I am a pretty serious lurker on this site, and this is my first discussion post. Until a few days ago, I co-led a session at the Philadelphia location of a large, Disney-like chain of "authentic" Irish pubs, whose motto is "Ceol Agus Craic" and who have decided that actual Irish music no longer fits into their corporate scheme (mhmhmhmhmhmhFADOmhmhmhmhm). Of course, I would never use this forum to suggest that everyone here email that company to express their outrage. Never...
Actually, I do want to solicit ideas on how to approach pub owners, etc. to propose session hosting. Inevitably, the question will be asked "How am I going to make money on this, when I have to pay a couple of starters and comp a whole bunch of pints?" My feeble answer: "Word will get out, and folks will start piling in to listen to the music. Until then, you're going to take a bath."
What have been some of your experiences in(getting sessions off the ground?
I'd like to know about this as well. It seems our local CCE has stopped having regular sessions due to this same problem. How have others gone about approaching a proprietor, and what kinds of things have been part of your agreement with each other?
The economy being what it is here, profit margins thin, it has been a challenge to get owners to see the "good will" they create when hosting a session. I have succeeded in one location that is next door to a pub (we actually meet in the coffee house) because I said she didn't need to pay us. We get free water... but at least we have a place with good acoustics and the staff like us. Our other session location is in a historic old building that has changed owners, and it has been a challenge to keep going... we just keep showing up each week and in spite of a couple of weeks when the building was locked, we continue on. In the first years, with the first owner, we would get free pitchers. Now we get free... water. It may be you'll have to forfeit the "free pints" just to get a good place to play. I encourage everyone I meet in my daily work routine to come and listen to the sessions and that way the word spreads for more customers to show up.
I wish I'd thought of asking this and starting this thread...here's hoping someone can enlighten us.
I organized a session that started at a coffee house and then moved to a micro-brewery. The coffee house owner was a great guy and enjoyed having us take over his small room every week, but as word spread, the room shrank, and we couldn't fit all the musicians in, let along bystanders. That, and we were paying for our own drinks, and there was no alcohol on the premises.
So I struck up a conversation at the micro-brewery and we've been happily ensconced ever since. I don't think it's the type of music that interests them so much as the open, community-building feel of our session. But they've been incredibly generous, not only handing free pints to anyone who plays in the circle, but also giving us free kegs when we do the occasional house party. They also open on Tuesday nights just for us--normally they'd be closed by 6 pm. I always take a bunch out of the musicians' tip jar and stuff it in the glass for the staff, but I usually feel guilty that there isn't more we can do for them. We did play music at one of the owner's wedding reception, no compensation accepted. It was the least we could do.
All this and they won't even advertise the session because they don't want to be seen as competing with the full-fledged bars in town (state law here distinguishes micro-breweries from taverns and lays more strict rules on them, and the bars are also the brewery's main customers, so the lads don't want to spite them by selling too much beer in their own taproom). So word of mouth has attracted enough punters to make the place a little profit every Tuesday night. And they tell me they're very happy with the arrangement.
I email them every week to confirm whether the session will be on or not (it rarely gets cancelled for any reason), and we talk face to face at least once a week just to stay on the same page. I also try to run interference if someone isn't behaving well or just needs help finding the door. I don't get any pay or other compensation for this--it's my "hobby."
In contrast, most local pubs aren't interested in a session. I shopped the idea around before we settled into the micro-brewery, and most owners said they didn't want a bunch of amateur musicians drowning out ESPN and scaring away the winos---er, regular customers--who keep the pub in the black. Coffee houses are more receptive, but the "no beer" issue is a bit of a show stopper.
I'm guessing my experience isn't too far removed from that of many session organizers.
Its hard in sydney to find a nice publican, we had a session that ran for 12 years - after it died we couldnt get a session for about 8 months - it was a tough time. Since then we've built up to four a week, One is quiet with nice music but not even free water!! One is really loud with good mucians lots of craic and lots of free pints or water or whatever you feel like, and One is in between - free pints till they run out of tickets and not quiet and not noisy. I have to say I hate that most publicans would rather not have tunes - most of the "Irish Pubs" these days are far too cool for trad music and would rather have gangs and gangs of young drunken Irish people sing 'The fields of Athenry" or 'From Clare to Here", go figure. Yeah we are amatuer musicians - so what as we all know there are some pretty amazing non proffessional muso's out there. Maybe I should buy a pub and dedicate it to the survival or trad irish sessions Ive found my purpose.
