The failure of the Bop...finally, the REAL story.

[schmod]

I should probably also add that I largely agree with the original poster on the topic.

I also get a bit peeved that the Union DJs don't like their identities to be known, mainly for the reasons outlined in this thread.

[Spike]

Hello fellow sinners, i feel it is time for me to pitch in my share.

Hi, My name is Gavin Service (gs98) and i am an ent. I have been in ents for coming up 4 years now and have picked up a few things in my time, but first off i must admit that i am a bop DJ.

Now that the hard part is over let me give you a view of the bop from a DJ's perspective. There is a crowd of people infront of you (ranging from 400 - 1000 in size) who want a great night's entertainment, via the music blaring out from the speakers to your side. If they like the music then you have a great time, but heaven forbid if you choose a bad song. You have approximately 3 mins to choose a song that fits, has roughly the same tempo and that is known and will go down well. In essence your night is composed of 4 hours broken up into 3-minute stress filled sections.

As has been pointed out before, ALL Dj's are volunteers and are giving up their nights out (and probably following mornings as well) to play music for the bop. I am not saying that people don't do it for the recognition or perks, but they are not doing it for financial motivation. Also, because they are volunteers some feel as though they can play as they please and screw anyone who complains. That being said, generally when *thrown in at the deep end* infront of boppers people soon lose this attitude and try and please the crowd (hopefully).

Next to address music taste: The bop can be very inconsistent with its crowd from week to week and from night to night. This means that you will actually be hard pressed to find a *clone* bop as there are usually several (if unfortunately subtle) changes from bop to bop. One song can go down well one week and then bomb the next. However there are a few songs that will ALWAYS hit the mark (call on me, somebody told me....you know the ones) and so when a DJ is stressed and running out of time they may rely on these ones to tide them over.
Yes, we do not play all styles of music in a night (i am guilty of this) but this can be due to many factors. For example, the DJ does not own any songs fitting the genre, the songs might not fit in the theme of the bop or even the DJ might not like the style of music in question.
The solution, is of course, to have more DJ's (anyone interested in DJing in the union please feel free to email ents@st-andrews.ac.uk with your name and they will get back to you a.s.a.p.) but there is not a lot that can be done to address this issue.
What people call *GOOD* music is personal preference. No 2 people have identical music taste, try providing music for regularly over 700 people!

And as far as the bop attracting a *small ammount of people*, I personally do not consider a minimum of 10% of the student's at this university a small number.


But at the end of the day, the only thing worse than having the bop the same every week is to actually try and change it.

i have seen time and again *new and unique* bops (ICE dragon thursdays, the fife park techno night a couple of years back etc) fail. Yes, you may like r'n'b, but for a whole 4 hours?

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http://standrews.facebook.com/profile.php?id=37103556

[scotlandposse2010]

Hmm, I know I'm gonna get criticised for saying this, because it is an arrogant thing to say, (and was the main reason I started this thread) BUT

I don't DJ at the Union very often any more, but every time I do, I change things up. A lot. And I've always had great feed back, such as 'Thanks for not playing the same old crap every week.'

And that, Gavin, is why I refuse to play cheese OR rock -- simply because it's not quite as dance-able as other genres.

[munchingfoo]

i have seen time and again *new and unique* bops (ICE dragon thursdays, the fife park techno night a couple of years back etc) fail. Yes, you may like r'n'b, but for a whole 4 hours?

but like has been said thousadns of times before, and on this very thread -

you cannot use the number of people who go to a friday bop as a guideline as to how successful other nights are.

Non union created venue 1 nights are only given the nights the union thinks might not be very busy for a normal bop. So yes, there were only around 50 people at the Fife Park venue 1 night, but then again, there were only about 30 people in the main bar that night too. Given that the only night we were allowed to have clashed with 4 balls, was the week before the may ball and was 2 weeks before exams, it was hardly surprising.

How about you give a proper RnB DJ one Friday sometime? Just to see. Also, as has also been said thousands of times, you'd need to advertise it. No point changing the music randomly without telling anyone or of course you'll piss some people off and the people you want to attract and please won't show up.

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[s]Warning : The sinner is a plateau, with moral high ground manifesting itself as an optical illusion in the the bearers mind.[/s]

[schmod]

We've had "proper" RnB DJs in the 12-1 slot several times before.

They go over well with the Americans, but not much else.

