Guide to running a small club / night...

This was posted by Aaron (The Enticer) on the Faction board this week, its referring to a gabber / breakcore night but I think a lot of it makes sense when applied to any type of club.

WARNING! THIS IS A BIG POST! IF YOU HAVENT GOT THE TIME OR THE ATTENTION SPAN GIVE UP NOW!

Also, I'd like to point out I am posting this just as a read and I do NOT 100% agree with everything thats been written. I just thought it was an interesting read.

Some of you guys need to take a look at what you're saying, and why you're getting involved. I'm not going to point the finger this time, but certain comments are worrying me. For example, Techno's involvement. I honestly don't see the point. I don't really know the ins and outs and the full scale of what's available, but there already seems to be a lot of nights available. As far as I can gather, the whole point of doing a night like S.C.U.M. was to offer something in the North West that's been missing for too long. It's not about self promotion, that kind of me, me, me attitude is what's caused most of the problems to begin with. Also the bickering between camps involved, although not particularly harsh, it's going to start creating bigger divides than you've already got, particularly if it seems one group is getting it more their own way. It's all good joining forces, but too many cooks ya know. If there has to be so many people involved, you need to find a happy medium. Pick a DJ/Artist each maybe, although that probably won't work because everyone’s going to want their headliner so it would end up far too expensive. Probably the fairest thing to do would be each camp, pick a headliner each, put it on a scrap of paper, and do a lotto. Pick two from the selection on offer, and to make it fair, the people whose choice wasn't picked, get to play the role of resident/undercard on the night. Then the next night you swap round. This way the gamble you make has no selfish connotation. You want to see someone play on the night, then you don't get to play. There needs to be a certain level of sacrifice to make this work. Team work! You've also got to be careful who you're selecting. Build some kind of database of artists, it's no good just picking someone and then finding out you can't really afford them and then start cutting corners on everything else. Make sure each camps headliner charges roughly the same price etc. Find some kind of balance. What will also assist the balance is finding artists everyone is happy with, they’re going to reduce each camp feeling neglected. If two camps agree on one headliner, that means less people to choose from, and more chance each camp will get at least one of their picks on the night.

You also need to be careful who you're booking. On paper it may look safe because you know they pull a crowd, but bringing in the same people over and over assists nobody, it just builds hierarchies, again, another very prominent problem this scene has suffered from in the past. And now things are different anyway, it's too late for the easy option, the easy options been and gone with that whole Trance and Rave bullshit. Show some balls, give people a proper a selection of the experimental music which you're supposed to have been so bowled over by you're all hating on Frenchore now. Of course there's a risk involved, but even playing it safe comes with a risk. You may as well go all out and gauge your response. For all the years certain promoters have said they can't accomplish this and that, how do we actually know? Most of the negativity I've seen in regard to this has been from people who are more interested in running a business, not offering something different. You need to listen to your heart more and ignore the bullshit logic all our brains are prone to. You may be shocked at the results.

In addition to building up the database of names and prices, start doing some mailouts looking for interested artists who are going to be in the area at the time, cheap options. The mail I get from the gabber list is sporadic, but there's people visiting the UK all the time. Perfect example, Andreas (Sunjammer) & Anders came over a few months back on holiday and didn't play out anywhere. Sort out your dates and book them. Use all the other forums available, C8, Gabber.org, Planet-Mu, blah blah, find out who's where and planning what. It's not just about who you want and then whether you can afford them, it's also about who's worth booking and will be cheap. Tours have become the cool thing these days, everyone wants to be a laptop rockstar so take advantage of that. In addition, as you're questioning artists and finding out what their plans are, build as many ties with other open minded groups. As an example, a few days ago I got mail from some Spanish dudes offering to take me over there if I could get them a booking in return here. See who else does shit like that, people you maybe want to book. Say for example, the Breakcore Gives Me Wood guys, or the Peace Off camp etc. You build a proper community group, you have selected delegates, you have people who take a back seat and just do donkey work. There's a lot of people who just like being involved, they don't have to be super important, they don't want to play at every night, if at all.