I can see it now: franchises of "Bridie's" across Oz, Amerikay, and Ireland, with free Jamesons for the muso's and acoustically designed snugs. To buy into one, you have to play a trad instrument. Can I be a starter, puleeeeez?
Well, actually, Will's post points out the best way to get a session into a place. You have to treat the session as a business. This means that somebody is going to have to be the unpaid "owner" of the business and take care of the details for everyone else. Pain, pain, pain.
1) To sell your session to someone, they have to know that they're going to make money off the deal, because having a session in your pub is, frankly, a pain in the posterior, for a lot of reasons and not all of them monetary. Try and get family members and friends in and emphasize to them that you're asking a huge favor of them by asking them to order food and drink, and to tip well. Put up posters and send out press releases and in general spread the word that there's an authentic Irish trad session at this pub, just as you would if it was a performance you were doing. Ask your family and friends to talk it up. Ask everyone to talk up the pub, and when they go in, to mention that they first came in because of the session. Ask everyone to frequent the pub on nights other than your session night. Do musical favors like playing at wedding receptions and maybe even at St. Pat's if you don't have a paying gig. Consider making the night a closed session with only good musicians of a reasonable skill level for about three months until the session gets a good reputation with the punters. If the pub is paying certain musicians to make sure there's always a session going, think extra hard about that last point.
2) Keep the personnel relations in mind. The waitstaff usually hates having a session in -- players rarely tip, especially when the drink was free; once the session gets large, they have to navigate tons of people for very little cash to show for it; family and friends of the players will come in and order but not tip very well, can be demanding, will camp on a table (meaning that the staff makes less money than they would on a regular night when they would have turned the table three or four times in the same time), and so on. Tip by time spent, not by the drink total and ask your friends and family to do the same for at least the first few months. At the very least, tip 20% or more. (This only counts for places where tipping is usual, of course. In places where tipping is not common, you're going to have an even more uphill battle ahead of you.)
3) Investigate the pub's business hours and see when they're open but rarely have anyone in. If you can prove that you'll bring people in on a night when they don't usually have anyone sitting in their chairs, it'll help.
4) Make sure all the players and singers care about all this as much as you do, at least to the staff's faces! Ask them to be helpful, to tip, and not to make general asses of themselves to the staff and managers.
Then, when this has all happened, THEN you can let it become more of a real live session (as opposed to a cold business transaction/performance), so long as you keep an eye on the general level of happiness of the staff and don't let things like not tipping get out of hand. If all the players come prepared to chip in $2-5 at the end of the night onto the table, stays helpful and polite, and rides herds on their guests, the wait staff is generally happy.
As a former waitress, I can tell you that how you present yourselves to the staff is going to make a BIG difference. No owner wants to hear from the manager that the session is causing staff to quit or at least stay in a foul mood all night. An unhappy staff means an unhappy manager and owner.
Sometimes you can wander into a pub, maybe one of you, maybe three or four of you, instruments in cases. Invariably someone on the staff will ask what it's all about and if you work the opportunity, you'll break the stuff out of the cases and swing into a few tunes. I've never had this not lead into at least a possibility of a session at a pub that doesn't have one. (Unless the pub is totally against the idea.)
You might try a one-off session to show all this business-savvy to the pub and staff, maybe for a special event, St. Pat's Day style of fing. Proof is in the pudding.
Wowsers - I'm so glad we dont have that tipping thing over here, even if the bar staff are unhappy they still get their wage, We dont tip bar staff at all, and waitresses at cafes might get a couple of bucks a night but nothing like the whol 20% thing.
Hi darinkelly--I'm glad you asked this question, I'd been wanting to ask the same thing, but felt to inexperienced to take on such a big project. Sorry to hear that about the session at Fado. I went to that one once about a year ago when two other great guys were running it. It was just a bit beyond my level of ability at the time. Zina's suggestions are great, but it certainly looks like you have a job ahead of yourself. I hope something works out. Keep us informed.
Yep, Zina's points all ring true to my experience. But even if you do it right, you may still run into pub owners who don't want to scare off their softball (Stateside) or football (and I don't mean the kind played by 300-lb slabs of steroids in helmets) teams and fans. I suspect the carrot of bringing in customers on an otherwise slow night of the week is why there are so many sessions Sunday through Wednesday around the globe. And that's not a bad ploy, if you can drag yourself off to work the next morning.
