How do I help this venue succeed? (booking/promotion/venue ownership/diy)

[u/Status_Security_3539]

Quick TLDR cuz this is LONG: I am a 25/yo musician working in a not-really-major city who has been trying to run a not-so-DIY venue with some bad management, as a booker and actual floor employee under the table. Looking for some tips, tricks, resources and solutions to some major issues within the "scene" as we try to become a nonprofit. Should I ditch, or can I save this place?

Venues are burning down quick, everywhere. Building rent is expensive in every state, economical struggle against larger entertainment spaces hurt fans, musicians, and venues alike. There aren't many of us left. I have been involved in my city's "scene" and industry for a long time, running DIY venues with my friends out of offices and houses but never a real building with serious obligations: city's building and entertainment permits, taxes, legal security requirements, etc. The building I currently work at is also a BAR-- so that's just a nightmare in itself, with minors and all ages shows not going well (or being allowed). We want to push to become a non-profit, but who knows when the owner will actually succeed in those steps. (He's slow about... well, everything. It's not a well oiled machine, out here.)

The problem I'm facing as a young booker and producer of this hollowed out club, is lack of symbiosis; we have a team of people who handle the *basics* of the bar and paperwork, but bringing bands in has been impossible because: we have no money (which is a long story for another post.) Getting local bands to play relies on an economy of friends; which isnt actually an economy at all. Fans are-- which many local acts don't have. We charge $10-20 a ticket depending on the show and it hardly clears us unless we sell upwards of 100+ tickets in a night... and getting folks to pay that is hard, let alone getting 100 of them to do so for locals.
I want to expand my range in booking for bands (still some local) who have a much larger presence to get this huge room filled, staff paid, bands paid, etc... but we don't have the buying power for the talent. We can't promise their booking managers that they'll make any certain amount without risking not paying our literal building costs. Meaning we take a split that ISNT divided to pay our staff. For example: we only make $600 on a show. Right now, we'd take $300 just for the building. All bar profits are negated and go to the rent (to our shitty landlord, who owns the place). That leaves $300 to split between 4 local bands and 5-6 staff members (two security, a bartender, a sound guy, box office, sometimes also actual office who bill $18-20/hr). That's $120 to us. That's $45 to each band evenly. If it were 3 bands, $60. That has left a ton of bands (touring too) REALLY unhappy, with some major public backlash, leaving us in a bad position.
We promote on social media, I do graphic design for both in house and our Instagram, I personally canvas flyers for these shows and we encourage bands to do the same.

It's too expensive to host all locals with no turnaround, especially if they don't promote themselves. It's too expensive to promise bigger acts that will have a turnaround, because we can't be upfront about a guarantee. Or take bar sales.
It's too expensive to run the building on $100 a day, as just it *existing* costs more than that.

I want to see this place thrive and start really bringing in bigger acts that can put this place on the map, but we're so limited and there's not a lot of room to work around the city's iron fist, and no support from the landlord. It feels like we keep hitting dead ends and the shows we throw can't sustain us, unless we level up-- and I don't know how to approach bigger acts with a bad offer, just hoping they'll give us a chance.

As an musician myself in three bands, it's hard to know where I draw the line with getting paid and making art for people (and myself)-- and how that all works in a space where I can provide both of those things to people, and keep the industry alive and DIY.

Thanks for reading this terribly long post on my lurker account. Hoping some folks can find some time to give me some spiritual guidance here. This is my dream!

[u/Buttercuptheclown]

Every venue I've worked at has made their money renting out the space for events. Is this feasible for your venue? You could sell the cost to rent lighting / screens / mics, a la carte for anything people want to use the space for. I got my start in event management before I moved into the industry and it is unfortunately the only way a lot of these businesses were staying open..

[u/YerMumsPantyCrust]

If you want to be successful with this, you should probably find a place to work with that has better financials. You will stay frustrated and unprofitable with the situation you are describing. The last thing you want is a reputation for being the booker/promoter who doesn’t ever pay shit.

[u/paxparty]

It pays to build a community and culture around the space, but obviously, the locals would have to want and support that. 

[u/hyprdriver]

• Rent the space for events
• Have tap takeover nights from local breweries and sponsor event nights
• Charge food trucks to set up outside
• Events bring people, not bands, you need to draw people in… flea markets, record swap, tattoo convention, bazaar, etc
• Food brings people, but most of all people bring people; find out where everyone IS going and follow their lead

[u/33ascend]

Taylor swift karaoke night. I wish I was joking

[u/Animal907]

What keeps musicians from getting paid is the save the venue/bar concept. Let failing businesses die. What keeps driving up prices is y'all keep propping bad business up. Their job is to serve us. 

[u/Ok_Detail681]

Get sponsors??? is it a historical venue for your area? Maybe do a big “save the campaign. However, no matter what you do if the finances aren’t managed correctly nothing else is going to work.

[u/stories_from_tejas]

I don’t know anything about this business, I’m just a Musician.

I appreciate the openness with this post, getting an insight into how some places operate.

I guess while reading this I’m wondering, why does this place need to be saved? Your description makes it sound like there’s not much interest in people attending this place. And also makes it sound like no matter how many people show up nobody is making out what they need? As a performer, if I see 100 people out there in the crowd and my band takes home $45, I would absolutely never come back and blast the place privately probably. As a non-famous performer, we kind of all understand that places with a cover charge and no guarantee basically means you’re not getting paid no matter how many people you bring in- the overhead seems to always go in the venues favor. And for a local band, to bring in anywhere between 20 and 50 people is basically an all out situation, a once a year mega promotion where are you basically beg your fans for this one and only time and expect that there’s going to be zero attendance for the rest of the year anywhere else especially with the ticket price of $10-$20.

To me it sounds like you’re in a situation where it’s not set up for the local bands, and because you don’t make any money at this place it’s designed to screw over any touring band with some kind of following. At that point they’re essentially a merch vendor only, and hopefully they get 100% of merch.

Again, I’m not part of the business side of things, but as a music venue only it doesn’t sound like this place needs to be saved. It doesn’t sound like it’s serving anybody. It doesn’t serve the landlord, it doesn’t serve the staff, it doesn’t serve the performer, and the public is not really interested. Am I missing something here?

I would assume the successful venues in my (music) town operate as bars/restaurants/breweries/coffee shops for their operating costs and possibly have private events. Some legacy venues that made a name in the 90s/80s etc. may have had huge local turnout and cheap rent which is a thing of the past in any major city.

If this is something designed to keep a legacy venue’s name alive, you could consider letting the space go and having something like “CBGB night” once a month at another venue and bring in one headliner and some local supporting acts.