I just helped a band to get into a showcase festival. The festival was not that keen on having them since they are pretty new and really don’t have the status or knowledge to be part of it. Still I have seen them live and know they are good enough for a small stage. So I nagged a bit with the booker and got them on.

You think that the band would be grateful? Well yes but also they want more. I just got an e-mail asking me (which has nothing to do with this, I just talked to this person to get them on) if they could play on Saturday instead of Thursday, and not only that on a better time in the evening.
They really don’t see that they are only in on a slim thread. In fact they should not be there at all. So start demanding stuff is really not a good idea. Especially not this.

Still it’s a phenomenon I’m very familiar with. When I have booked speakers it’s the same problem. The ones that you just barely get on are the ones that have a lot of demands. The big ones where you really could go along with hard demands is usually very calm and easy to work with.

My friend who runs a label was on the same idea the other day. He was firing a couple of artists but before he had the chance to do it one of them called up and complained about “nothing happens” “ are you right for me” and so on. My friend just said:

– Well we can just tear the contract; I don’t have a problem with that.

The artist went silent. You can just hear that the artist wanted him to fight around it. The truth was that the artist was in the low level, not a level to make demands.