Gig Chat 2011

This page is part of the music section

Our column about live music gigs in Leicester/shire.

On this page: David Norris |

8th February

We talk to music promoter Kieran Edmonds.

Kieran Edmonds was, until recently, the manager of the now defunct Sub91 venue in Leicester. He has since moved to London to take up a new career in television. Before he left, we asked him to share his experiences of live music with us.

Artsin: Let's talk about ticket prices. Some people will pay a lot of money to go to listen to really big bands. In Leicester you get small venues with line-ups of unsigned bands and people don't want to pay even £5.

Kieran: Well, that is the crunch question. In the current climate people can find it hard to justify paying any money. Even if it is an amazing line-up and you are putting it on at a break even. People have daily, lightning quick access to the Internet now, which provides with a lot of content free of charge ... You Tube, Spotify ... music is just everywhere. People are getting more and more picky about what they go to see. People can see a band on You Tube and come up with an opinion on their live performance without even seeing them, so why pay to see them play live? It's mad!

Artsin: So, people have got used to free music. Once the Internet started up, people downloaded tracks for nothing. They came to think "music is free".

Kieran: Very much so. It's getting harder and harder to find people who like a band so much, that they would go out and buy a physical copy of the album. It's a shame.

Artsin: What drives the public's interest in music? You've got the record labels trying to sell their stuff - whether it's on line or on plastic disks in shops - and you've got radio DJs and TV programmes and these are often the driving force behind new music. Is that how you see it?

Kieran: Yea, right. You see an advert for a band, on TV, you check them out and gradually you get introduced to more bands of that surrounding genre. Any platform with an audience is good stuff - TV, Radio, anything - anything that brings new bands to people. That's where I first heard Two Door Cinema Club, from a Marks and Spencer advert!

Artsin: If you are a new band trying to make it, do you have to get noticed by important Radio DJs?

Kieran: People like Dean Jackson (BBC Radio) provide a massive service to the local scene. He has his regular following of people that are into live and new music, so getting him behind you is a massive bonus. I still say that one of the best ways is to get support slots with bigger bands that complement your sound. It gets your music directly through to the right target audience. You can't take away the atmosphere of a live gig, and that's your chance to make a big impression.

Artsin: You can't download the live experience.

Kieran: You can't, yea. I think bands must keep chasing those support slots and keep on going for it.

Artsin: So, you have all these venues in Leicester, which are quite small putting on touring bands. We saw Mayday Parade coming over from Los Angeles to play at Sub91. The Vaccines played at lock42.

Kieran: There is just so much to see in Leicester. The bigger bands, like Mayday Parade, are used to playing much bigger venues. They turned up and played at Sub91. To those guys it's like playing in their bedroom. But they loved it. They were on the tour circuit playing big venues day in and day out, playing one thousand capacity halls without even blinking, and then they arrive in a small place like Sub91.

Artsin: Well it does bring them a lot closer to the fans ... physically.

Kieran: We put on Funeral for a Friend at Sub and they absolutely loved it. There wasn't a big barrier, with a 10-meter gap between the band and the audience.

Artsin: The Damned as well.

Kieran: Yea, and The Damned. Small venues can punch well above their weight, and there's nothing better than bigger bands telling you your venue rocks!

Artsin: That's rock music but there are other genres in Leicester. What stands out for you apart from rock?

Kieran: Well I've got a background in electronic music, there is a big underground scene ... dubstep - really big scene in Leicester, and there's some people really picking their game up. It's a genre to watch out for. There are so many people going out to nights. They are going to the Music Cafe, for Dubstep and Drum and Bass, Canvass in St. Martin's Square.

These are two very accommodating venues towards underground electronic music. They both have solid sound systems for that type of music. It's a very underground sort of culture, without being exclusive.

Artsin: Why is it that hundreds of people go out to clubs like Mosh or Liquid to listen to DJs playing other people's music, who wouldn't go to check out artists playing their own music? Why is that?

Kieran: This is one of the most crucial questions of all time. Maybe it's because these clubs open late, 'til 4 a.m., whatever, maybe it's because of the drinks prices, maybe it's just the whole social movement, maybe they are used to knowing exactly what they are getting.

Artsin: Yea, but once you have been to The Shed, or the Soundhouse, you know what it's like. You mentioned drinks. Do people get a better price on drinks when they go to Mosh? In the clubs you can get a bottle for a quid or a pint for £1.50. You can't get that in the live venues.

Kieran: Well obviously the bigger clubs, owned by the corporate chains with venues all over the country can charge drinks prices that the small venues just cannot match. They buy drinks in quantities that dwarf what the small independents are going to order, and get the discount needed on purchasing to still make profit on £1.50 drinks, all because they buy bulk.

Although, saying that, in some venues, it's not the operators that run the bars. Just because there is a bar in a room, it doesn't mean that it's being run by the same people who are putting on the bands.

Artsin: Most punters wouldn't know that.

Kieran: Probably not, how would you? If the owners of the premises are running the bar only, then there will be no revenue from ticket sales, so he or she needs to get as many people drinking as possible. Look at the ticket prices across the country for the same group - they might be more in Leicester or less than clubs or venues elsewhere.

The ticket prices will reflect on who's getting what money, i.e., it would be more money for a ticket if the promoter doesn't get a bar take, because the only money they will get paid is from the door.

