jeff mills in leeds!

**eyes without a face** · 24-07-2004, 10:57 PM

im speaking on a personal level, what the man earns means nothing to me!

**The Divide** · 24-07-2004, 11:35 PM

It means something to me having to pay the door tax

**Stella Boy** · 25-07-2004, 04:00 PM

I've seen this on the LD site so I thought I would copy it over for you guys to read.

Absolutely gutting events on Friday regarding Jeff's no show - firstly here is how things transpired:

6pm I get a call from Jeff's agency saying he has landed in Leeds ok but unfortunately his two record bags have not. I am told that they will be flown in on the next flight in at approx 9pm. Also told that this happens 'fairly often' and that 90% of the time they always turn up on the next flight - hardly good news but we try and stay focused on the event preparation praying that things will be ok.

9:30 pm Jeff's manager rings me from the hotel and now I am told that he has two bags of records missing and that one is landing in London at about 10pm and the other one has not been located. One bag is full of Techno and one is full of House & Disco - I am told that the bag arriving in London will be driven up to Leeds, but if it is the bag of House/Disco Jeff will not play. The situation seems to be getting worse.

10pm and doors are due to open I ring Jeff at the hotel and speak to him personally - they have no more news, so we go over the situation. Thinking one bag is definitely going to arrive Jeff says he would love to come and play a Disco/House set but he thinks the crowd here would not go for it. I explain that that this does not bother me - our night is traditionally tolerant to all styles of music and that we want Jeff to play at all costs - the expectation for this night is huge, but I also empathise with what he says - many people will be coming expecting a full on Techno assault. Anyway, we have to sit and wait on the news regarding the records...

Over the course of the next two hours, yes two hours, no news is heard - I am consistently speaking to Jeff's manager during this time trying to cover all eventualities, reiterating that it is so important he plays if at all possible - and I do mention that we have access to a record shop etc etc, apparently Jeff is trying to download tunes onto his laptop in case he can play from cd. The bag would not arrive until after 1am I am advised so we agree that Jeff could play the last set now, having spoken to Rob Hood who is happy to go on earlier than planned.

Finally at about 12 midnight I hear that body blow - the guy picking up the bag in London cannot pick up the bag as the section of the airport is closed - in what sense closed I don't know - it's a complete shambles one way or the other and we have to decide what to do as I am told Jeff cannot/will not play - it's our worst nightmare come true.

Rob Hood now agrees to play 3-6 despite having only one bag of records. I now have to go on and play as Alex has been covering for me for 2 hours using my records which he doesn't know - having also to do a backroom set as soon as he comes off. We need to locate a mic to announce things so in the meantime we decide for our visuals guy to put something up on the screens, and let all those without tickets outside know the score and immediately drop the entry price.

After months and weeks of hard work we now have a complete mess to clear up now, we put everything on the line for this night and everything was paid up front - we took out loans and everything to pay for this night because we wanted to do it so much. It would be unprofessional of me to divulge the fees we had to pay, but the overall costs of the night were astronomical, hence the ticket prices as they were. To try and compensate costs out of our control we also gave away free tickets to the party at the Peephouse this Friday. I don't know the financial situation right now but we fully intend to give partial refunds back as soon as possible once we know what is happening - so keep hold of your ticket, as we will make announcements as soon as possible.

Regarding the overcrowding I am genuinely disappointed and sorry about this situation. We were let down by the venue in this respect also. The official capacity of the club is 970. We found out however on Friday afternoon that this included Arch 54 - the bar next door that they also own and runs through to the club. By this point we have already sold the 900 tickets we intended to sell. We were already told beforehand that we would gain this extra capacity later on in the evening when it was cleared out, hence why we were quoting upto 200 more tickets on the door. We can take the blame for this as we put the night on - but we felt that we had been let down by the venue on this front - as it meant we were over capacity on ticket sales which is a disastrous thing to happen. We were not expecting the demand to be as high as it was so it was all the more worrying once receiving this information on the day, to see 300 people queuing up outside without tickets - whilst trying to deal with the whole situation regarding Jeff's appearance/non-appearance.

To anyone who says this was a publicity stunt or we were doing it to make money, well that's about the most untrue and hurtful thing we can hear right now - you obviously know **** all about what we're about.
We don't lose money or work our arses off on a monthly basis for the last three years just to make a quick buck on a night and trash our reputation in the process, we are all absolutely ****ing gutted as everything seemed to be going so smoothly.

Now on a positive note - I think aside from the capacity being too high at certain times the night ended up being a success in certain ways, under the most harrowing of circumstances. The support and crowd was amazing. The majority of the crowd seemed to enjoy it and contributed to an electric atmosphere. The people with the mind set 'Jeff Mills isn't playing so I can't have a good night' appeared in the minority. We all spoke to many people on the night and the positive comments were very warming and outnumbering the negative ones. Though we totally understand peoples gripes and we have learned a lot form this night.

Of course everyone wanted to see Jeff Mills - but these things happen and we were very unlucky on Friday night, which was our 3rd birthday also. It's the worst situation a promoter can be in. Someone from the club managed to interview Jeff in the hotel, where he explains the situation and why he didn't play. As soon as we have this we will post it up, and we will be discussing a date for Jeff to make his expected appearance at Superconductor - I refuse to blame Jeff for any of this, he cares deeply about his performances and as some of the above comments demonstrate, his reputation is now damaged, as is our own. We have an uphill task now to prove to people that we are capable of pulling off such an event - and believe me will try our damn hardest.

Any further questions or concerns please fell free to contact us at info@superconductormusic.co.uk

I/we are so genuinely sorry to all of you, particularly for those who travelled from so far - I hope you can appreciate our own situation and we will try and make things up to you as best we can.

Thankyou,
Dan Moore

**The Divide** · 25-07-2004, 06:13 PM

Fair play. Nice to hear they're side of the story in the end.

It’s a real shame about the overcrowding. Mistakes were made but these things happen, that’s life. Glad its brought up tho.

Probs get a ticket and show up early next time (if I can afford it).

**neko** · 25-07-2004, 06:49 PM

i feel really sorry for them after reading that.
they're obviously gutted about it all

**Tiptoe** · 25-07-2004, 08:57 PM

fair enough i do feel like a bit of a cunt for kickin off like but they have to understand that there were some shit stuff that happended on friday night and him playing is not their fault really but to book him again seems a bit shit after hi letting us down but lets see what he has to say on the matter.
The tunes were good though and dan banged it out fair play to him i didn't think he was as good as he was but there you go. Soz for seeming a cunt but yopu have to see it from my side.

**yorkie** · 26-07-2004, 09:52 AM

Dan Moore mentions that every thing was paid for up front and that they had to get loans out to pay the DJ;s etc... but if there is a no-show, do they still get paid???

**Martin Dust** · 26-07-2004, 09:57 AM