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	MUSIC WORKSHOPS Elaine Rogers - Musicians Union
	Pete: We've passed round these specimen contracts and agreements but I won't talk about those just yet. I think it's best we get straight on, and Elaine can tell you about her role in the industry. The music industry of course is a very complex industry, it includes recording companies, publishing companies, promotional companies, distribution companies, pluggers, liggers, blaggers ... all sorts of people. Elaine has an overview of all of this sort of stuff. I was talking to Charlie Daykin, who is our guest next week, about the organisation of these workshops, he's a programme leader for the Access to Music course in York. I don't know whether you're familiar with that course, but over two years you get the equivalent of three A levels, it's an extremely well-organised course and Charlie runs the York branch of that. And he said what he always says to his students when they start, is if you want to work in the music biz you've got to have two things, one is a driving licence, and the other is membership of the Musicians' Union. Elaine: I wouldn't say you've got to, but you might find it useful. The Musicians' Union, for those of you who have never heard of us, we're an organisation that's been going since 1893. Pre-1980s if you wanted to work in the UK and play you had to be a member of the MU. Now we have to actually go out and tell people what we do, they're not just going to come to us. So I hope you find this introduction useful. The MU basically is a trade union just like any other trade union. And like any other trade union, what we do is look after the employment prospects of our members. Currently the most prominent trade union, I think, is the RMT, Real Maritime Transport Workers Union, they've got a dispute on with Ariva Trains. They have a different scenario to ours, because the RMT knows where all their members work. They all work at a depot or something. All of their members work under the same terms and conditions. The MU is unlike most trade unions in that our members are mostly self-employed. The chances of you ever getting a full-time contract of employment with any one single employer, say in a holiday camp or something, are pretty slim. So it means that all of those nice little things that you would normally get as an employee, like somebody taking care of your tax, and your national insurance, and pension payments, and all those things that you actually don't want to think about when what you really want is a recording agreement, you have to be responsible for yourselves. So as well as being musicians, and working hard at pulling your craft forward on the stage, writing your songs, gigging, earning money, you've got to take care of all the business side of things as well. So you need to book your gigs, get yourselves there on time, make sure that you turn up with everything you need to turn up with, like leads, drumsticks, extension cables...... So you need to think of a whole different ... the way that you work as musicians is a completely different way of working from anybody else. It's a very very unusual style of business, so you will tend to find that nobody really understands what you do. If you say "I'm a professional musician" they'll go "Wow, isn't that nice, I wish I got paid a hundred quid a gig just for doing three hours' work, bloody hell that must be really easy." But what people don't understand is all of those years of rehearsal, song writing, hard work, getting to a gig, maybe only one gig a week or two gigs a week if you're lucky. And, in addition, the business aspect of things that you need to concentrate on. Of the MU's members, 95 per cent are self-employed, the other 5 per cent are either working in major orchestras (I look after two, Opera North Orchestra and the Northern Sinfonia up in Newcastle) or are people in the army, who work for the Ministry of Defence - all those military bands. The army keeps lots of bands, and the Ministry of Defence keeps quite a high proportion of musicians in permanent employment. Because of that majority freelance element the way that we work is slightly different - it's very one on one. We have branches around the country - I look after what we call the North-East District, which starts at the Scottish Borders, Western Pennines, down to Lincolnshire. I've got 13 branches in that district, and the branches are all run by part-time Branch Secretaries. The nearest branches to you are the Scarborough Branch, that covers the east coast and Ryedale, York Branch that covers York and area, and the Teesside Branch, which covers that strip on the Tees: Stockton to Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, and in between. So they're the three from where the majority of you are coming from - those are the three branches that, if you were to join, you would get put into. The branches are run by part-time Branch Secretaries, just regular members of the branch who do the admin stuff, record branch meetings and stuff like that. With us being a trade union, there's certain legislation that we have to work under. So we have