Posted: 19 Oct 2001 7:19 am
Well, according to yesterday's Austin Chronicle, the owner of Maggie Maes is denying this. He claims that the idea was put to him by a booker who books pay to play bands in LA. Apparantley the Austin Federation of Musicians didn't check with the source, choosing to put out that general alert instead.
He did say that he may consider such a system somewhere down the line. As Bobby Snell stated in an earlier post the bands that play there are top forty cover bands, I don't think anyone actually goes there to see the band, but to drink and get drunk. But I completely agree with the outrage that, and I wouldn't be a bit suprized if such a policy was introduced.
In London there was/is a place that operated a similar policy. They would pay you in free tickets, the ideas behind this being that you can themn sell these tickets to your friends and make money that way. Ridiculous. The alarming thing was that that policy enbabled them to become so powerful that they now hane a virtual stranglehold on any and all roots type music played in London, from what I can gather the live roots scene in London has almost died as a result of this.
An interesting side note to all this is that a study by the Austin Convention and Visitors bureau notes that the music scene in Austin brings in $616 million a year!!!! Wow, someone is getting some heavy action with the the tip jar
<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Steve England on 19 October 2001 at 12:57 PM.]</p></FONT>
He did say that he may consider such a system somewhere down the line. As Bobby Snell stated in an earlier post the bands that play there are top forty cover bands, I don't think anyone actually goes there to see the band, but to drink and get drunk. But I completely agree with the outrage that, and I wouldn't be a bit suprized if such a policy was introduced.
In London there was/is a place that operated a similar policy. They would pay you in free tickets, the ideas behind this being that you can themn sell these tickets to your friends and make money that way. Ridiculous. The alarming thing was that that policy enbabled them to become so powerful that they now hane a virtual stranglehold on any and all roots type music played in London, from what I can gather the live roots scene in London has almost died as a result of this.
An interesting side note to all this is that a study by the Austin Convention and Visitors bureau notes that the music scene in Austin brings in $616 million a year!!!! Wow, someone is getting some heavy action with the the tip jar
<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Steve England on 19 October 2001 at 12:57 PM.]</p></FONT>
