Open letter to landlords who book bands

This weekend the band with which I associate have had two gigs, both made less pleasant by a pub landlord or landlady who clearly doesn't realise "how it works". It seems to me that these days a small minority of pub owners and managers book bands purely because it's the done thing - the bands themselves are more a necessary inconvenience than anything else.

If this is how you think, then please don't book bands. Be a sports pub, or a food pub, or a real ale pub. Don't book bands if you don't actually want them there. Most pub bands do what they do for the love of it, they're not in it to make a profit. If they were, they probably wouldn't be playing pubs. So when a band turns up to a gig in a pub only to be ordered around and effectively told that they don't know how to do what they've been doing for years by some self righteous arse who likes to assert authority, it's more than a little bit irritating. It also doesn't help if you blame the band for not bringing hundreds of adoring fans with them, or taking up space where paying customers might want to stand; pub bands are not an investment. They just set up, play, and leave when finished. Their job is to play music, not sell drinks - that's the pub's job. The band will publicise the gig as much as possible among their friendlies, but they can't guarantee it'll be a blast. After all, if people who want to see a band have a choice of seeing them in a shit hole venue one week or a much nicer pub just up the road the week after, they're going to pick the nicer pub and you can't really blame the band for that.

The sad fact is that we live in a time when pubs and live music are both in the same boat - struggling to survive. We all have a much better chance of survival if we stick together. Most bands are quite reasonable, but they're not your employees. Treat them like human beings and they'll be more than happy to come to an agreement that benefits all parties. Asserting authority, making unrealistic demands and generally treating bands like dirt is only going to piss them off. This isn't helpful for either live music or the pub trade, so why do it? And if you really can't grasp this concept then maybe you should be asking yourself why you want a band in your pub in the first place?