# Presale tickets. Buh.



## Tukaar (Jul 6, 2010)

I play in a doom metal band called Thorr-Axe. (Thorr-Axe (on iTunes) on MySpace Music - Free Streaming MP3s, Pictures & Music Downloads) This is the first show we've played where presale ticket are involved, and boy, is it a doozie. We're playing the traveling "Slave to the Metal" festival that basically lets unsigned metal bands play in (mostly) large venues, and get a chance to meet representatives from record labels (Metal Blade is the big one for us.) and other companies. 
Part of the conditions of playing this bad mofo is that we got 75 tickets to presale for $2 less than the door price. I understand this is a common practice with a lot of venues, but the concept still confuses me a little. Basically, I think we have to sell AT LEAST 50 tickets. I don't know what happens if we don't, though. 

Anyone have any thoughts on presale ticketing? 

Anyone want to come listen to some doom at the Emerson Theater in Indianapolis, Indiana on July 31st?


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## troyguitar (Jul 6, 2010)

Usually you are responsible to come up with the $$ for your tickets whether you sold them or not. It sucks but that is the reality of playing many venues around here. We haven't been asked to sell more than 20-30 though, 75 is intense for a local metal band.


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## ZXIIIT (Jul 6, 2010)

I hate this part of the music scene, our first year, we did tons of presale shows and got us no where (lost a bunch of cash on shows we could not reach quotas for) we opened for Wednesday 13, pre-sold 49 tickets for that show, they kept all the cash and since we were local, we opened the show and after our set, about 35 people left and about 15-20 people stayed for WM13.

For this year and last year, we have done 0 presale shows, we are completly avoiding them and have looked for other venues and we have gotten to play more venues, played with awesome bands because we stick up for our selves and don't do the job of lazy promoters (we have enough hard times promoting the actual band)


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## Tukaar (Jul 6, 2010)

troyguitar said:


> Usually you are responsible to come up with the $$ for your tickets whether you sold them or not. It sucks but that is the reality of playing many venues around here. We haven't been asked to sell more than 20-30 though, 75 is intense for a local metal band.



The thing is, we're not even THAT local. We're from like 1 1/2 hours south of Indy.


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## DJENTxCORE901 (Jul 6, 2010)

My band played one of these shows.
We usually get to open for all kinds of bands that we've been listening to forever with our normal booking guy, but this thing came around and it was not a good experience.
We didn't sell very many tickets at all. Because we're really not very nice guys. But don't sell tickets. It won't matter.


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## Tukaar (Jul 6, 2010)

DJENTxCORE901 said:


> My band played one of these shows.
> We usually get to open for all kinds of bands that we've been listening to forever with our normal booking guy, but this thing came around and it was not a good experience.
> We didn't sell very many tickets at all. Because we're really not very nice guys. But don't sell tickets. It won't matter.



I looked into Slave to the Metal a little more and had a lawyer friend look over the documents. Reeks of scamming.


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## Meldville (Jul 11, 2010)

This kind of stuff bums me out. These groups just take advantage of local bands who don't know how to set stuff up on their own, and throw around words like "label rep" and "exposure." Unless you're opening for Slayer, don't let some "promoter" con you in to selling tickets ahead of time, ESPECIALLY if you're not keeping any of the money. Find a venue in your town that is cool with heavier bands, work with them, network with other locals, and bust your ass flyering/promoting your shows. Not only will you make meaningful connections with venue owners and other musicians, but you aren't busting your ass only to line someone else's pocket at the cost of all of your time and effort.

My old band toured through Indy a few times, and we played the Emerson twice with some locals there (Summon the Destroyer, don't remember who else). The bands got paid, the venue got paid, good times were had, and no money-grubbing promoter was trying to take advantage of bands by dangling the whole play-this-and-Metal-Blade-will-sign-you carrot in front of them.


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## Ben.Last (Jul 11, 2010)

Tukaar said:


> I looked into Slave to the Metal a little more and had a lawyer friend look over the documents. Reeks of scamming.



Kind of makes the name of the tour rather ironic, doesn't it?


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## jakeofthumbs (Jul 23, 2010)

Presale tickets are a joke - just another way for promoters/venues to get out of doing any of the work in getting people to their shows/venues. 

