The Song Fight Bulletin Board

Just to keep everyone apprised, we are still hard at work negotiating with a whole bunch of potential venues, and we have a few very strong leads at this point. Nothing's solid yet though.

We have found a place which would be perfect for a rehearsal space which we can rent on an hourly basis, although it's too small for the actual venue, but it's also conveniently close to most of the potential venues.

My big learning experience in all this is that most people who run venues are rude and unprofessional and don't seem to want to actually get any business.

So, I think we've got a venue - we're just waiting to hear back on date availability and taking a quick tour to make sure it's up to snuff and so on.

The downside to it, though, is that their hours limit us to only doing four hours of show per night (8 PM to midnight, with a one-hour sound check from 7 to 8), so we'll probably also want to have an acoustic show like what we did in Boston so that we can fit more people in.

It would be very helpful if people could list the following:

- Do you plan on coming?
- Do you want to play Friday or Saturday?
- Is your set acoustic or electric, or could it go either way?
- If it can go either way, which is your preference?

Saturday.
Electric.

EDIT: based on the dates below, I will not be attending.

Okay, I guess I should add another thing:

Which of the following pairs of days works for you:
July 16-17
July 23-24
July 30-31
and if you have a preference for one over the others, which one?

I plan on being there.
I could play either day.
Acoustic. (Though I have to chime in and say that it would be a shame if those artists who prefer electric didn't have that choice - there are quite a few songfighters for whom that would be a severe limitation.)

I will be there.

I think I'm going to a wedding in the Bay Area on the 17th, so I like the idea of the 23rd and 24th and just making a week of it. I'd make it work for any of the dates, though.

I'd play either day.

I could do an acoustic or an electric set, but I'd prefer to do electric (and turn it up to 11).

These work better than the other:
July 16-17
July 23-24

We're still contacting and negotiating with various SF venues. I've got a new lead on a place that sounds pretty good. One requirement of this place that I don't think has been discussed is about underage folks. This place cannot allow anyone under 21 after 9pm. I don't think we have many or any underage performers coming, but if I'm wrong, let me know. I do think there might be a couple people who want to bring their kids. How do folks feel about it if the kids either can't come or can't stay past 9pm?

EDIT: How to people about paying a small cover? Typically a donation hat is passed around anyway. One venue might want to charge a cover, which would sort of cut out the middle man there in terms of financing our use of the venue.

If they want to make $50 by charging a cover, it's fine with me.

Just so they have realistic expectations as to the attendance of one of these shindigs.

JB

My impression, and I am still working out the details, is that we (the local organizers, i.e. me, fluffy, Ken, etc.) would not necessarily have to pay a large lump sum out of our own pockets to "rent" the space and pay for a door man, etc., if it could be run more like a normal gig, with a cover charge. I'm still working out the details, though, like I said. I just wanted to gauge how people felt about paying $5 at the door versus getting hit up for a donation from a squad of determined locals.

Right, so, for example, one of the venues would charge us $350/night for both nights, and for that would provide door, security, etc. Then the first $350 of the door take would go directly back to us, and after that it would be 80/20 us/club. Personally, I would be fine with footing a large chunk of that bill, since I normally spend a few hundred bucks just to get to SFLive and for a hotel and so on anyway, and I know that the other locals feel the same. The big downside to that $350/night venue is that they have very limited time slots (only 8 PM to midnight and no rehearsal time aside from setup and sound check from 7 to 8), which is why if we went that way we'd definitely have to also do an acoustic show. Also, Erin used to live nearby and she says that parking is a major hassle nearby (although it's not like that's unique in San Francisco).

For a while that seemed like the only reasonable choice (and by far the cheapest - most venues around here want $2500 or more per night!), but then a whole bunch of other venues with different prices/arrangements suddenly came crawling out of the woodwork, and so hopefully we'll get something better going on.

As far as rehearsal space goes, there's a few possibilities. For evenings (between 6-11 PM) there's a small rehearsal theatre (The Actors Center) which has pretty wide availability, and costs $40/hour. For acoustic purposes we could try out some of the many parks and piers and so on, and of course there's BART stations but we need to get a permit for that WAY in advance if we want to do it legit.

Lunkhead wrote: EDIT: How to people about paying a small cover? Typically a donation hat is passed around anyway. One venue might want to charge a cover, which would sort of cut out the middle man there in terms of financing our use of the venue.

Spokane had a cover. I think they made something like $20 at the door for both nights...

As long as the musicians don't have to pay to play, it's fine with me.

Generic wrote:As long as the musicians don't have to pay to play, it's fine with me.

I'm pretty sure Lunkhead was referring to a cover for the musicians, to ensure that people pay a bit of money up-front, instead of sending around the collection plate afterwards as we usually do.

fluffy wrote:

Generic wrote:As long as the musicians don't have to pay to play, it's fine with me.

I'm pretty sure Lunkhead was referring to a cover for the musicians, to ensure that people pay a bit of money up-front, instead of sending around the collection plate afterwards as we usually do.

That's what I meant. I told the contact at a specific place that we'd have 30-40 attendees, and I think that he interpreted that as 30-40 audience members who would pay a cover. Like I said, usually a collection plate goes around anyway, and it would only be a few bucks per person. However if folks want it to be free for the performers then I would have to figure out what that will cost us local organizers. Either way is fine I just wanted to know what the parameters were.

Just popping in to say that I'm casually keeping an eye on cheap flights(and sourcing people that want to roadtrip from Nashville to California). By no means a definite, but I want to travel this summer and I have a little bit of money to do so, and California's lovely, and Songfighters are generally a lovely bunch too. But I'm under 21(by one darn year! Next year! SF '11 will be SF: drunk and drunker :p) so obviously if the venue's 21+ that'll be an issue.

But anyways, by no means a definite attending(and most definitely not playing) buuuuut just to say I might be there. Maybe.

Hm, well, of the venues we're looking at, a few are 21+ (it is the way that things are in California, with how liquor permits work here) so the sooner we can know the better.

hey, i'd like to possibly play, hoping to talk eric into playing with me as brody, but at a minimum, i'll help promote it locally and try to bring some of my city friends.

maybe somebody should start a facebook group for this. that might help the final details (where, when, who, how much) get communicated to a wider group beyond songfight (once the details are known of course).

What's wrong with setting up a normal webpage, for the many people who don't care for Facebook? (Obviously that can be in addition to a Facebook page but I really really really do not want Facebook to be the primary way of organizing things.)

it doesn't have to be an either/or dude. do whatever you like.

Sure, I know. It would be great to have a Facebook event page for sharing the major useful information (who, when, and where).

I just really don't want to see Facebook become the primary organizational anything (mostly because of the lack of control over the data and the inability to do things like provide a public RSS feed, make sure that all information is visible to non-Facebook users, etc.), and I'm concerned that doing it as, say, a Facebook group would make some of those problems come to pass, especially since hardcore Facebook users have this tendency to ignore the rest of the Internet. We already have a perfectly good community here that anyone who needs to chime in on is already - why put it into a walled garden like Facebook?

This is already complicated enough to coordinate without having to worry about some information being shared in one place but not in another.

fluffy wrote:... hardcore Facebook users have this tendency to ignore the rest of the Internet.

Wow, you just put into words something that's been bugging me for months now.