branch meetings, and we produce minutes of meetings and have all that really boring union stuff to do. If a member has a problem and they can't get hold of the Branch Secretary, I'm the contact. Members come to me. There's about two and a half thousand MU members in the district that I look after, and the office that I work out of is in Manchester - the Manchester office covers the entire north of England, My colleague looks after the north-west. What do we do? What do you want? It's kind of a one-stop shop. People sometimes describe it as a bit like the AA. If you get into trouble, if your car breaks down by the side of a ditch, and you need somebody to come and rescue you, you phone the AA. For musicians, the breakdowns that you're most likely get are that you've done a gig and not been paid for it. Or, you've got a contract that you need checking out, or you've had an argument in the band over who owns what songs. Maybe the band have fallen out, and one of the members has gone off and joined another band and taken half the songs with him. So that's when members will come to me to help them sort out those sort of problems. So it's a bit like an insurance company. But in addition to that, the MU nationwide represents the interests of musicians more than on this day-to-day level. I've brought some bits and pieces with me, you can take these away, the current Musician magazine, and so on. Here's the lovely Billy Bragg on the front, and half a dozen MPs with bits of sticky tape over their mouths. One of the campaigns that we've got going on at the moment is about Public Entertainment Licensing. Public Entertainment Licensing is important to you because if a venue doesn't have a Public Entertainment Licence, you cannot play there. Unless there's only two of you - there's currently an exemption for that. For years we've been saying "That's really wrong - why should only two people be able to play in a venue that doesn't have a licence?" Part of the problem is that once upon a time, two musicians meant something fairly quiet and unobtrusive. These days, when you've got all the kind of shit that you can launch a satellite into space with, you can make more noise with two people than you used to be able to make with two people. So it causes a lot of discrepanies, it also limits the places that you can work. So for a couple of years now we've been lobbying the Government about a change to this law, because it's ridiculous. It's taken us years of hammering away, and hopefully in this next parliament we'll be getting a serious revision to that law. Now I know that sounds a bit "How does that affect me?" but this is what the Union does - we work on lots of different levels. We deal with you personally as your problems come up, and then we have to think a bit more forward about the problems that might affect the future of your playing careers. Benefits of Union membership .... apart from having the one-stop shop, one of the most important things that will happen to you is that hopefully you'll get a contract at some point. Either a management contract, licensing deal, publishing deal or the prize of all prizes, a record deal. The basic piece of advice with any contract is "Don't sign it. Do not sign it - unless you've had it checked over by someone who knows what they're talking about". That doesn't necessarily mean your mum or your dad, and it doesn't necessarily mean your granny's solicitor either. Because your granny's solicitor might be great at drawing up wills and dealing with sales of houses and things, but won't necessarily understand the vagaries of the music industry .... which uses words like "cross-collateralisation" and "points" .... and that doesn't always mean percentages. So if you do get a contract we vet them for our members free of charge and we give you advice. Sometimes the advice is "Don't sign it, this is a really crap contract", and if you go and sign it then it's your own tough luck. We'd never knowingly have our members sign a contract that is detrimental to their careers as musicians. I was going to run through a whole list of things, but if there's anything you want to ask a question about, just chip in. I'd like it to be a bit more interactive than me just talking at you ... Pete: Can I just make one point, Elaine? The MU .... people like Elaine are employed by the Musicians' Union. As she said Branch Secretaries and so on aren't, they volunteer, they're elected by the membership to represent people within their area. And the organisers, the paid organisers, can only work on instruction from the membership. Now in the past, classical musicians have articulated arguments, and they've put them to the Union. Consequently organisers have acted on instruction from the classical musicians, and we now have one of the best infrastructures for classical music in the world. Because the Union has gone to the BBC and so on and said, "You must play so many hours of classical music live on your station or we'll close you down". The jazz people have done the same to an extent, and there's a fairly significant amount of money within the Arts Council, for example, for touring jazz people. Now in my