We'd never really encountered a "festival" like this before, but apparently the "festival" will be coming thru again next year and you should think twice about doin it.

Five Minute Sin payed the $75 entrance fee. For the first round we sold about 60 tickets @ $10 a pop, that's $600 in cash we collected and handed directly to the emergenza peeps. We took first place in the first round we played at the Launchpad and all seemed good...although the 20 minute set time sucked.

For the second round...(which we were surprised we had to sell tickets for...considering they never told us we'd have to sell more than the first round of tickets) we sold 70 tickets at $12 a pop (funny how they raise the price ey?) That's a whopping $840 that we raised that went directly to emergenza. Although the equipment onstage didn't work properly (we had to play thru some shit crate stack with a footswitch that didn't work) we took first place again for the night and we stoked that we were off to the next round.I made sure to point out that the foot switch on the amp didn't work, thinkin they would maybe use some of the $1400 we had raised to replace the faulty switch.

Four days before the "final round" we recieved 3 booklets of tickets in the mail. It was really short timeframe for selling tickets but we managed to work it out. We sold about 30 for the final round @ $15 a pop and had at least 15 friends show up at the door and pay there. That made for another $450 in cash we handed over to the emergenza peeps, who, by this point, we had designated as " vampires".

So we played the final round, and needless to say, our turnout was lower than normal and we didn't recieve enough votes to win. Also the footswitch was still broken (professional shit, let me tell ya...it was a $30 switch) That was cool. We realized that crowd size was going to determine whether or not you placed, and we didn't sell enough tickets to place...so that was fine. What was messed up was that a band from El Paso showed up to play the final round. They didn't have to sell tickets or recieve votes to place, because "they were from out of town". We thought it was weird, but what the hell...may the best band win.

Well, as it turned out, for some reason the band from El Paso did win (Second place went to the Dirty Novels, who by the way, kicked ass). But no band from Albuquerque made it past the Albuquerque Round.

How is it that there were 75+ bands from Albuquerque, and they bring in a band from El Paso on the last round who ends up going on?

We figured it out...

75+ Bands
Say 30 bands actually sold tickets like we did-
We raised $1890 for the "vampires".

30 x $1890 = $56,700. (this is actually a low estimate)

So, the music scene in Burque was scammed out of over $50K by Emergenza and not a single band from Burque progressed to the second round in Phoenix. We don't give a damn whether or not we won, but we had at least hoped this festival would do something to support our scene if we're gonna splooge 50K.

Just wanted to spread a little truth for all our friends out there. Next year, when scamergenza comes a callin' lets band together, raise 50K and put on our own damn show. It's about local music...not corporate blood-suckers trying to capitalize by exploiting starving artists.

Rock on Squawkers!!!

Holy Junk! When bands were signing up for this festival we were broke and to busy so we didn’t do it. As the time got closer I was regretting not putting in for it….. But now,, hot damn I’m happy we avoided that mess. I love it when 5minutesin breaks down prices in a rant like the above. Its very truthful, sincere, and damn it really makes you think.

oh shit...forgot to add the entrance fee to the above figures.

75 bands at $75 bucks a pop = $5625.

Hmmm that brings it up to 60K. Lets add some cigars and a buffet to our party next year.

Pay To Play Is Always Going To Be A Scam.

Sorry y'all had to find out the hard way. Keep us posted next year for the dope and hooker fest. Or just show up to one of our gigs. Same diff...

If only we had listened to the infinite wisdom provided by scene vets. Hell, there will be a lot of told-you-so's and I suppose we deserve them.

Black, your insight is reminiscent of Master Te' from Kung Fu or Wilson from Home Improvement.

quote:

Holy Junk! When bands were signing up for this festival we were broke and to busy so we didn’t do it.

Right there with ya brother.

Holy fucking shit. That is totally obscene. Its like they think any of us actually have money to spare.
Jeeeeeeze.
I mean, JEEEEEEEZE.
You've got to figure that they made about that much off of every state. That means they made about 3 mil.
ella/U7d

quote:

Originally posted by black:
Pay To Play Is Always Going To Be A Scam.

