Denver show now at the Fillmore Auditorium

[Floating Dave]

it's a great shame when things like this happen but the bottom line is that the promoter is responsible.

In theory anyone can be a promoter. You can ring up a band's manager and say "I want Underworld to play at the Hollywood Bowl on 25th May 2009. How much?"

The manager would see if the band were interested ("wow, the Hollywood bowl eh - that's fantastic") and if so they'd come back with a price. Let's say $60k to cover their time, travel, crew etc

The promoter would then ring the Hollywood Bowl and say "I need to hire the venue on 25th May 2009. How much?"

"That'll be $300,000"

They've then got to do the math (18000 capacity @ $30 a ticket = $540,000 less $300,000 and $60,000) "Awesome", he thinks, I can make $180,000 on a gig.

Of course he has to actually 'promote' it and some inexperienced or greedy promoters might think "Fuck it, I'll do 95% of it via the fan base - viral marketing is cheap and effective enough. Then I'll spend $50k on some other bits and I'll still walk away with $120-$130k."

As the date looms the band will be asking "How's ticket sales?" thinking that everything is in hand. The promoter's reply will be "Great" (largely because all promoters only talk in superlatives and only tell people what they want to hear), so the band will be totally in the dark until the 11th hour when the promoter does the math again and realises "Holy shit, i've only sold 4000 tickets"

So that's overheads of $360,00 + inadequate marketing of $50k = $410,000
Less the sales of 4000 tickets @ $30 = $120,000
Leaving a grand loss of $290,000

"Oh shit" cue call to band management to say "Huston we have a problem"

This stuff always happens at the 11th hour and the band will be incredibly pissed-off about the whole affair and as such the chances of working with/for that promoter again will be somewhere between nil and zero because not only has the promoter proved themelves inept, they've also pissed-off the one thing that's most valuable to any band - their fans.

The promoter, having been given a rocket up his ass, would run round like a headless chicken and find an alternative venue with lower overheads and a smaller capacity and will offer the band an alternative (say, The House Of Blues). The band, seeing a way of not letting down their fans will decide to go with it and try and make the best of a bad job - after all they've planned to be in this area anyway.

Afterwards, if the promoter has any decency, he'll skulk off to work in a burger bar. Otherwise, he'll probably set up a record company