Okay, last show we were supposed to do an outdoor gig, but there's several things that were wrong. We ended up leaving as soon as we got there due to general unprofessionalism.
First things first, finding the venue was a nightmare, first because exits to the town the venue was in were closed for construction, so we had to backtrack anyways. They also didn't have signs, it was out in the middle of nowhere only accessible by dirt roads, and none of the directions were clear. In fact, I hesitate to call it a venue. It was literally in the middle of ****ing nowhere.
Not only that, but there were three stages at an outdoor gig, which would lead one to believe that there are three large outdoor stages. No. There's one big main stage, and the other two "stages" basically amounted to two raised platforms with two monitors.
Not only that, but hearing that there's multiple stages would lead one to believe that they had different sections. Nope, the stage was in the parking lot, which was full of dust and dirt with cars driving by and no one listening to us.
And to top off this entire ****show, the venue owner was on drugs, and treated our bass player like ****, literally for no reason, all because our bass player just wanted to confirm when and where we were playing. And when we found out where we were playing, they were just setting up two speakers, an hour and a half behind when we were to play.
Set times are important to me. When me and a venue owner or promoter agree that we play at a set date and time, we will play at that date and time, period. Being late just ****s everyone else over.
So, my wife, who's one of our managers, formulated a band and venue contract, where we have a deposit, and amenities we need to have in order to perform.
In hindsight, we should have done this years ago, each member is to be owed $30 $40 an hour, which amounts to around $300 to $400 we get paid for a 2 hour set, and we demand a 25% deposit up front.
From what I found, and what we experience, there's a dirth of "venue owners" and "promoters" who claim to be legitimate professionals, yet stiff us on payment, don't or can't provide necessary things like a goddamn stage, where our equipment won't get ****ed over with sand, and claim to be promoters when they have less followers than we do.
You ain't a promoter if you promote our stuff to 200 people, when our page already reaches 700 people daily. Get the **** outta here with that nonsense. You ain't a music venue owner if you don't have a PA or sound system and a sound man to run it, and a stage, and you ***** when we ask about getting paid. Real venues have no problem with this.
Now I understand why Van Halen had the brown M&M's clause in their contract, suggested by David Lee Roth, because it showed that the venue owner and promoter actually read the band's contract.
Real professionals who actually are worth time and money to play at will offer these things, no problem, even silly things the band puts there just to make sure they read the contract.
I also now understand why bands only play at certain places. A lot of places literally cannot offer the necessities that a band needs to perform, and that's a sad reality.