experience of rock and roll people or whatever you want to call them ..... there's two kinds of music isn't there, popular and serious, I suppose we are popular [laughter] ..... they haven't articulated those arguments, they haven't necessarily joined the Union, in fact a lot of people find it difficult to organise themselves out of bed let alone get things rolling that way. But if collectively we all join the Union and we instruct the organisers - or request the organisers - to act on our behalf, the same sorts of things could happen for our sector. I can imagine a scenario where for instance the Musicians' Union could ally itself with the Performing Rights Society and make similar demands on BBC, national independent, and local radio whereby local bands, national bands come to that, will have airplay. They'll be instructed. Because between the MU and the PRS, they can close these stations down if they so wish. It's possible for the Union to exert sanctions. Elaine: We can make things difficult. Pete: Yes, they can make things difficult. I'm talking in very broad terms here, but I think you probably understand what I mean. This to me is a real important function of the Union. It's one reason why we should all join. There is strength in solidarity and collective action. The reason why I think we should all join the Union, apart from these benefits which for the sake of ... if you're on a low income, membership costs you sixty quid a year. I pay mine on a standing order which is a fiver or so a month, and that's not bad for free legal advice which otherwise would cost you something in the range of three hundred quid an hour for a music biz solicitor. That's the sort of money that you'll have to pay these people. The Union provide barristers who give out extremely good advice, and will do that for nowt. Another thing that you'll find is that if you're travelling and this isn't just a hobby, you're working professionally or semi-professionally, try insuring your guitar. The normal insurers just won't touch it. They'll put it on your house insurance but the minute you say "I'm getting paid for the gig", well, forget it. The Union advise you on insurance. These are two really crucial areas. Not only that but when you're playing, and your PA falls over and seriously damages some guy's head ........ You've all got five million quid - Elaine: Ten. It's ten now. It went up in January. Pete: Ten million quid's worth of Public Liability Insurance. That's paid for. You just get that naturally and the Union carries that for you. Now that's fairly important. People often disregard these things until someone gets electrocuted. Elaine: The Public Liability Insurance is actually ... once upon a time when you played a venue, the landlord would cover all of that sort of stuff for you. But as it becomes more and more difficult for landlords, especially of small venues like this to actually make a living out of putting on live music, they find that they have to offset some of their costs onto other people. More often than not now, a lot of bands are getting contracts that say, from the venues, "Come and play at our venue, the band will indemnify the engager against public liability insurance, public liability against injury to members of the public........" or whatever. And it mentions Public Liability Insurance. Basically, it comes down to this American system now that we work under of sue and be damned. You've all seen the adverts on telly, "Had an accident? Trip or fall? Not your fault? Like to get lots of money? Fantastic, phone us." And this is where it's going. I right now am dealing with a claim from a member in Newcastle who's been working at a function suite, and he was there for two weeks solid, and the hotel had an agreement with him that they could set the gig up at the beginning of the two weeks, leave it set up, and at the end of the gig the band could go home. What the band didn't know was that once the band had finished playing, the disco carried on for another two hours afterwards. About halfway through the run, some of the worse for wear ... inebriated, some of the rather inebriated guests at this function decided they were going to have a prat around on the stage. So they were pratting around, whatever, they were ushered off ...... Five weeks later one of the lighting stanchions fell off the stage and cracked this girl on the head. She's been off work for six months, she's incurred four and a half thousand pounds worth in lost earnings alone, she's got medical costs, she's then got ...... there's an allowance you get for personal injury... And the venue have said, "Nothing to do with us because it wasn't our equipment". So the insurers and the girl's solicitors have now come to the musicians and said, "It's your gear, you're at fault". Now unfortunately for this guy, he wasn't an MU member at the time. So he didn't have any insurance, and he's now coming and saying "What am I going to do? They're going to sue my ass". So we're getting him some pretty good advice, he'll get advice but not assistance. And he'll get the advice to help him defend that claim. Don't say it couldn't happen to you because it