How far do you / will you travel to gigs?

menamestom · December 2022

So non hometown/local gigs.

What’s your pre requisite to saying yes?

Do you just take any gig and to hell with the travel.

Or base yourselves in a radius from your rough centre point and take nothing outside of that.

Or travel to further away gigs if it has great exposure or great fees?

I’m finding the further away gigs a but if a faff. They don’t pay any more so I don’t see the point. I’ve just gone along with it this year but more being offered for next year.

RickLucas · December 2022

For me, if it's a good gig and we are looked after, I'll do it.

EricTheWeary · December 2022

I suppose there are a lot of variables. I think the furthest I did involved an 180 mile round trip but we did organise ourselves so it wasn't five cars and the journey was mostly motorway. In terms of time probably no worse than doing say 15 miles across Birmingham. But not for a non paying gig.

menamestom · December 2022

RickLucas said:

For me, if it's a good gig and we are looked after, I'll do it.

Yeah me too Rick but I’m trying to quantify.
What would you want to do a 200 mile round trip to the North East. Certain size crowd, x amount of money? Or just the crack?

Danny1969 · December 2022

Living where I live every gig is north, then east or west .... even London. That's a bit of a disadvantage. Ideally if you work in a band that gets a lot of well paid work you need to live in the centre of the country ... somewhere like Birmingham or Coventry is probably ideal

Over the last couple of years I've done a lot of gigs North like Leeds, Preston, Holmfirth, Liverpool, Chester etc. It's a lot of travelling but there's enough money in the gigs to pay for hotel rooms so it's generally do a gig on a Friday night then back to the hotel. In the morning have a look around and then travel to the next gig which will be south of the first one so you lower the miles on the return journey. Then do the Sat night gig, new hotel for the night then travel home on the Sunday.
Theres generally a bit of a party in my hotel room after the gig, we all have a drink and a laugh for a couple of hours before turning in.
For a single gig and no hotel we won't travel further than a 2 hour drive. I have done northern gigs in the past and returned the same night but it's too much driving and a bit dangerous IMO so we never do that now.

Most cost effective way is hire a splitter van which is about £90 a day ... you can take 6 people and the gear in a splitter van. Book you hotels early on, the later you leave it the dearer it generally is.

Don't ever book in Liverpools Adelphi hotel even though it's cheap and near the venues .. trust me on this

fastonebaz · December 2022

My informal limit is about 1hr 15mins. No point driving further as its just exhausting getting home so late

ElectricXII · December 2022

fastonebaz said:

My informal limit is about 1hr 15mins. No point driving further as its just exhausting getting home so late

This ^ for me too. If we finish the last set around 11.30 pm, say, it takes an hour to breakdown and load out, so we're not leaving the venue before 12.30 am. I'm too old for going to work after getting home at 3 in the morning.

Rowby1 · December 2022

If they’re paying properly I’ll happily get on a plane.

Fiftyshadesofjay · December 2022

Any distance as long as we’re compensated fairly for our time and travel costs

menamestom · December 2022

Fiftyshadesofjay said:

Any distance as long as we’re compensated fairly for our time and travel costs

That’s the problem. I don’t mind if I come out with a reasonable amount of money after expenses, but we don’t. I’m trying to work out what’s reasonable to say no. I guess it’s down to personal preference.

I’m just trying to find a reasonable formula so that the gig requests can he filtered out before they get to me.

RocknRollDave · December 2022

Danny1969 said:

Ideally if you work in a band that gets a lot of well paid work you need to live in the centre of the country ... somewhere like Birmingham or Coventry is probably ideal

This is a good place for me to join the conversation, as I play gigs that pay decently, and am based in Birmingham.

Furthest I ever did was Brittany (with NO stopover. Must have been mad. Never again.)
Have also done Edinburgh, Barrow, Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
Most gigs are about 1-2 hours away. These days I turn down the longer distances as my current day job doesn’t afford me the luxury of sleepwalking through Mondays, unlike my old job.
As band leader, driver, PA/ lighting provider, customer liaison person and general ‘buck stops with me on the night’ chappy, I take more of the fee than my bandmates, and the longer distance gigs certainly have to offer significantly extra to convince me to take them.

Being primarily a wedding band, we can’t be too picky unless we just want to play three or four local weddings a year. West Midlands audiences are rubbish, too, in my experience.

Roland · December 2022

To be humorous for a minute, I was once announced as “flown in from New York to be with us tonight”. In reality I’d been visiting potential suppliers in the US.

Nowadays I wouldn’t drive more than an hour for the reasons @ElectricXII gives.

merlin · December 2022

Depends on fee... and accommodation.
I'm playing a tour in the US in March-April.

Then off to the US again in July.

JMP220478 · December 2022

Danny1969 said:

Living where I live every gig is north, then east or west .... even London. That's a bit of a disadvantage. Ideally if you work in a band that gets a lot of well paid work you need to live in the centre of the country ... somewhere like Birmingham or Coventry is probably ideal

Over the last couple of years I've done a lot of gigs North like Leeds, Preston, Holmfirth, Liverpool, Chester etc. It's a lot of travelling but there's enough money in the gigs to pay for hotel rooms so it's generally do a gig on a Friday night then back to the hotel. In the morning have a look around and then travel to the next gig which will be south of the first one so you lower the miles on the return journey. Then do the Sat night gig, new hotel for the night then travel home on the Sunday.
Theres generally a bit of a party in my hotel room after the gig, we all have a drink and a laugh for a couple of hours before turning in.
For a single gig and no hotel we won't travel further than a 2 hour drive. I have done northern gigs in the past and returned the same night but it's too much driving and a bit dangerous IMO so we never do that now.

Most cost effective way is hire a splitter van which is about £90 a day ... you can take 6 people and the gear in a splitter van. Book you hotels early on, the later you leave it the dearer it generally is.

Don't ever book in Liverpools Adelphi hotel even though it's cheap and near the venues .. trust me on this

if you are gigging in Liverpool again - give me a shout on decent hotels - The Adelphi is legendarily shit ... despite its proximity to a good number of venues ...

Stratavarious · December 2022

Local gig stuff.. 60-70mins.. but good paying functions, festivals or events paying milage or offering hotels.. pretty much open. Done plenty a hundred + miles away. Overnights in castles or grand hotels are nice once in a while.

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How far do you / will you travel to gigs?

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