Barbelith Underground > Gathering > Barbegig

It's your judgement call in the end Django, you probably know more about this than any of the rest of us.

Not entirely true, I'm sure.

Right - time for a moment of cold, hard reflection on money matters.

The bottom line on doing this project is - are we willing to pay collectively up to a grand or more for the hire of the venue and expenses for the bands (eg a backline to help everyone out so they don't have to lug amps around from Brighton, Southhampton and Stoke Newington and possibly elsewhere if the Stella Maris drone orchestra also join in)? Is it worth it for the venue (which I would say it is in many ways) on a Saturday night? Or should we be considering throttling back our ambitions and looking at somewhere else which will involve less expense up front to try it out first?

I suggest that if we do want to do this gig as an event a bit more than just a bunch of bands playing - ie make it an event for us all and others to remember - we're going to have to make some decisions quite soon.

I think that the best model I've seen for this is Seth's collective chipping-in for the Melt-Banana gig Hunting Lodge put on in Southampton (which was a roaring success). This thread explains the process - basically a number of supporters put in anything up to £50 each in advance to make sure that Melt-Banana's fee could be covered, plus the hire of the venue. However, they were also promised a proportion of any eventual profit if the evening made money - which it did.

Obviously there will be people coming though the door and paying around about £6-£7 (or at a stretch a little more, but it's probably a push) for a night of top-notch music. But we can't guarantee for certain that we'll get the 150+ people needed to cover all the costs, let alone make sure bands and others get something more than just the thrill of playing such a wildly fabulous night - and if it goes uproariously well, maybe pass some money along to Tom to contribute to the hosting costs of Barbelith. The key word here is guarantee - I am confident that there are enough people who will want to come along to cover at least the minimum of the venue hire - but what if they don't?

So do we think there are enough of us willing to contribute something each in advance to make this happen?

I am also aware that maybe 6-7 weeks is not very long to prepare for something like this, hence my wondering in the post above about looking at March instead. Or maybe even later in the year? The general wisdom is that 6 weeks is the minimum amount of time it takes to publicise an event enough in advance so that people will come.

Barbegig - a proposal