The other end of this is trying to keep the musicians' expectations all on or near the same page. Some people will want it to be closed to all but the best players, some are okay with a more inclusive approach. Some are performance oriented, and others are just looking for a few tunes and a pint, with no pressure. Some players actually *want* a microphone in front of them, tho this is thankfully uncommon, probably a carry over from open mic nites. Ugh. Plus, as the organizer, people will look to you to solve all sorts of problems and organize other music events (St. Paddy's Day, fundraisers for the local symphony, publicity (and housing and food and where to shop) for touring Irish musicians coming through town, coordinating with step dance troupes and schools, slow sessions, lessons, playing at local elementary schools, hospitals, and retirement homes....there's always something).
Also, I wasn't too keen on the musician's tip jar, but the taproom lads insisted, and it works out okay. We've used the money to pad the staff's tips, donate to local causes, buy a scrap book to fill with photos of our session and lyrics to the songs for people to join in, and throw a couple of very popular house session parties every year, with fancy desserts and pizza or barbeque.
Being rather OCD in this regard, almost any time I'm in a local-ish pub I haven't been to before, with friends, colleagues, etc., I make a point of chatting to the publican about the possibility of a session. And it sometimes works! Right now I can think of 3 sessions I started on that basis.
There's nothing to be lost in asking.
Usually they tend to ephemoral compared to the standard sessions, but what the heck.
I've helped organized a few sessions locally and I would like to forward a hypothesis which I humbly submit to you as Search For Session Pubs Rule #1. 'The pub owners initial interest in hosting an Irish session is inversely proportional to the solvency of that pubs business.'
In other words, if they're interested in hosting a session, then their pub is not doing very well and they see the session as a promotional angle. If they're not interested in a session, business is just fine, thank you very much.
Like any rule, this one has an exception. If the owner feels an obligation to have some authenticity in their pub and/or actually likes the music, then they may react positively.
I've helped start two session that have found the doors to the pub locked and 'For Sale' signs posted only a few months after it started. Sad but true.
There aren't any Irish Pubs here, or Irish-themed eateries...nothing. How many of you have sessions at places that aren't Irish in some way? What kind of place is it, and how hard was it to get permission? Everything here is either Cajun (with live Cajun music), a local corner bar, or a nightclub. That leaves little bistros and such...then you're looking at Greek, Lebanese, fancy French, Italian, etc.--just not the right atmosphere either...too quiet and restrained. There is a commercial string of French cafes called Madeleine's...one here has a small pub-like room for folks to use for meetings, but who wants to be away from the patrons if at all possible? Kinda defeats the purpose of having it in a public establishment.
We are lucky with that session I go to on sunday nights - with all the free drinks you can manage because the Owners of an authentic Irish pub (who are actually maltese) absolutley adore trad music. They go out of their way to make us happy, comfortable and there is no pressure - probably why its my favourite in sydney. I know how lucky that is - its the first time Ive ever expercienced a session like that, even in Galway its all about how many tourists you can pull in to spend money - ugh. Trad musos are and have always been under apreciated.
Our tavern owner doesn't do it for the money. He loves the music and sings with the group when he is available. If you need session players to bring in a profit, you had better rethink your marketing plan.
Lucky you guys, indeed, bb. Unfortunately most areas have very few pub owners who don't try to turn a profit, or at least make some money. It's this thing that they have, making money. Ah, filthy lucre. Personally, I think everyone ought to automatically receive a million dollars at the age of 30 and then if they blow it, it's their own demme fault! ;)
Perhaps not entirely relevant to the American scene but sessions here actually make money for the pub owner. One of our regular sessions at Maghera [see http://downfolk.tripod.com/maghera.htm] gets the biggest crowd of the month and he has to take on additional staff that night.
You might also want to point out that it is quite cheap. Setting up three or four pints for the musicians at cost price is an awful lot less than paying a band.
Organizing a Session
Organizing a Session
I am a pretty serious lurker on this site, and this is my first discussion post. Until a few days ago, I co-led a session at the Philadelphia location of a large, Disney-like chain of "authentic" Irish pubs, whose motto is "Ceol Agus Craic" and who have decided that actual Irish music no longer fits into their corporate scheme (mhmhmhmhmhmhFADOmhmhmhmhm). Of course, I would never use this forum to suggest that everyone here email that company to express their outrage. Never...
Actually, I do want to solicit ideas on how to approach pub owners, etc. to propose session hosting. Inevitably, the question will be asked "How am I going to make money on this, when I have to pay a couple of starters and comp a whole bunch of pints?" My feeble answer: "Word will get out, and folks will start piling in to listen to the music. Until then, you're going to take a bath."