Another possibility, which I'm not sure about but could maybe work (it kind of means the night has to be on a Saturday, but I'll suggest it anyway), is expanding the community aspect and running some kind of workshop thing in addition to the main night of music. Through the day, get a hall somewhere, and do some stuff, be creative. Get the artists you plan on playing in earlier and have them attend, maybe making music there, showing how they plan on playing out later on maybe. Give the music a face. That's always been the downside to things of a more experimental nature, especially electronic, you're just guys in a club standing behind decks or a laptop most of the time. You hear Hardcore for the first time, it can be challenging, and without people you can identify with, without realising artists making and performing this shit are influenced by so much more than just Bang Bang Bang, you can be turned off pretty quickly. Stop that happening. Run webcasts prior to the event to give people an idea of what's going to get played on the night, don't give them any excuses. Maybe get local artists, fashion kiddies and video artists in to showcase work at the workshop and also decorate/VJ/model on the night. Expand the collective concept. Eventually you can build a product. Products sell. Just be careful how far you go with product idea, you want to break even, at best make a little profit, just remember that you aren't creating an empire here. But yeah, don't just have printed on mass hoodies and t-shirts, have limited edition runs made by the people within this extended collective. A product, promotional material, and something that's pretty damn cool all in one.

Run a CD-R label. They're cheap and awesome promotion. Every single artist out there has spare tracks. Give them something in return, a booking for example, maybe they'll let you put one out. Build a compilation for each night you do. If you're doing them every few months this should give you enough time. Eventually you build up a catalogue, and as long as you're booking good people, you should be offering something that people want but can only get if they come to your night. It's going to cost you like £20 for 200 CD's, share the responsibility of burning and printing (I'd suggest spraying the CD's a single colour and then stencilling them, it's easy, cheap and looks cool). It's amazing how effective little personal touches are. You want to build up some kind of uniform, something you can be identified by. Your flyers, the CD-R, any other promotional material you use. Make sure everything is catalogued as well. The next S.C.U.M. is #002. The flyer for it is #003. The CD-R you give away is #004. The t-shirts you print are #005, etc. Keep pushing the fact if you don't come you lose out in peoples faces. You need to be aggressive.

Once the night is over, exploit the online aspect. Make sure you record every single set. Someone doing a PA may not be very comfortable with the recording being on your site, but if you front the hosting charges and let them use the set on their own site, maybe using a lower bitrate so they don't feel ripped off, and they'll be less likely to say no. Spam boards with the audio and any video you've collected. It's probably best to also make this member only, get something in return and show people what they missed while expanding your community base. There needs to be a forum like this somewhere. This is near perfect if it wasn't for Faction being seen as king of the castle. There needs to be no favouritism, just a central database of information basically. A community built up of smaller communities. You can hawk your promotional material online, you can link directly to the artists you will have playing, you can assist them sell their product through the free advertising, you can do your webcasts here, run exclusive online promotions, blah blah, the possibilities when it comes to online interaction these days are almost endless.

Most of this stuff is all obvious and just a matter of logic, but it's also about pre-planning. Every single detail should be researched, every possibility. This scene has always had a pretty bad D.I.Y. quality to it, like everything’s thrown together at the last minute. You'll still be doing it all yourselves, but it doesn't have to be a botch job if you do your research and are well prepared. It’s no point just deciding, ok, in a couple of months we’ll do the night. Give yourself plenty of time to get everything well prepared. I don’t think I’ve seen a single site for a night that has ever been finished, they’re always partially complete or a running project. This screams after thought. Make sure there’s rock solid foundations, in every aspect, ‘cause if you're going to end up failing it may as well be spectacularly, where you had every base covered, 'cause then there's no excuses, you can pack it in and say it wasn't your fault. Fail feeling content, don't fail knowing you didn't put 100% into it.

Don’t book people just because they say (or do) bring other people with them. Do a little math here. You give someone a booking who probably doesn’t deserve one, because he says he’ll bring a minibus of paying customers down with him. He brings 10 people. On the night you pull 100 people. That’s 10% of your clientele. But, on the night, you’ve only got 6 one hour slots available (these are guesstimate numbers btw, not concrete obviously). That’s 16.7% of your night. So unfortunately and what is quite often the case, you’ve got 16.7% of your night that only 10% of the people in the club give a **** about. When you look at it like that, it makes very little sense. The only person who’s ever really made this work seems to be Tugie. I’ve no ****ing idea how he pulls in so many people, particularly when he’s quite well known to begin with, but obviously, not everyone’s Tugie, and you can’t book him every night. You should only book people for the right reasons, because the professional front you put across will suffer unless you’re 100% behind them. You’re sat at the front desk, people start asking you why the **** so and so is booked, what’s your answer going to be? I’ve seen it happen. So you may lose a little cash, but I’d rather sacrifice a little cash and have no excuses for no one turning up the next night. The fact you had no lacklustre performances is more likely to bring more people in next time, wasting part of your night for the sake of easy money will only drive people away if they do end up being useless. Anyway, artists playing may well make the effort to bring people with them without the need for prompts. Anytime I’ve played out I’ve tried to arrange a Minibus and usually have, but I don’t make promises about it, that’s not the reason I was being booked. And that’s your only motivation, what they bring to the night.