We generally throw anywhere from $200-$700 at a show, depending on importance and size, on professional gig posters, ads in magazines etc, and if anyone comes to us asking to sell presale tickets on top of that, they can get stuffed!

*edit for post gig 4am spelling


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## slayerrulesyo (Aug 15, 2010)

IDK what's worse, presale tickets....or bringing a lot of people and NOT getting paid....


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## NickDowe (Aug 15, 2010)

Presale tickets are what keep the promoters bringing in the national acts and covers there ass for the cost of a sound guy, paying the venue, and covering themselves if there is anything left... if you losers can't get 20 fucking people to buy a ticket to come see your shit band play then you don't deserve to be on a stage in any venue... it's fuckers like you that are killing the underground scene!! I have a promoter that we work with and she always brings in top national acts and metal tours only to be clawing her face off when 3 of the opening bands didn't sell the minimum required tickets forcing her to come out of her pocket in order to pay the tour manager. And the bullshit about it's "the promoters job to promote, why do i have to sell tickets?" is just another way of saying "i can't even get my mom to come see me play how the fuck am i gonna sell 20 tickets? I know i will make it the promoters responsibility to get people to see my shit band." With out presale tickets the promoter has no idea before the day of the show if they are going to be able to cover the cost of the show.


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## Ben.Last (Aug 15, 2010)

Some of that makes sense but a lot of it doesn't. It's preposterous to pretend it's not a PROMOTER's job to PROMOTE. 

The problem, and what is "killing" the underground scene (I don't know exactly how one would go about killing anything that's underground), is that there's waaaay too many people with their hands in the cookie jar. It's the same bullshit that's killed the record industry. It's not the people who hate doing presales, it's all the assholes involved who aren't really needed and create a financial drain to the point where a stupid situation like required presales even exists.


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## SargeantVomit (Aug 20, 2010)

If you are known that you can draw a crowd you get paid to play. If it's a gamble to the person fronting the money and putting you on the bill you have to prove you can hang with the big boys. If you can, it shouldn't be a problem and you might get some cash out of it if you sell a fair amount. It's only if you can't draw a crowd that the problems arise. Hell even if I'm not playing, if any decent bands are on the bill I could probably sell enough tickets.

Yeah there are bad promoters who just don't give a shit and will make 5 no-name bands sell tickets so they have an easy show with 300 people.

But just because you're helping promote a show that you're playing doesn't mean that the promoter is bad. You should be doing the footwork whether you're selling tickets or not. You should be postering the city and telling everyone you can. 

Here's a scenerio, the promoter says "minimum 30" you sell 40, play for free and go home. Next show the promoter puts on they come to you saying the same thing, you say "We'll sell 30 and take half the ticket price of every ticket we sell after that, you still get your minimum and it's worthwhile for us." Most promoters will be happy to cut you a deal but they aren't going to offer it.


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## Colbear (Aug 30, 2010)

My band played the Slave to the Metal tour a couple weeks ago. We were given 75 tickets and I think we sold about 30. We got put on the bill at the last minute and had presale tickets for another show earlier that week, bad timing. They didn't charge us for the tickets we didn't sell. Some of the bands sold like 3 or 4 tickets, a couple sold all 75. The venue ended up packed anyway.

So I dunno if I would say it reeks of scamming. We didn't pay anything to play, sold some merch and played to a big crowd. And got to chat with mistress juliya. One of the bigger local bands got an on-camera interview for something. 

Anyway, in my experience being forced to get rid of presale tickets has been a good incentive to get off my ass and get people to come to shows. The downside: getting off my ass


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## Bloody_Inferno (Sep 2, 2010)

One of my bands has been put in this situation with presale tickets, and my drummer just gave this idea:



> Here's an idea. I sell you 3 guys a ticket, then dan sells us 3 a ticket then Johnny sells 3 tickets to the rest of the band, then glenn sell a ticket to each of us, that's almost 50 tickets there, and we're only buying one ticket each!
> Then I can sell a ticket to glenn's mum, cos she'd pay anything to see me, then if glenn's mum puts the word out to all the other band members mums about me being fucken awesome, theres another 2 tickets there. Then there's aunties and shit.
> We might need to book a bigger venue....
> 
> ...


 
 Not meant to be taken seriously, but kinda shows the whole disdain on presale tickets scenario we're put in.


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