Creative Industries Work Placement - BLOG 2

CREATIVE IND - BLOG 2

As always, the beginning of the week usually on the Monday morning, I firstly check the diary for what gigs the band has that coming weekend and check all details on the contract.

This week we were scheduled to perform at Butlins with our Blondie show. At our previous gig, the band members and I discussed when we were all available this week for a rehearsal – we were all free on Thursday evening, so we all booked it in our diaries.

Thursday morning I chose to remind our youngest member (19) by text regarding the rehearsal. I receive a reply saying he was sorry but his mum had booked a holiday and they were leaving that night and returning Sunday – so not only could he not make the rehearsal, but he couldn’t make the gig either.

This obviously posed a huge problem for us as a band. It simply wasn’t possible to cancel this gig as it has taken years to obtain clients of this stature and gain a good reputation, and if we were to cancel, we know we would never be used again and our reputation would be in tatters.

So this posed me with the main question: What was our alternative? I decided the first thing would be to go through our set and decided which songs could be done without keyboards and just guitar bass and drums (and lead vocal). I then researched the internet for companies that might be able to make keyboard backing tracks to click.

I then contacted the various companies to find one that was able to make them by 5pm tomorrow ready for a rehearsal tomorrow night to perform on Friday night. The backing tracks are replicas of the original studio tracks so should pose no problem for us, but the rehearsal should iron out any issues we might have.

Once the backing tracks were completed, I downloaded them off a big mail site and then transferred them onto minidisc. I plan to purchase an ipad and download them onto their instead and not use minidisc.

Many shows and TV use click track so I’m sure this will be acceptable. The only alternative is to cancel the booking, risking our reputation and letting down a big client. We are advertised so it will look bad to everyone – plus it would have been incredibly hard for the agent and client to find a replacement at such short notice.

Approx hours on the road: 8hrs
Plus
1 hr Pre-gig paperwork / Contracts / Contact with Ents Manager
3 hrs Searching for Track Companies & Contacting them
3 hrs Downloading Tracks & transferring to Minidisc
2 hrs Rehearsal
2 hrs Dealing with new enquiries and future bookings

http://www.bigweekends.com/the-weekends/index.aspx

Me with the Dr of Dr & The Medics (also performing on Main Stage)