What have been some of your experiences in(getting sessions off the ground?
# Posted on January 16th 2003 by darinkelly
Re: Organizing a Session
I'd like to know about this as well. It seems our local CCE has stopped having regular sessions due to this same problem. How have others gone about approaching a proprietor, and what kinds of things have been part of your agreement with each other?
# Posted on January 16th 2003 by katiebythegate
Re: Organizing a Session
The economy being what it is here, profit margins thin, it has been a challenge to get owners to see the "good will" they create when hosting a session. I have succeeded in one location that is next door to a pub (we actually meet in the coffee house) because I said she didn't need to pay us. We get free water... but at least we have a place with good acoustics and the staff like us. Our other session location is in a historic old building that has changed owners, and it has been a challenge to keep going... we just keep showing up each week and in spite of a couple of weeks when the building was locked, we continue on. In the first years, with the first owner, we would get free pitchers. Now we get free... water. It may be you'll have to forfeit the "free pints" just to get a good place to play. I encourage everyone I meet in my daily work routine to come and listen to the sessions and that way the word spreads for more customers to show up.
Alice
# Posted on January 16th 2003 by aliceflynn
Re: Organizing a Session
I wish I'd thought of asking this and starting this thread...here's hoping someone can enlighten us.
I organized a session that started at a coffee house and then moved to a micro-brewery. The coffee house owner was a great guy and enjoyed having us take over his small room every week, but as word spread, the room shrank, and we couldn't fit all the musicians in, let along bystanders. That, and we were paying for our own drinks, and there was no alcohol on the premises.
So I struck up a conversation at the micro-brewery and we've been happily ensconced ever since. I don't think it's the type of music that interests them so much as the open, community-building feel of our session. But they've been incredibly generous, not only handing free pints to anyone who plays in the circle, but also giving us free kegs when we do the occasional house party. They also open on Tuesday nights just for us--normally they'd be closed by 6 pm. I always take a bunch out of the musicians' tip jar and stuff it in the glass for the staff, but I usually feel guilty that there isn't more we can do for them. We did play music at one of the owner's wedding reception, no compensation accepted. It was the least we could do.
All this and they won't even advertise the session because they don't want to be seen as competing with the full-fledged bars in town (state law here distinguishes micro-breweries from taverns and lays more strict rules on them, and the bars are also the brewery's main customers, so the lads don't want to spite them by selling too much beer in their own taproom). So word of mouth has attracted enough punters to make the place a little profit every Tuesday night. And they tell me they're very happy with the arrangement.
I email them every week to confirm whether the session will be on or not (it rarely gets cancelled for any reason), and we talk face to face at least once a week just to stay on the same page. I also try to run interference if someone isn't behaving well or just needs help finding the door. I don't get any pay or other compensation for this--it's my "hobby."
In contrast, most local pubs aren't interested in a session. I shopped the idea around before we settled into the micro-brewery, and most owners said they didn't want a bunch of amateur musicians drowning out ESPN and scaring away the winos---er, regular customers--who keep the pub in the black. Coffee houses are more receptive, but the "no beer" issue is a bit of a show stopper.
I'm guessing my experience isn't too far removed from that of many session organizers.
# Posted on January 16th 2003 by Will Harmon
Re: Organizing a Session
Its hard in sydney to find a nice publican, we had a session that ran for 12 years - after it died we couldnt get a session for about 8 months - it was a tough time. Since then we've built up to four a week, One is quiet with nice music but not even free water!! One is really loud with good mucians lots of craic and lots of free pints or water or whatever you feel like, and One is in between - free pints till they run out of tickets and not quiet and not noisy. I have to say I hate that most publicans would rather not have tunes - most of the "Irish Pubs" these days are far too cool for trad music and would rather have gangs and gangs of young drunken Irish people sing 'The fields of Athenry" or 'From Clare to Here", go figure. Yeah we are amatuer musicians - so what as we all know there are some pretty amazing non proffessional muso's out there. Maybe I should buy a pub and dedicate it to the survival or trad irish sessions
Ive found my purpose.
# Posted on January 16th 2003 by bb
Re: Organizing a Session
I can see it now: franchises of "Bridie's" across Oz, Amerikay, and Ireland, with free Jamesons for the muso's and acoustically designed snugs. To buy into one, you have to play a trad instrument. Can I be a starter, puleeeeez?
