such as security last minute diva esque demands, tickets etc.

your £5000 quite big a couple of years ago or might be big this year band is then costing you somewhere near £10 000. meaning to break even you would look to charge at least 10. you'd normally budget for about 700 people, which would mean break even then moves to about 14-15 pounds.

you then also have to consider from a financial point of view you could have put on a 'vote for your own music because apparently st andrews djs are incapable of building a set' bop (oh union how you've gone backwards) and made 1-2 000 pounds, so really you should look to make that profit, and, even then ignoring that your letting al this student money which could have been spent in the union at a far higher net profit margin slide out of the town, you would need to charge £16-17 per ticket, and frankly whilst it would be a bargain in here in brighton, you won't find 700 in st andrews is going to pay that for someone like the coral or the automatic during freshers week when there's so much else on. the only sensible thing i'm aware of bonnie ever having done was having coolio a few weeks after when people still had money and things had cooled down a little.

Erik pryde or a lot of discos then.

[hr]

http://standrews.facebook.com/profile.php?id=37102636

[Rennie]

Hi Phil. Thanks for the figures. I'm 99.99% certain that charities can claim back the VAT on purchases as well as sales, or else the system wouldn't make sense - a commercial company could claim back the VAT as long as they were charging VAT to all their guests, which I assume the union does on ticket prices etc etc.

Band prices are not £5,000. Maybe for a top name band, yes - and then I think you should be looking at filling venue 1 (around 1000 I'd assume) and being able to charge £10 per ticket. If it was me, I'd be looking to find a band to play at around £3000. Again, it's just a case of trawling through the agencies and finding a suitable match. Sound hire at £1000? Again, seems about double what is normally paid for a venue the size of venue 1, which already has a lot of equipment in place. Crash barriers, I assume you're right. £500 for catering and refreshment - where are you shopping - Harrods? £200 would be perfectly suffice for catering for up to 8 people I would say. 10% contingency, yeah. I think you'd be looking at about £6-8k for the whole thing, excluding staff costs etc, and if you're charging £10, and you get 600-800 people, I think you've done a good job. I would personally think it's rare that the union make a profit solely on tickets sold on freshers week events, and I don't really think the union should be looking for the maximum revenue at this time, but instead look at getting the events sold out, at a fair price.

[Legion]

Maybe that's where the union is going wrong - they're looking for acts for around £3k.
Then we end up with Javine and Tiffany, or the Call on Me girls.

I think Phil's estimates for food and catering included accommodation too.

As for VAT, this page should offer you a little more information: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/pdfs/cwl4.htm

Let's not continue speculating, shall we?

[niall]

Quoting rennie from 08:56, 15th Aug 2006
Sound hire at £1000? Again, seems about double what is normally paid for a venue the size of venue 1, which already has a lot of equipment in place.

Alot of LX stuff, yes. Sound, no. When i did stuff for FW04, i didnt go overboard and hired in the bare minimum that i needed (didnt use a monitor desk, so no split multicore, or extra outboard.) to get the gig running and that was still roughly £400.
When Snow Patrol played in 03 Ben had got EFX in to run the gig (it also depends on if there is anyone confident enough to mix a big band on the ents crew) and so you were paying for a proper setup - FOH and monitor desks, plus all the mics/etc.

Crash barriers, I assume you're right.

can cost more if you get the company to set it up and take down for you.

£500 for catering and refreshment - where are you shopping - Harrods? £200 would be perfectly suffice for catering for up to 8 people I would say.

but saying you have 3 bands, each with 4 people in them; then each has a tour manager, big name has a couple more production people; 2 noise boys; one of the bands might bring their own lampie, and then throw in some snacks for the ents crew. thats 15 people (not inc ents). going by your £25 a person, that comes to almost £400.

[hr]

do you have a tastyspoon?

http://www.tastyspoon.com/forum

[phil reid]

whilst not wanting to get into another big thing here...

st andrews isn't exactly a regular touring stop, so bads aren't desparate to play there. i paid 5000 for space, who were 2 years off the big time, lura paid 7000 for toploader, who had had one (all be it big that summer) hit. I think hannah paid something like 4 for mhs, and snow patrol were back around the 5 mark. catering ryder would normally band + techs (each bandmember will have there own technician, + tour manager and other members of the entourage, + sound engingeers, so normally more than 10 people. this also includes the drink, which needs to be enough for the above people and all the girls they expect to be bringing back to the dressing room with them, and to see them through the next few days when they are getting back to civilisation to play more gigs. although venue 1 has a lot of sound equipment little of it is of the standerds required by a touring band. when alt mus soc tried to get the parkinsons they were looking at a bill of getting on for a thousand. as well as the 40ch desk, effects racks and the like the bill also includes 2 sound engineers.
hope thats made things clearer

[Phil Reid]

from the above guidance my reading is there would be no vsat exemption.

also with regard to sound hire for an event your already paying so much for the band you don't want to risk it being ruined by poor sound engineering or technical probelms beyond the ken of your ents crew. even when hannah, lura, and i had nutter and parky available there was no way we wouldn't use proffessional systems, particularly as your senior ents crew will have worked there arses off for the previous few days, and be a bit below there peak.

pps. still waiting for the call about fiddler lee

[Big X]

yeah so back to the original question: its 3 weeks to go now....surely someone knows thats going on??

[hr]

"Never apologise for showing feeling, in doing so you apologise for truth" Disraeli

[Jono]

Quoting Big X from 11:49, 24th Aug 2006
yeah so back to the original question: its 3 weeks to go now....surely someone knows thats going on??

[hr]

"Never apologise for showing feeling, in doing so you apologise for truth" Disraeli

I'm sure they probably do. But wouldn't it be so much nicer for them to keep us in the dark and give us a nice surprise at freshers week?

At the very least it means anyone who might complain will only have one week in which to do it, where it's already too late to change anything.

[hr]


http://standrews.facebook.com/profile.php?id=37105376

[missscotland]

ok i just looked on the sign outside the union...

on the second saturday it says something about a random band..featuring..wait for it...GINA G!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Lodestone]

ok i just looked on the sign outside the union...

on the second saturday it says something about a random band..featuring..wait for it...GINA G!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Is this Chris Marks's Last Stand?

[Duffman]

May god have mercy upon our souls!

[hr]

Don't dream too far,
Don't lose sight of who you are.

[LK Today]

What has Chris Marks got to do with it?

Quoting Lodestone from 16:05, 25th Aug 2006

ok i just looked on the sign outside the union...

on the second saturday it says something about a random band..featuring..wait for it...GINA G!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Is this Chris Marks's Last Stand?

[hr]

http://standrews.facebook.com/profile.php?id=37102636

[Fenella]

Just googled her, and this is what I came up with:

http://www.ginag.com/

Not sure which is worse.. her, or Javine...

[boris]

Pleaseeeeeee

Make this untrue! gawd