How NOT To Run A Music Venue

If you’re running a business, the little things matter. The customer experience matters. The surroundings matter. It all matters. Some businesses could have location, concept, and a solid team, but lack the follow-through of delivering a great experience.

Sometimes I work with musicians. I recently booked a show for an artist, using a newer venue. The venue was run by friendly, accommodating owners. The artist arrived 15 minutes late and apologized profusely, but it didn’t matter because there wasn’t anyone there to help set up sound for a while. By the time someone arrived to set up sound, it was a packed house. They set up a basic PA system, but it ended up having issues, causing the show to be delayed. By issues, I mean both speakers were blown out, broken, unbalanced, and unusable. While the owners were kind and ready to help, there really wasn’t much they could do, because the only real solution was to stop the madness of serving behind a bar on a Saturday night, & clean the actual music venue portion of the building, where the show was booked to take place.

The venue was messy. Its gear was broken. Its sound guy was non-existent. And sadly, it didn’t care about these crucial details to make a show happen. And the saddest part was how it claimed it wanted to be instrumental in developing a music scene for a city without one. The artist had a decent turnout. People who had never even heard him showed up, and were excited to listen, to patron the bar, to buy merch, and enjoy their night. This city was clearly demanding a live music scene. And when there was no other choice but for the artist to play acoustic/unplugged in a noisy room, the show couldn’t actually happen in the capacity it needed to, because barely anyone could hear the music.

And here’s the frustrating part of the business — the only reason this show was having these problems, is because the venue decided that instead of cleaning their actual music venue, they would put the show on in the main room. Let me reiterate: Instead of preparing the music venue (the last show was over a week ago), they band-aided their poor planning by throwing a broken PA system in the main room, and calling it a show. You can’t run a business based on what you like if you’re afraid to get your hands dirty. A venue can’t function as a venue if you’re not willing to put the work in to put on a show. Every single job on the planet has dirty work involved. You could have every opportunity waiting for your business, but you have to do groundwork to take those opportunities. ‘Whole-ass’ one thing if you’re not good at doing several. Commit to seeing things through. Don’t present your business as several things until you have all of those things mastered.

You have to care. If you like music, but you aren’t willing to coil cables, set up speakers, and soundcheck random artists that blow through town, then go to a show- don’t put one on. If you like coffee, but aren’t willing to get down and scrub café floors, clean espresso machines, or restock napkins, go to a coffee shop- don’t own one. If you love making web & mobile applications, but don’t want to put in the time trouble-shooting to make sure they actually work, don’t build them. Running a business requires commitment & caring about the little things. Being in business is about creating a positive customer experience. The little things all collectively make up a big thing, and when the little things don’t work, the big thing won’t happen.