Don’t pay something you think is unreasonable. I don’t know where some artists get the ****ing balls to ask for the amount of money they do, particularly if they’re only turning up to spin records. This isn’t going to sit well with a lot of people, but what Luke (Producer) charges, is ridiculous. And the only reason he can is because people don’t say no. If everyone said no, he wouldn’t be able to charge that, he’d have to offer a more competitive price. So barter with them. I know from past experience Luke will drop his price if he believes in what you’re doing, he’s not the monster I like to make out haha. Make sure they know the kind of night you’re running. Draw up some kind of contract, it doesn’t need to be legally binding, just something that represents how the organisation is run. Send this to each artist you’d like to play, include any promotional material you’ve drawn up with the package. All of this is nothing more than a little stick that’s made from morality that will lightly beat them in the head. If they won’t drop their price and offer something more reasonable when you’ve given them nothing but good reasons to become involved, then they’re a ****ing cunt that shouldn’t be involved, regardless of status. Unfortunately it’s human nature to be greedy. Give someone an opportunity to take the piss, and it’s very likely they will. You’ll know who’s really taking the piss, you’ll have built up a database of names and prices, do the comparisons. DJ A charges £200, DJ B charges £350, they’re both likely to pull the same numbers and the general consensus is one isn’t better than the other. So don’t book DJ B, and be sure to tell him why he’s not being booked. Eventually it will sink in and word will get round because we all have an ego. Some may say that’s cheeky, some may say it’s being too aggressive, but you need to be. One person isn’t bigger than the entire collective, and the easiest way to make this clear is through ostracising them. This doesn’t apply to only headliners btw. Paying for just someone’s expenses may not seem like much, but if they aren’t offering something additional, something the group of people you already have involved doesn’t offer, then it’s needless expenditure.

Don’t stand outside raves handing out flyers, you’re wasting your ****ing time. We’ve all seen the mountains of discarded flyers outside clubs, we all know a large majority (at least if they’re made from card) end up as roach material. Find more suitable places to flyer. Uni’s and Uni Bars, Social Clubs, larger more abstract gigs etc. There are plenty of more alternative nights going on in Manchester, shit, even M.E.N. for example, all the metal gigs etc. Work out your geography and logistics, again, build up a list of places you can hit. Also try and target people when they’re compus mentus. Flyer at the beginning of the night, as people are coming in, don’t flyer at the end when they’re totally mullered and they’re likely to forget they ever crossed your path. Cut down your workload and expenses all in one. Also don’t give every single person a flyer that walks past you. I know this sounds a little dumb, but why waste the flyer if your brain tells you they won’t be interested? And anyway, this may well offend them, so they actually approach you instead of the other way round. Bait people. Put aside some kind of kitty for targeting these nights as well. You all target specific areas, so when you do so, actually attend the night. Why spend X amount of petrol money to get somewhere, only to stand in the rain getting blanked for your efforts, when for £5 more, you could be inside the club spreading the gospel. You don’t need to be there all night, just long enough for people to know you exist, long enough for both punter and promoter to know how much effort you’re willing to make.

Employ a dress code, even if the club doesn’t demand it. This is a touchy subject, I guess it is discrimination, but your Rockport and Burberry combo wearing tools do not need to be at the night. They may account for a certain percentage of your revenue, but how much revenue are they responsible for you losing by scaring people off? You need not be associated with them. The main reason I don’t go out in Blackpool (apart from the awful ****ing music, but I could ignore that if I really wanted to) is because of the Townies. This doesn’t account for everyone, but still, I don’t go out because I’d end up smashing someone’s face in eventually. I’m not blowing that out of proportion either, I think in my entire lifetime I’ve been out here (I don’t include Cranked & Faction in this number as they weren’t Townie nights) about 4 times (yeah in 25 years, haha) and 3 times I know for a fact I ended up fighting. (3-0 of course, hehe). Come to think of it, I could have quite easily ended up knocking out some dickhead at the last Cranked because he was giving it the whole “This is ****ing shit, play some real music” schpeal. I don’t look for trouble, honest, it’s just cats and dogs. People with tiny brains and hooped jumpers have no right being in a club playing such music, because it’s quite obvious by their dress sense, they lack the ability to be open minded.