# Posted on January 16th 2003 by Will Harmon
Re: Organizing a Session
God - scary thought or what!!! I'll call it 'Bridie's pint'
# Posted on January 16th 2003 by bb
Re: Organizing a Session
Perfect!
# Posted on January 16th 2003 by Will Harmon
Re: Organizing a Session
Well, actually, Will's post points out the best way to get a session into a place. You have to treat the session as a business. This means that somebody is going to have to be the unpaid "owner" of the business and take care of the details for everyone else. Pain, pain, pain.
1) To sell your session to someone, they have to know that they're going to make money off the deal, because having a session in your pub is, frankly, a pain in the posterior, for a lot of reasons and not all of them monetary. Try and get family members and friends in and emphasize to them that you're asking a huge favor of them by asking them to order food and drink, and to tip well. Put up posters and send out press releases and in general spread the word that there's an authentic Irish trad session at this pub, just as you would if it was a performance you were doing. Ask your family and friends to talk it up. Ask everyone to talk up the pub, and when they go in, to mention that they first came in because of the session. Ask everyone to frequent the pub on nights other than your session night. Do musical favors like playing at wedding receptions and maybe even at St. Pat's if you don't have a paying gig. Consider making the night a closed session with only good musicians of a reasonable skill level for about three months until the session gets a good reputation with the punters. If the pub is paying certain musicians to make sure there's always a session going, think extra hard about that last point.
2) Keep the personnel relations in mind. The waitstaff usually hates having a session in -- players rarely tip, especially when the drink was free; once the session gets large, they have to navigate tons of people for very little cash to show for it; family and friends of the players will come in and order but not tip very well, can be demanding, will camp on a table (meaning that the staff makes less money than they would on a regular night when they would have turned the table three or four times in the same time), and so on. Tip by time spent, not by the drink total and ask your friends and family to do the same for at least the first few months. At the very least, tip 20% or more. (This only counts for places where tipping is usual, of course. In places where tipping is not common, you're going to have an even more uphill battle ahead of you.)
3) Investigate the pub's business hours and see when they're open but rarely have anyone in. If you can prove that you'll bring people in on a night when they don't usually have anyone sitting in their chairs, it'll help.
4) Make sure all the players and singers care about all this as much as you do, at least to the staff's faces! Ask them to be helpful, to tip, and not to make general asses of themselves to the staff and managers.
Then, when this has all happened, THEN you can let it become more of a real live session (as opposed to a cold business transaction/performance), so long as you keep an eye on the general level of happiness of the staff and don't let things like not tipping get out of hand. If all the players come prepared to chip in $2-5 at the end of the night onto the table, stays helpful and polite, and rides herds on their guests, the wait staff is generally happy.
As a former waitress, I can tell you that how you present yourselves to the staff is going to make a BIG difference. No owner wants to hear from the manager that the session is causing staff to quit or at least stay in a foul mood all night. An unhappy staff means an unhappy manager and owner.
Sometimes you can wander into a pub, maybe one of you, maybe three or four of you, instruments in cases. Invariably someone on the staff will ask what it's all about and if you work the opportunity, you'll break the stuff out of the cases and swing into a few tunes. I've never had this not lead into at least a possibility of a session at a pub that doesn't have one. (Unless the pub is totally against the idea.)
You might try a one-off session to show all this business-savvy to the pub and staff, maybe for a special event, St. Pat's Day style of fing. Proof is in the pudding.
Zina
# Posted on January 16th 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: Organizing a Session
Wowsers - I'm so glad we dont have that tipping thing over here, even if the bar staff are unhappy they still get their wage, We dont tip bar staff at all, and waitresses at cafes might get a couple of bucks a night but nothing like the whol 20% thing.
# Posted on January 16th 2003 by bb
Re: Organizing a Session
Hi darinkelly--I'm glad you asked this question, I'd been wanting to ask the same thing, but felt to inexperienced to take on such a big project. Sorry to hear that about the session at Fado. I went to that one once about a year ago when two other great guys were running it. It was just a bit beyond my level of ability at the time. Zina's suggestions are great, but it certainly looks like you have a job ahead of yourself. I hope something works out. Keep us informed.
# Posted on January 16th 2003 by Andee
Re: Organizing a Session
Yep, Zina's points all ring true to my experience. But even if you do it right, you may still run into pub owners who don't want to scare off their softball (Stateside) or football (and I don't mean the kind played by 300-lb slabs of steroids in helmets) teams and fans. I suspect the carrot of bringing in customers on an otherwise slow night of the week is why there are so many sessions Sunday through Wednesday around the globe. And that's not a bad ploy, if you can drag yourself off to work the next morning.
