Jared

We don't generally work with bands like Radiohead but we'd make an exception for them of course if they wanted to play. When touring bands etc use their own engineer then our house engineer supervises them and if it's judged that they don't know what they're doing then we kick them off (this has happened before). Allusondrugs have actually played WSL loads and Jamal is a long term friend of the venue, they've always used our house engineers in the past but if they played again and wanted to use their own we'd let them because we trust them. As for covers bands on weekends, personally I'd be loath to book one if they wanted to use their own engineer, but we'd talk it through and find out what experience the person they want to use has and if they have any formal or academic qualifications. You'd be surprised how many so called engineers don't even have a basic grasp of physics :-P

Just to clarify, we insist that cover bands use our house engineers as understandably we're not letting anyone we don't know use our £35,000 PA system, however the cover band fees and engineer wages are entirely mutually exclusive. Not sure on what arrangements the previous owner made with cover bands but that was over 6 years ago.

I wasn't going to dignify this with a reply but I just can't help myself :-P Just to correct you, as the staff member in charge of all bookings at WSL, we have loads of bands that get paid (in addition to those that don't) and infinitely more live music and busier gigs than under the previous lease holder and management (in those so described halcyon days you refer to from 2005/2006 when nobody came to the venue) . Also, as other dedicated and industrious venues that give emerging talent a stage such as South Seas, Royal Standard, Dove & Rainbow, Redhouse etc etc will testify, many of the new bands we book who are just starting out on their journeys (playing their own songs and who just play for beers and/or the love of music) are absolutely excellent! Take the cloth from your ears, come to a gig and see for yourself! We have live music every night in January from Thursday 8th onwards, pro covers bands on Fridays and Saturdays and original unsigned acts midweek, and it's all for free and for the love of music :-)

As aforementioned we wouldn't do Sunday and midweek band nights if there wasn't the demand but we do them every night (literally) and new bands wanting to learn their trade are queuing up to play, so much so that the demand from bands wanting to play outweighs the supply of available gig slots. The bands don't prop us up, much like other nightclubs we make our money from our successful club nights, some of the profits from which prop up the loss making band nights. If free entry live music was the cash cow you paint it as then every bar and pub would be doing it 7 nights a week but it doesn't make profit and we're the only ones daft enough to invest time and money into a nightly commitment. We are a venue owned and run by musicians and gig promoters and we know from first hand experience that we offer one of the most ethical and fun gigging experiences out there and the bands that don't agree with that sentiment don't play for us again or indeed in the first place. Bands are free to make their own choices, and in fact there are those that agree with your view point and who think that gigs should be free entry, they should be allowed to play their own material that nobody has heard of and they should be paid in hard cash, those bands choose not to play for us (though we're not sure where they play instead) and that's their right to do so. However, there's hundreds of bands every year that take to our stage and who have a great time and want to come back and we're proud of the service we provide them :-)

Bands with large followings can get paid at WSL midweek too! We offer venue hire where bands can keep 100% of the door take subject to an advance deposit that is fully refundable if we break even with the costs of running the gig on the bar. We agree that every band should get paid in principle but if the money isn't there from either the bar take, door take or both then there is nothing to pay the bands with and if unsigned bands with no/few fans started demanding payment then we wouldn't give them gigs/would stop doing gigs altogether in the same way that if pub team footballers started demanding wages for playing Sunday League amateur football then there would be no Sunday leagues. Playing music, like playing sport, is just a hobby until the demand exists for it to become paid/a profession and we sadly cannot afford to pay people to pursue their hobbies. The purpose of our gigs is to allow new bands to build a fanbase so that they can be in a position to get paid gigs in the future and we even give vouchers for free drinks away to passers by to try and get them in to watch the bands in an attempt to increase the audience size and help them make new fans. No other gig venue in Sheffield does this to our knowledge. Too many bands are forced to sell tickets to friends, families and loved ones in order to get gigs at many of the venues in the city (an example of pay to play) and we stand against that. If a band can make us money then we will share that money with them but the plain facts are that most bands can't, yet they still need somewhere to learn their craft in front of a small or decent sized audience without having to pay for, or tax their loved ones for, the privilege of taking to the stage.