could and it does. So be aware. Especially if you get a contract that says you have a duty to provide your own insurance - make sure you've got it. And if you haven't, tell the venue, or sort out your membership straight away. Elaine Towse: Do you have to be a musician to be a member of the Musicians' Union? Elaine: No, but we only act for members who are working in their capacity as a musician at the time. Or music teacher, because a lot of our members supplement their income by doing a bit of teaching part-time. If we've got a member ...... An example: I've got a member who phoned me about a month ago, who plays part-time and he's a member of the MU for his musical work. His other job is driving a truck. He got in trouble with the guy who was employing him as a truck driver, and he phoned me up for advice. And I gave him a bit of advice, which was go and find a solicitor. Because he's not working as a musician. Much as I felt really sorry for this guy it's not my job to advise him whilst he's not working as a musician. Elaine Towse: The only reason I ask is.... these guys, I'm their manager, they occasionally will say to me "Can you ring the Union today and ask them about so and so. I personally am not a member, and occasionally I come up against the problem of "I can't talk to you because you're not a member." But these guys are at collegeduring the day, for intance, and they're asking to me ring you and ask certain questions ... Elaine: It depends how you couch the question. It depends exactly what you're asking. I mean we don't not speak to managers. We have good relations with the managers' association, the International Managers' Forum. So if a band's manager phones up and says "I want to sort out paying their subs", or "The band have got a problem, can I pass you the paperwork about this?" ..... that's not a problem. As long as you say "I am representing these people", and can supply me with their membership details, their membership numbers so I can check ... Elaine Towse:Yes, I carry their cards and everything. It's only once happened to me, but after that I looked into becoming a member myself and there didn't seem to be an opening for me. Elaine: No, because we don't represent people who aren't musicians. Simple as that. Get some bongos. But as a manager, if you phone up and say "I represent these people who are members of yours, and they need some assistance with blah, blah .... It may be that if, for instance, you phone up and ask questions that relate to your relationship with them as manager, then we wouldn't advise you. We would advise them. Or if you wanted to get them tied into a management contract you could send it to us and we would vet it, but we would send the answers back to them, not to you. It depends on how it works. Elaine Towse: We do find you incredibly useful for all sorts of things. Elaine: Thank you. Pete: There's obvious reasons for that, isn't there. If a manager is working on behalf of a band, that's fine. They can find the information, it's maybe part of the manager's job ... the band don't want to be bothered with all that stuff. But of course the MU is there if there's a dispute with the manager. You can't have a conflict of interests. Elaine Towse: As I say, it only happened once that I remember, being told "I can't speak to you, I need to speak to the members." Elaine: Right. It depends on what the question was that you asked and how you couched it. Pete: One thing I've found myself, and it varies from branch to branch .... this is not a critical statement ..... but you'll find that often it's best to go direct to the Organiser rather than the Branch Secretary, who is a volunteer after all, and their time is not necessarily available as yours would be, Elaine. Also, it comes back to the idea of who has put the arguments together, and who is representing musicians in certain branches. And the Branch Secretary's vested interest might be in say, trad jazz, not in speed metal, and they don't know what you're talking about when you refer to problems in your particular area of music. So often it's best to go to the Organiser. Elaine: The Branch Secretaries on the whole, there's no formal training for Branch Secretaries, which is something that I hope to change. But a Branch Secretary isn't bound to know anything about legal matters. So the knowledge of Branch Secretaries ... some of the Branch Secretaries make a point of getting to know other genres of music and the peculiarities of them. But some of them ..... if I've got a Branch Secretary whose main field is jazz and they've been working in jazz for twenty years, that's what they know about. So phoning them up and saying "Where do I get a gig? I'm in a thrash metal band", they might not be able to help just because they don't know. I'm not sure I would know either, but ....you know. Some of the Branch Secretaries are better than others but they are volunteers, basically. They don't do it for a job. I do this as a job. And often we say "I don't think I can help you, but I know somebody that can". So we do try and act as a one-stop shop for whatever sort of problem. Sometimes the questions that we get asked ...... I'm not the oracle. Sometimes you just don't know the answers. Pete: But you can put members in touch with someone who does. Elaine: We try quite hard to steer people in the right direction. Pete: Another thing, when you join everyone gets a copy of this, a Directory of all members, and that can be really handy if your bass player falls off his motorbike and breaks his arm, because you can find a dep out of here. This is really useful, everyone's name and contact details are in this Directory. How many members are there? Elaine: In the directory or in the Union? Pete: In the Union. Elaine: In the Union we've got about 32,000 at the moment, although that's going up. We've just started organising in Northern Ireland for the first time ever. Because of the political situation in Northern Ireland, it's been very difficult for us to get involved there. There was a Northern Ireland Musicians' Union but that imploded basically, and we've just been given permission by the Northern Ireland Government to start organising there so we're slightly expanding over there. Nationwide the Union covers England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and we've got about 73 branches. Our main office is in London where a lot of the National Organisers are, and then we have offices in Manchester where I work, and the North-West District organiser works, in Glasgow, in Birmingham, and in Bristol ... the national office being in London. So we're scattered around all over the place, and we do travel a lot. Adi: Going back to what you were saying before, what do you define as a musician? I've seen bands where people go on stage as part of the band but you'd never say they were a musician. Elaine: If somebody plays ... well, if somebody earns part of their living from music creation, writing ... Pete: From performance ... Adi: But you could do anything. The classic example is the bloke in Slipknot who jumps up and down on the drums and hits them with the false nose ....He's a classically trained musician. Elaine: Percussion. So that's one way around it. Seriously, we now take DJs into membership. I don't mean your "Hi-ho Silver Lining" 60's wedding kind of DJs ...... proper DJs. We take DJs into membership because a lot of DJs now are creating music. And how can you call somebody, how can you say that someone isn't a musician if they're creating new music? Even if it is from other bits? We represent songwriters and composers and arrangers and copyists. Now arrangers and copyists might not mean anything to you, but in the classical world and in the theatre field, if you want an arrangement doing that's been scored for a band of 8, and all of a sudden you want it scoring for a band of 16, it's going to be re-arranged to fit that number of musicians. So although strictly speaking, these arrangers don't create performance, they don't perform music themselves, they're still earning a living from the creation of music. So we represent them. So we represent songwriters, and music copyists, and arrangers, and composers, and all that lot as well. And DJs, and rappers, and scratchers, and whatever. Because they're earning their living from the production of music. Pete: We've passed round ... we don't want to burden you with loads of bits of paper, but the three sheets you've got here, this provide fairly basic, but essential, stuff. And yet it's again, in our experience not always, in fact rarely I guess, taken on board. When you form a band, the first thing you really should do is draw up something like this, a Group Agreement. And there's a specimen here, of a Group Agreement. And hopefully this is something that everyone signs in the band. It indicates precisely where you are ..... Do you own the songs collectively or does one person own them? Who owns the band name? What happens if someone leaves? All this sort of stuff .... how you make decisions .... Are all decisions collective or can one person operate on your behalf? The manager .... how much responsibility has the manager got? Now hopefully you all sign this agreement and you put it in a drawer and it stays there gathering dust. But you've got this agreement between yourselves should you ever need it. One thing to seriously consider, anyway there's a specimen here for you if you need it. Elaine: It's worth thinking about, because you've no idea the number of bands that are all fantastic mates until one of them decides to leave and go off and do something else, or three of them decide one's a pisshead and they've had enough. And that's when things can get nasty. John: That never happens does it? What if they're all pissheads? (laughter) Elaine: Things can get really nasty. Things can get really really vicious amongst bands. Because somebody always ends up feeling aggrieved. And if you haven't sat down whilst you're friends, and said "Right okay, how do we run ourselves as a band?" you may hgave problems in the future. It's all part of being a bit more businesslike, a bit more organised and a bit more together. If you've got a more businesslike approach to the way that you run the band, then it means that doing the music is easy because you get on and write