[orudge]

Quoting scotlandposse2010 from 21:38, 11th Feb 2008
I don't DJ at the Union very often any more, but every time I do, I change things up. A lot. And I've always had great feed back, such as 'Thanks for not playing the same old crap every week.'

At the same time, I've known people to say to me, at bops where you (amongst others) have DJed, "urgh, this bop's crap, where's the cheese?" and so on. You can't please everybody. In my own opinion, aiming for a mix of music in the bop is probably the best way to go - give them their cheese, and a bit of dance, RnB, whatever. And perhaps it may well be worth trying a "proper" different night, with advertising, on a Friday, as munchingfoo suggests - it may be a risk for the union, but it may prove successful.

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http://www.owenrudge.net/
http://standrews.facebook.com/profile.php?id=37103734

[munchingfoo]

If you play cheese from 9-12 then 1-2 you are hardly likely to get custom from RnB listeners are you? (and once again we come back to the advertising)


Jesus!!! I'm going to cry in a corner.

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[s]Warning : The sinner is a plateau, with moral high ground manifesting itself as an optical illusion in the the bearers mind.[/s]

[munchingfoo]

and RnB was just an example of course. Any genre, as long as there is some kind of dancing like motion attributed to it would do.

Well advertised - Normal Friday Night (whole night one genre/or complimentary genres) - No (where possible) clashes with other major events - preferably not too far away from student loan instalments.

You do this and make any less money than you would normally on that night then I will take my hat off to everyone of the cheese advocators (or cheesemongers perhaps) and applogise. Until then...


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[s]Warning : The sinner is a plateau, with moral high ground manifesting itself as an optical illusion in the the bearers mind.[/s]

[Lapsed bopper]

The bop is dead!

Long live the bop!

[Bonnie]

God I miss the bop!
From the floor and behind the scenes, bothering the Ents.

[schmod]

Quoting munchingfoo from 22:21, 11th Feb 2008
If you play cheese from 9-12 then 1-2 you are hardly likely to get custom from RnB listeners are you? (and once again we come back to the advertising)

We rarely play Cheese from 9-12, and I was talking about the reactions of the crowd, and not the ticket sales of the night.

[Jono]

Quoting schmod from 23:45, 11th Feb 2008

Quoting munchingfoo from 22:21, 11th Feb 2008
If you play cheese from 9-12 then 1-2 you are hardly likely to get custom from RnB listeners are you? (and once again we come back to the advertising)

We rarely play Cheese from 9-12, and I was talking about the reactions of the crowd, and not the ticket sales of the night.

Well, why not? The reaction of the crowd is subjective as hell. For every person that likes a song, there's probably another that hates it!

At the end of the day, the Bop is a money-spinner, and the only accurate way to measure the "success" of a night is by ticket sales! But then it comes down to the usual argument; that events on other nights fail to make profit, so we've obviously got to preserve the bop exactly the way it is each and every week! Except, it's not a fair comparison. Friday night is the last day of class, The union has it's 2AM license, and you've got all bloody weekend to sober up. OF COURSE more people are going to be out on the town!

I put it to you, that the bop is popular because it's open late, and people like to let their hair down on a Friday night; not because of the music. The only way to test that would be to mix it up. I don't mean supplanting pop-rock for cheese occasionally; I mean REALLY mixing it up. Doing, for example, a Metal bop, an R&B bop, a Live Rock bop, on the Friday night in lieu of our regular programming! I'd like to see the new DoES Run an experiment next semester, where the bop is fundamentally altered week on week for X number of weeks. Records would be kept of how many tickets were sold, and that data could then be analyzed.

That's the ideal at least! Pragmatically, I think pigs might fly sooner than it actually happening!





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BY FIRE; BE PURGED!


http://www.myspace.com/tauntra

[Super Jock]

I agree with most of what the original poster said, the bop has a problem, and most people think it's the DJ's. The music has changed since I went in my first year, and it's why I don't go anymore. Cheese was better than what we have now. I honestly think I could do better with a playlist on my Ipod. Plus I've done volunteer work for the reason, some one had to, it maybe bullshit when some people say that. But it wasn't me, so I believe the original poster puts in work for the good reasons.

[Mr Comedy]

Quoting munchingfoo from 15:53, 11th Feb 2008

Also, we should consider actually paying DJs again. Perhaps we should also consider paying Ents to stop the normal argument of "... but ents don't get paid either". Its not unheard of for Ents to be paid at other Universities. I know that Abertay pay theirs and their union is tiny.