What's The Bassett at Foxhill like these days? It was my Grandad's local and we used to go in and drink John Smiths in the mid to late 90s (around the time it had a brief name change to 'The Circus Tavern')- it was full of brick s*it houses who loved my Gramps for being a war hero. In my experience respect for the elderly, in particular WWII servicemen, is a common virtue of double hard ********.

We're free entry at West Street Live tonight too, open 7pm-4am with live rock n pop covers band The Lizard Kings and all the usual cheap drinks offers.

yep, they're on tonight!

we're actually open from 4pm on Friday 21st at West Street Live if anyone wants to come down early :-)

we're open til 4am with a live covers band and a DJ night afterwards every weekend at West Street Live

My point is how do you differentiate between the venues that are visibly likely to be having substantially increased revenue such as the ones located on Devonshire Green and then the ones further afield that aren't benefiting in the same way? If there was a rule imposed that every pub had to pay to 'buy on' to the Tramlines event then it wouldn't be in most pubs interests to pay such a fee except for maybe some of the Division Street pubs and even then they'd be under no obligation to pay or take part. Similarly, if you had a location based esculator so the nearer you were to the main stage then the more you have to pay then how can you possibly make this work either? Two venues could be next door to each other and have vastly different turnovers and running costs during identical opening hours across the weekend and then it's also possible for some businesess to make more profit from less turnover than a nearby rival. The extra turnover most venues make from the festival goes towards paying the enormous extra running costs and doesn't manifest itself as substantial profit, that's particularly the case from our point of view I can tell you that now. You can't say carte blanche that all pubs are making huge increased profits from the weekend at everyone else's expense when you don't run a pub that puts on live music and have zero first hand knowledge of the trade, much in the same way that I couldn't come on here and, with any authority based on knowledge and experience, start talking about plumbing or being a professional sychronised swimmer.

Indeed, that will of course be to do with their proximity to the main stage. Unfortunately it wasn't the case for bars away from Division Street and the Devonshire Green area. It would be difficult to make some bars contribute and others not and if every bar was forced to contribute then you'd find many dropping out, which defeats the point of the festival. Personally speaking I think a good idea might be having donation buckets on the main stage and a donation button on the website where the public can show their support on a completely voluntary basis without having to buy a ticket. That would surely generate thousands of pounds of extra revenue.

Running costs for the pubs also increase with similar proportion though (I would even wager that some pubs haven't done very well out of it at all) so your suggestion on that basis would not be economically possible or an attractive proposal to the bar owners on the circuit that are motivated by profit and not the love of live music (which you'll find will be almost all of them). I don't think you can quite fathom the costs involved in putting on live music from a venue's point of view, extra to that of the normal running costs of a pub or bar not hosting live music (which are already substantial), nor how tight any given pub's profit margins are right now with factors like the continued existence of the drinks tie, VAT rise and the duty esculator. If live music paid then everyone would be doing it 7 nights a week, the whole year round. The plain facts are that it doesn't. Indeed, we ourselves subsidise our midweek unsigned gigs from the money we make at our succesful DJ nights and cover band gigs because we're passionate about providing a public spirited service to musicians learning their craft.

If they charged for the weekend then I believe most venues, including us, would cease to take part. Not everyone's business model can survive with a door charge, in particular on the two busiest nights of the week of Friday and Saturday. In my opinion Tramlines works so well because it is a free festival with an open and diverse remit, unlimited remit even given that almost EVERY genre of music was covered. This year was absolutely astounding and with such an electric atmosphere and Dave, James, Sarah and the rest of the team behind the concept deserve all the praise in the world for their continued hard work and unbridled dedication. I gather from correspondence with the organisers that this year the festival, in it's 3rd year, still may not be operating at a healthy profit but I think it could and will long term based on the existing free entry model. The only criticism I may have is that I suspect there may be a number of acts represented by booking agents commanding a mixed range of small to large fees paid directly from the festival's budget whose inclusion on the bills does not bring in extra custom or revenue to justify their fee and appearance and the powers that be might need to become more shrewd on that front if this suspicion of mine is indeed the case. It'd be a shame if the festival was not able to continue and/or stay free entry because the portion of festival turnover dedicated to the entertainments' budget was not maximised and used effectively.

We at West St Live are open until 4am on Fridays and Saturdays and 3am Sunday-Thursday. Our music is loud, granted, but we play retro pop classics as opposed to pounding club music, so we'd like to think it's less intense as a result.