the music, and the business is there in its little box taken care of. So it is really important that you all understand your role in the band, especially if you're going to manage yourselves. Do you want me to mention managers? Pete: Whatever. Elaine: A lot of bands normally when they're starting out say "How do we get a manager?" or "We've decided it's time for us to get a manager, so we want one. Where do we get a manager from?" You need to actually think about it. Good managers are quite hard to find. And also good managers are worth their weight in gold. The manager deserves to be paid for their talents as a manager just as you deserve to be paid for your talents as songwriters and performers. But is it worth your while getting a manager if you're not actually earning any money and therefore can't pay your manager for the time that they're going to spend working for you .... getting you gigs and promoting your image. You need to think about that. Are we at the point where we actually deserve a manager? Pete: Or need one. Elaine: Or need one. Are we an attractive prospect for a manager? Pete: Invariably one member of the band takes this role on, don't they. Often that's the case. But that can be counterproductive, because that band member really wants just to play music like everyone else. And also they might just make a bad move and book the band into a bad gig, and they've got to play with them at the same time, and that can cause friction sometimes. So in the sort of things that Elaine alludes to, you take it step by step ..... you decide things at the appropriate time. It's not necessarily that you're out for some mainstream manager right from the outset. You can look after business yourself quite adequately. Some bands immediately identify people, like Torso Horse have, and they have a very good, as far as I can gather, a real good working relationship here, and they've moved fast because of that. Their promotional stuff is really exceptionally professionally produced. We'll just go on to the next little bit, because we'll try and keep to schedule here. Elaine: Just a slight aside, I see no problem actually with .... maybe you've got a band, and you've got a friend who perhaps isn't terribly musical and who hangs out with you all the time and seems to have a bit of angle for organising things. They always turn up on time, you say meet at the club at eight and they're there at five to or something .... if you got a friend who actually fancies their chances at being a manager or likes the idea of organising your band and doing a bit of paperwork for you and actually learning themselves, there's no reason why your manager shouldn't be a friend, who, as you grow as a band, they grow as a manager as well. This is quite crucial .....otherwise in twenty years time there's going to be no managers left because they'll all have died. There's no reason why you shouldn't get a mate to do it for you. But you still must acknowledge that that friend is working for you, and you need to acknowledge that they're presenting a professional front for your band. I know of some bands who've had a friend who've managed them, and the friend has thought that they were being really organised and professional and well-presented, but actually they're cocky and arrogant. And then the management of the pub or whatever has said "I love this band, but their manager, this person that comes talking to me is so in your face, and so arrogant and so cocky, that I don't want to deal with this person, and I'd rather not book the band than have to deal with this person again". In those circumstances you can do yourselves some damage. But if you've got a friend who thinks they could do the job, then give them a chance. Pete: We'll cover in further detail these sorts of issues later in the month ..... if anyone's got any questions ... the next bit is our meal. An opportunity to have a drink and if there's any questions that occur that you want to ask Elaine I'm sure she'll welcome them. A chance of getting to know each other and all the rest of it over the next hour. I'll just come back briefly to these other bits and pieces which are just basics. So the next thing ....... you've got your band together and you get a gig. Now again, often this can be a phone call, and you ring the Dog and Duck and they say "Yeah, we'll pay you a hundred and twenty quid, there's the gig". That's it, end of business. And you turn up. However ......We always send out an agreement like this, very simple thing, it's just a few lines and you know where you stand. It says this is the amount we're getting paid, these are the hours we're playing. If you cancel us, you pay the cancellation fee. If you cancel us with a month's notice zero fee, a week's notice we want the max, because we won't have time to get another gig on that Friday night. And we put these out. It's dead simple, it's worth doing, and here's an example of a standard form to do it with. Adi: So that's something you send to landlords and that ...? Pete: Yeah. Adi: Wouldn't you find that that would put quite a lot of them off? Elaine: No. Pete: No. Not at all. In fact they're quite reassured by