What time do y'all play until?

I play Blues, so I guess I have a...ahem...more mature crowd...
But, maaaan....I sure am getting sick of playing to empty rooms for the last set.
By 11:30 folks are filtering out and by 12 we're playing to the hard core fans and the local inebriates.
Anybody else having this?
I played a gig awhile ago that was 6-9...one of my favorite gigs ever.
Great club...folks ate, danced, had a ball and at 9:00 the place turned back into a bar.
I'm starting to think that this is a great formula, but too many club owners are stuck in the old way.

Lots of places I play, things aren't even getting going until after midnight. Frustrating scenario I've experienced more than several times: At 1:30am I have people demanding we keep playing, even though we've been on since 9:45 when the place was empty...

Each venue is different but here in the UK it's usually 9-11.30 at most places.

I do wish some venues would try new arrangements sometimes - that 6-9 sounds like it could work for some places we play, especially at weekends.

One guy insisted we start at 10 because he wants his diners to eat in peace: the result was that no-one came out as we attract an older crowd that doesn't want to be out until midnight.

Really depends on the venue - but a lot of them over here have a 12 o'clock curfew for live music... Usually we play 9-11:30pm.

A club here is doing 6-10 and packing the place and making the musicians very happy

In Greece all nightlife starts after 23.30 so usually live sets in clubs,bars etc start at around midnight to 1 am & finish at around 2.30 am.

In live "rock" venues (we have 5 such venues in the whole of Greece...:mrgreen:) the shows start at around 22.30.

In bouzouki places the show starts at around midnight and finishes at around 5 to 6 am ,sometimes even later (when I was young and played bouzouki places it was even worse we started at around 23.00 and sometimes didn't finish until 8 am the next day....) .

We played one place quite a few times that would be empty until 1:30 am, when the night shift at the nearby Auto factory would get out. Suddenly at 2 am the place was jam packed. Weird.

Let me tell you, at 3 am, after playing since 10pm, the strings feel like knives.

Until they turn off the power.:lol:

I play Blues, so I guess I have a...ahem...more mature crowd...
But, maaaan....I sure am getting sick of playing to empty rooms for the last set.
By 11:30 folks are filtering out and by 12 we're playing to the hard core fans and the local inebriates.
Anybody else having this?
I played a gig awhile ago that was 6-9...one of my favorite gigs ever.
Great club...folks ate, danced, had a ball and at 9:00 the place turned back into a bar.
I'm starting to think that this is a great formula, but too many club owners are stuck in the old way.

Back in the nineties I quit accepting headlining gigs because the clubs in NorCal would be EMPTY after 11:30. On WEEKENDS. Best spot was middle band. SoCal does the same thing but not quite as badly.

Club owners are going to have to figure out alternatives to the old 9PM-2AM schedule. I notice that the successful ones are.

...by 12 we're playing to the hard core fans and the local inebriates.

One and the same, half the time :wink:

Charlie, going by your handle - that's your circuit man!

Agreed however, the format needs to change if you clients are voting with their hours.

In Perth, most music is wrapped by midnight latest. 830-1130 is common, 5-8 for the Friday post-work sesh. 3-7 for the Sunday afternoons.

My band usually plays 9-1. Sometimes 8-12 and sometimes 9:30-1:30

We are usually done between 1.30 and 2am. The latest ever was one where we didn't start setting up until 23.45.

Until they turn off the power.:lol:

Nice! Agreed.

We like to give our customers their $$s worth so we usually play from like 9:15 until 1:45am or so. A recent gig tho we were still going strong at 2:30am when the bar had all the lights on and was trying to tell everybody to go home.

I've actually had a club owner turn off the breaker. Drummer kept right on playin'.:lol:

10:30 PM to 00:30 AM most times. That is the time we are requested to begin and to finish by most places we play. Sometimes we'll begin earlier and play later, sometimes it's transposed to an hour earlier on a Sunday for example but it's almost always two hours and never really goes beyond 1AM. I've done hundreds of gigs but could probably count on one hand the number of times I've played past 1AM.

10pm till 3 am usually around here.

We've been playing Saturday afternoon "matinee" shows (from 4-6) at a local bar, and I love it. We also play for a more mature crowd, and it is nice to sitting back at home with my feet up by eight or nine at night (perhaps enjoying a cold beverage)! Drunk driving laws are very strict where I live, and people don't like to be heading home from the bars at two or three in the morning as much as they used to (reasonable enough, as far too much is at stake in many ways), so folks appreciate coming out to a show in the afternoon. I work a day job during the week as well, and starting a set at one AM doesn't have the same appeal as it used to, when I was in my twenties! Bars in Ontario close at 2:00 AM, so if we are playing bars we usually play 3 45 minute sets starting at 11:00... Love those "matinees"!

By 11:30 folks are filtering out and by 12 we're playing to the hard core fans and the local inebriates.


You're not loud enough.

6-9? You guys are lucky! It's usually 9-1 or 10-2 over here.

-Jagg