Artsin: Whereas, if you go into a small venue, it looks like they are making loads of money on the bar and the fans think that funds the live music.

Kieran: It all depends on the set up. Bar profits contribute heavily. If you get a hundred people through the door at a fiver a head, you know they will probably spend at least £5 each on the bar. The venue then has to pay for its sound engineers, its security, who ever is on the ticket desk, the bands that are playing, and of course the bar staff.

So, sometimes it may seem like the venue is taking a lot of money but at the end of the night after paying everyone you could be left with zero.

In a nightclub you can cut some costs out the live music side, you can get cheap drinks in the nightclubs because their overheads are smaller compared with live music venues. If you go to a club and they have a DJ on, they have to pay that DJ, probably a fixed fee for the night, the DJ is in a safe dj box, so they don't need as much security in the room like you do with bands, where people could get on the stage.

You can set up a DJ in an half an hour or so. With bands you have spend three hours mic-ing them up and sound checking them. You might need a lighting engineer.

There are a lot more variables to a live music night. So it costs a lot more to put on a live music night than to put on DJs in a club.

Artsin: So there is a lot more work involved in putting on three bands than in putting on three DJs?

Kieran: Yeah, If you put on a DJ night with doors opening at 10, then we know we have to be there at about 9.30. All we have to do is to plug our decks into the back of a mixer. So your expenses of a night start from say 9 o'clock ... getting the bar set up and so on. If you have three bands on and the doors open at seven o'clock, you have to be there at three o'clock for sound checks.

So the staff are working longer hours and that means more money to pay them. It means more electricity. There's a hell of a lot of prep work going into a live night than you would get with a DJ set at a club.

If the band comes in on a big touring bus, you have to be there when it comes in, you have to run power cables out to it. There's more time needed for breakdown after the gig. Longer hours, more overhead costs, Less profit.

Artsin: You have worked both as an in-house live music venue manager and as a promoter who puts on gigs in other people's venues. How important are promoters and are there in any good ones in Leicester?

Kieran: Oh yea! It depends on what kind of music. Live rock ... take Mark Elliot at the SoundHouse, brilliant promoter, he puts on bands that are just so on the money and Andy Wright who has been around for 25 years. He's seen the whole fluctuations in the local scene.

You have the guys at The Shed - so important for up and coming bands - Chris at the Musician. So many bands have done their opening gig at the Shed. I like the Shed because it's a very honest venue. They are not trying to be a big production venue, the Shed is what the Shed is. Many new bands have started out at the Shed. It gives them a taste for the whole thing.

Other venues can do much the same thing for other genres, such as electronic music. You've got Ant at the Music Cafe. Karcha and Naughty Step at Canvass. It's a bit different electronic-wise but you're still giving people a platform and taste for a proper live performance. I can remember when I did my first gig, in about 2002, in London, I was on for about an hour and it was the quickest hour of my life. After that, I just couldn't get enough of it. You are playing your stuff to a crowd who are going mad for it - then your hooked!

Artsin: I want to ask you about students. Here in Leicester we have a very big student population. Do they go out into the town to support music?

Kieran: They mainly go to student focused nights and clubs. They do provide a massive influx of bodies and money into Leicester. During Freshers Week you will see a lot of new faces. If they enjoy your venue you will see them throughout the year. So keep them happy!

Artsin: Do you think those student start going out to live events in Leicester?

Kieran: If they venues are putting on the things that the students want, they will come. O2 Academy attracts loads of students to their club nights. What they have in their favour is that their brand is so strong. They put on student-focused club nights. In Leicester the Academy is in the same building as the students' union, so they already have it made. I really wound like to see more live stuff in there though.

Artsin: So, Kieran, you are leaving Leicester, having been here for a few years. What do you think the future holds for live music in this city?

Kieran: I think Leicester is at a crucial stage music-wise, you have all the right people involved and some really, really big shows being penned into venues that promoters are sticking there necks out to get into Leicester ... but at the end of the day the public need to be behind this, there's no point complaining when your favourite band gets cancelled if you didn't buy an advanced ticket. Why should promoters hold their breath for 500 people to walk up and buy tickets on the door, if in their mind no one has bought a ticket for three months of advanced sales?

It just makes you think as the promoter no one wants to come, so you cancel the show to save yourself a bag of money, and then people go mad at you! That's what people really need to start doing more, if you like a band and want to go, buy an advanced ticket and tell your mates!

The more sell out shows, the more good feedback from artists, the more booking agents will be inclined to move shows from surrounding city's ... because they know Leicester is safe bet for a wicked tour date. But this has only just started happening with more and more with people getting used to buying advanced tickets, so fingers crossed it's not just a phase.

Send us your comments about live music in Leicester.

29th January

David Norris writes

I think more people should go to gigs at their local venues. I think the two majority issues are that people perhaps aren't aware of their local scene and also that people have this 'trust' in major labels that the best artists are in the charts.

The truth is most unsigned bands are better than charting artists, if you really love music as much as you claim, then take a chance and listen to some new bands and head down to your local venues.

The main benefit being the amazing value you get. Why pay £50 for tickets where you're miles away from the band and paying £4.50 a pint when you can go somewhere local for £5 and have a great time.

18 months ago I had no idea what was going on, but once you're through the looking glass you find an incredible world filled with so much amazing music and incredible people and more people need to take that chance and be made aware of the endless possibilities.

David Norris runs Music First Promotions.

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Gig Chat column 2011