your professionalism. Adi: A lot of the spots we've been playing are run by people who think they shouldn't pay you anything, let alone sending you ... Pete: Well quite, and our response to that is "Well get your plumber to do the gig then." Adi: If you go for your second free pint they give you dirty looks ... but yeah, it's right what you say ... Pete: And then you know where you stand. Invariably, usually, landlords appreciate that, because it's something for their records. Also then they've got a contact number for you and so on, they can get back in touch, and you avoid that thing like the story of the gig up in Durham, where the landlady came up and said to them, "Play some Deep Purple", and they said "We don't do Deep Purple", and she said "Well alright then, f**** o** " And she didn't even pay them. They were down the road. And this was a real true story, happened only a few months back. Adi: Maybe I should learn some Deep Purple songs. Pete: With a simple agreement like this, that can't happen. Elaine: It's true, people are quite reluctant to sign contracts, but contracts are good things, for you and for the other side, because it sets out ... everybody knows what's expected of them .....then there's no argument. If it's down on paper then there's no argument about it. But even this has got a space for a countersignature by the venue. Some venues wouldn't sign it and send it back, and then if they argued about it they'd say "We didn't sign it". So it makes sense to write, "This is to confirm our telephone conversation, which said ....... whatever." Pete: There's a special clause line here for that sort of detail, or footnote. Elaine: It is always worth doing. A substantial portion of my time is taken up with suing venues for non-payment of fees, because they've either cancelled at short notice, two days' notice, and the band don't know anything about it, and the band have turned down other work because they didn't know anything about the cancellation, or because they've turned up, done the gig, and the manager just didn't like them. "Oh, I didn't like you." "Well, we've played for three hours ........" Pete: So this simple agreement protects you against such eventualities. The next thing ..... So you've got a gig at a pub. Don't expect the landlord to promote it for you. Some do, some are really good at it, but most don't. You'll arrive ......you'll have sent them a dozen posters or whatever ..... and you get there and they'll be on some shelf under the bar, they'll have forgotten about them. Because they simply don't have time. They're too busy buying and selling drink, food, all the rest of it. And often they think "Ah, we'll get a band, and by some magic process, a thousand people will turn up and we'll have a full pub". You've really got to consider promoting your own gigs. Which brings us to this little list here, which is a checklist of all the things that you need to consider, when you get a gig. Pre-production, production and research guide. If we're going to a venue that asks us to advise them on setting up a gig, this is the first little sheet that we give them. It's simple again. Have they got the appropriate licences and insurances, do they have disabled access, who's the gig for? Often people don't identify this, they're just putting music on and you think, well who do we want to turn up? Is it for young people, old people, everybody, who's the gig for? The venue's got to decide that and know that, who their target is. Then what is the programme, is it the band, with a support, how is it going to be organised, is it part of a six-month series ... does that series make sense? Does that programme make sense? Do we have contracts in place? It's fairly self-explanatory, and hopefully quite a useful sheet for you to have. I won't go on about it too much. Our website address is here ..... Grab one of these cards, free postcards, to remind you of that. As time goes on we're putting up specimen contracts on the site, and the reason for that is so that you can just rip them out of our site and use them as models. And that's going to save you, just drawing up this agreements, if you got a solicitor, that's going to be a few hundred quid. But you can get it straight from our site, and that's hopefully a useful function of what we're doing. Again, you can check the validity of them with the MU. Elaine: I'm digging up some stuff here while Pete's talking ..... I've got some magazines and a shedload of leaflets, there's two different magazines and these leaflets. Let me make sure you've all got them. Read them! Especially the leaflets. Pete: By the way if anyone wants to join the MU today, we've got some application forms ...... so you could see Karen about that, if you want to join the MU. But over the course of the month ..... now's maybe not the time to decide. But by the end of the month you might think "Oh yeah, that's a good idea ..." We've got application forms here. Thanks very much Elaine ........ (applause) We'll take a break for lunch now, and then we'll play a bit. Feel free to wander round, buy a pint, all that ...........
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