Really wanky behaviour....

My only comeback, other than it's a real shame is, since the timing was crucial to your acceptance of the gig, it would (in hindsight) have been wise to inform them. In otherwords we accept this gig on the basis that our slot is 7 pm or later.

Multiple slot gigs are very prone to changes - in fact organisers often behave like teenagers in that they hate to positively commit to anyone, because a "better" band might phone up and ask to be included. Imagine for a second organising Live Aid or Woodstock! Bands get bumped earlier and earlier as you get nearer the gig. The last slot will be for the "best" band.

So what seems like wanky behaviour is probably nearer normal behaviour from my experience.

Davo
 
Most of the "original" music venues here in the Northeastern US take that concept and push it even further. The band with the highest pre-sale ticket numbers on the day of the show, gets to pick their ideal set time...usually 945-1030 pm. Not too late, and not too early. Along those lines, the whole ticket pre-sale operation is simply a form of "pay to play". Bands are exploited to the most abusive extent in this situation. Venues and promoters get the bands to do all the heavy lifting, without any respect to musicians and their craft. As long as there are groups that voluntarily participate, and are desperate for the perceived "exposure", the longer the practice will exist. Shafting a band after they have already invited their friends/family and promoted themselves with a specific time slot, is a total disrespectful move on part of the so called "organizers".
 
So I am going to give you all a metaphor that I use when I am telling people why I dont make any money from my band.

One of my other hobbies is playing in an adult baseball league. I am a decent player and have always been on good teams that played in large tournaments. As a player in these leagues I actually pay to play. Thats right folks, I pay money to do something I love. Seems to be a strange concept here, but stay with me. The tournament organizer is getting paid, the referee is getting paid, the groundskeeper is getting paid, the guy selling hot dogs is getting paid. I have brought people to see me play so I am therefore helping to provide the revenue for the beer stand. I have driven hours for tournaments. I have paid money for cleats and uniforms and bats. I have broken fingers and twisted ankles and dislocated shoulders all because I love to play. I dont feel any rightous indignation that I dont make any money from the game. Im just happy that I can still play at my age. And I feel the same way about playing in a band.

Dont get me wrong I love a paying gig as much as the next guy, but I dont play the drums for monitary gain. I play because I love it. My self esteem is in no way tied to anybody elses idea of what I am worth. You all can call me naive or blind or that I am allowing myself to be taken advantage of, but at the end of the day I will always leave a gig happy to have had the opportunity to play and not disappointed that I didnt make enough money.

I'm sure you're right about that. The same applies to firemen, teachers and nurses. They don't get the money they deserve BECAUSE they love their job so much. Is that fair? Honestly I don't know.

The other thing is whom do you play for.
I'm in a batucada band. There's one in every other town now and there's nothing exceptional about us. Our leader is excellent and he probably has a great gigs network but our playing is average. We played at a village festival last Sunday. We got 600 Euro (over 800$) for 2x45 mins playing.

Now how does that happen. The festival was organised by some committee of the town council. The objective of a bar or a charity event is to make money. The objective of a community festival committee is to spend money. Our act is "all terrain". We walk around and play. We don't need a stage, light, PA (we make a crap load of noise already). What we play is tried and tested and contagious and "all public". Only the 70+ age group is hard to reach musically, but our Brazilian dancers make up for that, at least for the male part of the age group.
All I'm trying to say with this is, if you want to make money ou of gigs, there are a lot of parameters you can play with besides of course becoming very very good.
 
It does seem strange that festival organisers never have any expectations that they might get the PA for free, or the security, or the stage hire for free... but every expectation they will get the bands for free. How on earth did this come about? Why do musicians have such little value? We are providing the entertainment yet command such little respect that the organisers are happy not to pay us, to change our time slot and not even inform us... And we are supposed to be grateful we have somewhere to play! WTF! Its like they are doing us a favour?
And the selling point to us musicians is that it will be good exposure for us... Well let me tell you, the only gig offers that come in from playing a free festival, are from the organisers of... you've guessed it, other free festivals.
It is very tricky getting paid work at the moment here in the UK, and it is work, for me. And I totally get why bands play for free. The problem is that it is not considered income for a lot of bands, a lot of members of bands have other jobs so playing for free is ok for them. *If you have plumbing as a sideline to your normal job, fixing someone's taps can be done for free, but the poor old plumber who is scratching around for a living is being done out of work. That's not to say that you shouldn't fix someone's tap, its just that if you do fix someone's tap for free, don't let them get you to install an entire heating system on the back of your good will.
It is rubbish the way you were messed about SL and I don't know the answer. But it has gone from bands getting paid, to pay to play, to sell tickets for the gig, to cut of the door, to cut of the bar takings, to plain play for free. Things haven't moved on much, they just wear different hats. Everyone's a festival organiser these days!

*I've used plumber as an example only because it rhymes with drummer...("Everyone needs a plumber, no-one needs a drummer" -JCC) plumber's over here actually get paid very well indeed and I have never known them to scratch around for work
 
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