Bad venues

I’m a big support of the people that make the music scene happen, the venue operators, however, not all venues are operated equally. Some venues are “Bad Venues”, this is why I never agree to a long term booking until I’ve played a venue once and given it a test drive. Keep in mind, anybody can open a venue, all it takes is money. But just because somebody has the money to open a venue does not imply they are smart, organized or even sane. Simply put some are, and some aren’t.

There is a simple three step litmus test for a good venue.

First they should list the event in “Live Music Events”. If they don’t list the show it affects the crowd and if the performer is playing for tips this can be very detrimental to their cash flow. This is the very least a venue can do to support a performer. Some send notices to a bunch of music groups, and some do not. But the bare minimum promotional effort should be a notice in Live Music Events.

The venue operator is responsible for getting the stream to their parcel and should have any information they need to do that before hand. Once the performer starts the stream it should be playing in world. Personally I make sure venue operators have my stream info as early as possible, and double check to make sure we are clear. However some manage to fuck it up even after I spend time holding their hand. This is why you hear artist saying, “Let me know if you hear me”?

The artist should have any tags they need to rez their stage props well before the show starts. How many times have you heard and artist lament they could not rez their tip jar? This is a fuck up by the venue operator.

Now very good venues cover all these things and do much more to support the artist. I love these guys, and support them as well as I can. But you would be amazed how many venues can screw up the three little things and basically equate to baseline competency.

No incase you think I’m pissed off about this because I’ve been recently burned, that is not the case. As a matter of fact I’m having a very good streak with new venues. But a friend of mine asked me to catch a show she was doing. It was at midnight my time, but I wanted to be supportive so I set my alarm clock and logged on a few minutes before her show.

I don’t belong to any of her groups, so I had to look in “Live Music Events” to find the show. It was not listed. So I had to ask for a lift from my friend that was probably getting ready to play a show.

Bad venue… you didn’t list the show in Live Music Events.

Then time comes to get on stage. No stream. Na-da. People are going, “I don’t hear anything” and the host is going “Could you send me that stream info again”? My friend told me she made sure they had the info and she’s played enough shows that I’m sure she did. After nine minutes there was a stream. While it might not seem like a bit deal, nine minutes are three songs that won’t get played that show.

Bad Venue… no stream on parcel.

Of course I was pretty pissed off. I had gotten up to see this show, and it was taking forever to start. I did tactfully comment, “Where is the fooking stream”? And then, “I guess any retard can open a venue here”.

Then when the stream was up, my friend was apologizing for not having a tip jar out and asking for a tag that would allow her to rez. This is about 12 minutes into the show.

Bad venue… any tags or information about rezzing stage props should be covered before the show starts.

With almost a quarter of the show wasted on things that any decent venue operator would have covered, she managed to get under way. She did a commendable show in spite of the lack luster performance of the people running the show.

Good show… bad venue

On to the drama now.

Seem the fucktard that owned the Sim took offence to my comments about “Where is the fooking stream” and “I guess any retard can open a venue here” and assaulted me with a series of questions marks. I responded with a series of exclamation points. Then things got really stupid.

Kind of the Blah, blah, blah/fuck off dialog I’m getting way too use to in Second Life. It always seems to end with the fucktard in question inquiring if I know who they are.

Funny thing about fame, it loses some of its cache if you have to inform people how famous you are.

I ended the conversation with the observation I didn’t know who he was, but I knew what he was.

He was quite the rest of the show, and I got to hear my friend play about ¾ of a set.

After the show, I was killed.

I didn’t know you could get killed in Second Life, but it seems you can be. The overall effect is you get sent home, no loss of XP and you don’t have to find your body to get your stuff back. I was changing strings at the time and didn’t actually see myself get dispatched. Just heard a bit “QUWANG” and saw the TP screen and popped up home with a little green notice that I had been killed. The sad fact of the matter is it probably made him feel like he was powerful. Almost like he was… a man.

But you’ll notice I don’t even bother to print his name. His name doesn’t matter a whit. He’s just another ubiquitous jack ass that manages to pay tier fees and can’t run the venue he pays for with baseline competency.

Support the good venues, ignore the bad ones. Especially musicians. We should support the people that do so much to support us back.