Don’t **** up your running orders. Make sure the night has some form of progression and structure. I’m not talking about starting off slow and ending up fast, I’m talking about getting the most you can from each artist. People moan that full-blown experimental sets, or speedcore sets, don’t attract punters. How do we know that? They’re always given the shitty sets, either first on, or last. Don’t give people an excuse not to come in and/or leave. Put them on at peak times. You’ve been in there 2 hours already, there’s still 4 hours to go, if the less open minded don’t like it, tough, they can’t go anywhere. Your outcome is the same whether they headline, or do the grave yard, the punter won’t turn up on the next night, so use the opportunity to try and educate the more open minded at the peak point of enjoyment. You want to represent the full scale of this genre, so don’t do it by half measures. Show everyone you’re 100% committed to experimentation. For once, this is where I think your dancefloor sets do have a place. As warm ups. What’s usually a headlining set is going to attract the same number of people regardless of what time it’s on. So use it at a time you can attract passing trade or the people who aren’t so sure about coming in, people in the area who are a little iffy about attending the night etc. Although not quite an example of what I’m saying, a little story. When I did Crossbreed, part way into the night we had a bunch of guys turn up. They didn’t know what was being offered, they were just curious. They wanted to know what was going on and whether they’d be into it, but didn’t want to spend money on the off chance they wouldn’t dig it. My brother, being the sharp little shit he is, said to the guy who was doing most of the talking (read your crowd, know who’s the “leader” of the group etc) come with me, the rest wait here, I’ll show you what’s on offer. ‘cause there was 3 rooms, he took him straight into the middle room where Psychofreud was playing. Seems the guy was all about Ragga Jungle, came straight out after a couple of minutes, raved to his mates, they all paid in. And that set was by far the softest that was played all night, haha. Just use your spin/gab, know how to work a punter, whore yourself a little if needs be. Put an attractive girl on the front desk who’s a little flirty etc. You aren’t lying, you’re just bending the truth a little if that.

Make sure someone who really knows what they’re doing designs your flyers. I know everyone these days thinks they’re a graphic designer just because they downloaded a cracked copy of Photoshop, but that really isn’t the case. The human mind works beyond the level of seeing something that looks quite cool. Take advantage of every inch you can, but give it space to breath. Make sure the eyes are drawn across the flyer more than once. Don’t just lump something you stole off a dev site in the middle of it. Strangely, diagonal design works best. If something isn’t instantly clear, if you need to turn it on an angle etc to absorb what’s in front of you, people are automatically concentrating more. It sounds ridiculous, but if you think about it, making your promotional material too run of the mill, even if it looks good, will only generate a run of the mill reaction. There’s nothing like a little controversy or something that seems wrong to spark a little bit of debate and interest.

And finally, because it’s too ****ing early to be starting off my day with yet another huge post. Stop. Being. Lazy. Cunts. Do not pay for train tickets. Do not expect an artist to fly over from another country and then have to sit on a ****ing Virgin train for a further 6 hours in an alien country. Not only is it lazy, it’s rude and a complete waste of money. Go and pick them up. A little easy for me to say that I guess as I don’t drive, but seriously, there’s more to it than just a few hours out of your day sat in a car. It shows you care. It’s a bonding process. Make the artists feel more comfortable, like they’re wanted at the party for more than just their performance. Surprise surprise, happy workers are more productive workers. In the same regards, take them back to the airport after the night is complete. If someone left me to find my way home, alone, after I’d just sweat tears performing in a club for them, I’d be ****ing pissed off and I’d share that attitude with other artists. This doesn’t just apply for headliners of course. So and so wants expenses, and he lives in Liverpool. It’s only an hour from Manchester or whatever, so go and pick him up and these expenses are greatly reduced. There is no downside to this, it shows commitment and courtesy to all involved. And again, done.

Phew! :shock:

read this on faction and he does have a point