This is the gospel truth. It has been said here over and over. Still, it can be tempting when these types dangle a big juicy carrot in your face...

We actually considered buying in to the deal, but the "never fucking pay to play" fairy finally intervened.

Well, they "plan" to come back, but we'll see if they have a venue. I doubt the Launchpad will want to host a thing like this again.

quote:

Originally posted by Five Minute Sin:
If only we had listened to the infinite wisdom provided by scene vets. Hell, there will be a lot of told-you-so's and I suppose we deserve them...

Hey, you won't be getting any I-told-you-so's from me. We all have to learn things in our own way, on our own time line. And despite the usaual percived jackass demeaner I exude, I'm actually just trying to live the Miss America life style. You know, all I want to do is travel and help people. Besides, despite y'all's beefing up these fucker's bank account, you did win all those rounds. That counts, man. Congrats for that.

And seriously, I offer my experiences and "lessons" as information. If any one wants to take any or all of it --cool. If people want to say I'm a full-of-shit-idiot...cool. Because I'm still learning......and being a jackass.

PLUS, I would NEVER, EVER try to hack tickets to my friends. I got enough of that shit dealing Amway. Did I mention it's great? Amway will clean anything! Email me now for more information!

quote:

Originally posted by foodstamps:
...I got enough of that shit dealing Amway. Did I mention it's great? Amway will clean anything! Email me now for more information!

Everybody uses soap!

Geez, those are some startling numbers. Glad we didn't try to participate. I thought the whole thing seemed a little off. I'm glad you guys have fans that will support you through things like that...that's pretty cool. Too bad Emergenza couldn't be as up-and-up about it.

quote:

Originally posted by black:

And seriously, I offer my experiences and "lessons" as information. If any one wants to take any or all of it --cool. If people want to say I'm a full-of-shit-idiot...cool. Because I'm still learning......and being a jackass.

I think we'd all be better off listening to cats like black. Jackass or not...respected.

titties and beer

Is anyone else totally impressed that local bands managed to put $50k together in the first place? We had a similarly crappy LAMErgenza experience. And we didn't sell tickets too well. We're kind of anti-salesmen, really ("See us for $12, or just wait for a couple weekends and see us for free!"). But we saw some bands pull folks IN, I mean 50 people or more paying double digits for teensy tiny sets.
We should totally be able to harness that work ethic somehow, in a way that benefits our community, not these vampiric (good choice of term, 5 minute) fuckers. I know we're crazy festivaled out. But I'd love to see that cash stay in our community. We could do big things, you know.
It's also good to note how many words you can make out of emergenza: scamergenza, lamergenza, loosergenza, kiss-my-assergenza ...

I've done plenty of bitching about Emergenza here, so I'll try not to repeat myself. I won't do any "I told you so" shit either, because every band has to get ripped off at least once. We've all been there.

Wow, 60 grand. Even at half that I could have made shirts and buttons for every band in Albuquerque a few times over.

A Texas band won the Albuquerque/NM portion? That's so fucked up as to be hilarious. Seriously, it turns it from a tragedy to a farce.

I'll bet they do fine next year. There's always going to be some band and venue who wants in. I just hope it's nobody I know!

just making us happier that we didn't play to begin with. we didn't even know we'd have to sell tickets to our friends for that hefty a price. we have enough trouble getting people to shows for free.

Well if they contact me I'll let them know that they can wait until I remove the backside of my pants so they can lay their skinny vampire lips on my fat white ass.

Actually... that would be a gas. I should totally do that.

quote:

Well if they contact me I'll let them know that they can wait until I remove the backside of my pants so they can lay their skinny vampire lips on my fat white ass.

Be damned if that's not one of the funniest visuals I've had in a long time. Good writing there, Mr. Ralli's 4th Street Pub!!

quote:

So, the music scene in Burque was fucked out of over $50K by Emergenza

And someone...(ahem Ms. hooks2u ) should forward this number to the city folks, while simultaneously pointing out how much cash this non-local festival DIDN'T bring into the downtown economy...I'm sure the ACVB would like to get it's hands on a chunk of a number like 50k.