The other end of this is trying to keep the musicians' expectations all on or near the same page. Some people will want it to be closed to all but the best players, some are okay with a more inclusive approach. Some are performance oriented, and others are just looking for a few tunes and a pint, with no pressure. Some players actually *want* a microphone in front of them, tho this is thankfully uncommon, probably a carry over from open mic nites. Ugh. Plus, as the organizer, people will look to you to solve all sorts of problems and organize other music events (St. Paddy's Day, fundraisers for the local symphony, publicity (and housing and food and where to shop) for touring Irish musicians coming through town, coordinating with step dance troupes and schools, slow sessions, lessons, playing at local elementary schools, hospitals, and retirement homes....there's always something).
Also, I wasn't too keen on the musician's tip jar, but the taproom lads insisted, and it works out okay. We've used the money to pad the staff's tips, donate to local causes, buy a scrap book to fill with photos of our session and lyrics to the songs for people to join in, and throw a couple of very popular house session parties every year, with fancy desserts and pizza or barbeque.
# Posted on January 16th 2003 by Will Harmon
Re: Organizing a Session
Being rather OCD in this regard, almost any time I'm in a local-ish pub I haven't been to before, with friends, colleagues, etc., I make a point of chatting to the publican about the possibility of a session. And it sometimes works! Right now I can think of 3 sessions I started on that basis.
There's nothing to be lost in asking.
Usually they tend to ephemoral compared to the standard sessions, but what the heck.
# Posted on January 16th 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: Organizing a Session
I've helped organized a few sessions locally and I would like to forward a hypothesis which I humbly submit to you as Search For Session Pubs Rule #1. 'The pub owners initial interest in hosting an Irish session is inversely proportional to the solvency of that pubs business.'
In other words, if they're interested in hosting a session, then their pub is not doing very well and they see the session as a promotional angle. If they're not interested in a session, business is just fine, thank you very much.
Like any rule, this one has an exception. If the owner feels an obligation to have some authenticity in their pub and/or actually likes the music, then they may react positively.
I've helped start two session that have found the doors to the pub locked and 'For Sale' signs posted only a few months after it started. Sad but true.
# Posted on January 17th 2003 by Caoimghgin
Re: Organizing a Session
There aren't any Irish Pubs here, or Irish-themed eateries...nothing. How many of you have sessions at places that aren't Irish in some way? What kind of place is it, and how hard was it to get permission? Everything here is either Cajun (with live Cajun music), a local corner bar, or a nightclub. That leaves little bistros and such...then you're looking at Greek, Lebanese, fancy French, Italian, etc.--just not the right atmosphere either...too quiet and restrained. There is a commercial string of French cafes called Madeleine's...one here has a small pub-like room for folks to use for meetings, but who wants to be away from the patrons if at all possible? Kinda defeats the purpose of having it in a public establishment.
# Posted on January 17th 2003 by katiebythegate
Re: Organizing a Session
We are lucky with that session I go to on sunday nights - with all the free drinks you can manage because the Owners of an authentic Irish pub (who are actually maltese) absolutley adore trad music. They go out of their way to make us happy, comfortable and there is no pressure - probably why its my favourite in sydney. I know how lucky that is - its the first time Ive ever expercienced a session like that, even in Galway its all about how many tourists you can pull in to spend money - ugh. Trad musos are and have always been under apreciated.
# Posted on January 17th 2003 by bb
Re: Organizing a Session
Our tavern owner doesn't do it for the money. He loves the music and sings with the group when he is available. If you need session players to bring in a profit, you had better rethink your marketing plan.
# Posted on January 18th 2003 by Odin
Re: Organizing a Session
Lucky you guys, indeed, bb. Unfortunately most areas have very few pub owners who don't try to turn a profit, or at least make some money. It's this thing that they have, making money. Ah, filthy lucre. Personally, I think everyone ought to automatically receive a million dollars at the age of 30 and then if they blow it, it's their own demme fault! ;)
zls
# Posted on January 18th 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: Organizing a Session
Perhaps not entirely relevant to the American scene but sessions here actually make money for the pub owner. One of our regular sessions at Maghera [see http://downfolk.tripod.com/maghera.htm] gets the biggest crowd of the month and he has to take on additional staff that night.
You might also want to point out that it is quite cheap. Setting up three or four pints for the musicians at cost price is an awful lot less than paying a band.
# Posted on January 19th 2003 by breandan