It astounds me that some people think that the way to make money is always to cut costs.

Hooray. We used to pay them back in the day when I was DJ Convenor, and although DJs got paid very low money (£20) compared to what they could make with their own setup at a ball or in a bar in town, many were happy to do it for this money for the 'prestige' of playing in the union. When money was cut, a number of the decent DJs and myself left as we'd happily do it for a little money but wouldn't work for free. After that the quality deteriorated rapidly, and in my final year random members of the SSC and sabbaticals were regularly "DJing" even though they didn't have any experience or couldn't do beat-matching.

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"I am in no way interested in immortality, but only in the taste of tea. " -Lu Tung

[niall]

Quoting munchingfoo from 22:21, 11th Feb 2008
If you play cheese from 9-12 then 1-2 you are hardly likely to get custom from RnB listeners are you? (and once again we come back to the advertising)

I'm sure 'foo and Comedy will remember back in the day when the bop was structured each night (and was only open to 12:45) where there was Dance for a bit then some chart stuff then the last hour or so was full out cheese. So while you'd get some of the same songs every week, the time slot for cheese wasn't big, so you couldn't play the same large collection of tracks.

[scotlandposse2010]

I'd also like to add that because the Union is the only place open until 2 on a Friday, it makes sense to play all the crap music first, and then from 1-2 play all the good music. Here's why:

All the other venues, such as the Lizard, Ma Bell's, and what used to be the Gin House play good music only until 1. Then all the people who have spend the night at these places have nowhere to go but the Bop. If they then go to the Bop, and hear the same good music that they'd heard previously at places like the Lizard, then they might come back earlier and more often.

I know a lot of people in the Union say, oh well we've tried to change it before and people complain. Of course they're going to complain! At first. But if you do it long enough, we might be able to drive away the current Bop-cheese crowd and attract a larger audience of people with different tastes in music.

Of course, everyone at the Union is too stubborn to try it for an extended period of time, because they're afraid sales will drop drastically. Maybe at first, but in the long run it's certainly worth a try. It's not like the Union is doing particularly well financially at the moment anyway!

[thePontificator]

So basically you're saying people will come in from other pubs to hear music they've already heard, or at least a similar kind, for the last hour? I don't know if that's a given, or even if you'd make more money out of it.

It seems a bit of a risk to try to drive out the current audience of bop-goers in an attempt to replace them with a different audience. It also seems (I don't know how the OP intended to come across but this is how it looks) that you simply want to replace the current crowd with a different crowd more in line with your own taste. There are plenty of places in St Andrews playing different music, as you have mentioned, so unless the Bop in its current incarnation starts losing the Union money can you really see any circumstances that would persuade people to change it?

[scotlandposse2010]

Quoting thePontificator from 11:40, 12th Feb 2008
you simply want to replace the current crowd with a different crowd more in line with your own taste. There are plenty of places in St Andrews playing different music, as you have mentioned, so unless the Bop in its current incarnation starts losing the Union money can you really see any circumstances that would persuade people to change it?

It's not necessarily my taste of music. If I had it my way I'd have the Bop be jazz all night long. I'm simply saying that I think there are more people out there who prefer non-cheese to cheese.

Secondly, the only other real places in town that you can dance at currently are the Lizard and Catch, and even those are only on certain nights, so we're still kind of limited.

And as far as I know, the Union lost thousands of pounds last year and this year because of the Bop's general unpopularity. If it were really popular it should sell out every week, the way it did several years ago.

[Guest]

Unfortunately the Bop seems to have a Marmite effect and then student body is divided between those generally people who go most weeks and those who never go. Its going to be extremely difficult to attract both types at one time.

[munchingfoo]

I don't think the point is to attract both types at a time, but to cater for the remaining 6500 students atleast some of the time.

Perhaps we are even arguing along the wrong lines here. Is it fair that only one taste of music is catered for in the largest Venue in town every Friday night? A commercial enterprise really has no need to be fair, they are simply after revenue. The union however surely has a duty to try to accomodate as many different tastes as it can without going crazy about it. We are, after all, equal members of the institution.

Arguing that "people complain" is ridiculous. People complain about everything, but we just have to come to the fairest compromise.



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[s]Warning : The sinner is a plateau, with moral high ground manifesting itself as an optical illusion in the the bearers mind.[/s]