The second exclusive Music Show panel discussion of Sunday was entitled ‘Making Millions or Losing Your Shirt: The Publicity Machine and the Perils of Running Live Music and Other Events.’

Hosted by Hot press’ own Roisin Dwyer, the panel included Justin Green, Director of Publicity and Marketing for MCD; Ollie Jenings, founder of the Galway Arts Festival and manager of The Saw Doctors; John Spillane, one of Ireland’s most accomplished songwriters, and Frank Murray manager of the Mighty Stef and former manager of The Pogues and tour manager of Thin Lizzy.

The panel kicked off with a discussion of ticket pricing, a bone of contention here in Ireland, where big concerts often charge upwards of €75. Justin Green asserted that it was a concern, but that a balance needed to be struck.

“Like any business, it’s all to do with cost. An artist is always aware of the relationship they have with fans so they don’t want to have the ticket price too high, but they need to be able to pay for touring etc, so they have to cover these costs.”

Green explained that practical factors would always mean ticket prices in Ireland were higher than our UK counterparts.

“Due to geographical position of Ireland, artists lose a day coming to Ireland travelling, and are forced to spend a lot on shipping costs. Insurance is also four times more here than in Europe, and events like Oxygen can spend upwards of €2 million on policing the event, paying for security, medics, etc. For a lot of artists, it would be far easier to just do another date in the UK where you can travel for an hour and a half & have another 15 million audience members, without the hefty price tag, so it’s already an ask getting them to travel for concerts for a few thousand. Ticket prices need to cover costs and make the effort worthwhile.”

Ollie Jennings pointed out that bands can’t let this stop them form touring, however, as nowadays it’s a vital source of income. Importance of financial support of touring has changed. From mid 90s to turn of this century, it would have been one third CDs and two thirds touring, but because of downloads our CD revenue is almost zero, it’s nearly all touring.”

Frank Murray agreed, pointing out that his act the Might Stef toured extensively.
“Artists should try and get a tour in America, like with Stef. If you get a supporting slot with a bigger band you play to 3 or 4 thousand people, and sell CDs and t-shirts, you can pay hotel bills & all that. It can be harder to go over on your own, so the best way is to get on a tour with a bigger band, and something will come from that.”

Murray then spoke about the difficulties facing smaller bands, who are often forced to accept a basic fee even if they fill a venue. “Small bands have a hard time of it, even if you have fans, if they come over from the UK and play somewhere like Crawdaddy, organizers will say ‘Here, have €50’, even if they are playing to a packed house. If you’re a support act you sometimes don’t even get your name on the poster, even though you’re meant to accept a lower fee because of the exposure you’re getting, I don’t understand that.”

However, Ollie Jennings was adamant that it’s not just new bands that have to struggle to get the exposure they deserve. He claims that the Saw Doctors have experienced ageism within the industry, with the media proving reluctant to promote the music veterans.

“No matter how established you are, you need to work hard to create a buzz to get people’s attention. giving something special and unique. So for our launch of out new album we got Peter Kay to come over and baptise the album, and did press releases. We created a buzz so radio stations started talking about us.”

Frank Murray is a bit of a buzz-creating genius, throwing a wild night for the launch of a Pogues album. “One particularly well-promoted night was when we rented the HMS Belfast, everyone wanted to come. The Pogues came up the Thames on a boat, had to climb onto on the boat, was very funny and turned into a drunken orgy! Three journalists ended up in Thames because they were so drunk – it’s funny, usually rock stars who ended up in the river, but that time it was the journalists!”

Or of course you could just fake a tragic accident.
“We were touring with Queen in the 70s, when a newspaper reported that our plane had crash-landed because of bad weather! I rang our PR guy to find out the source & he said he was because he wanted people to know we were in America!”

A tad extreme, you could say, especially when setting up a Facebook page is far easier than faking a plane crash. The panel agreed that social networking was a vital tool for reaching fans. “It’s a very powerful tool, it means we can communicate directly with our audience,” said Justin Green. “Over the past number of years there has been a decline in print media, so now with social networking we can communicate directly with fans, can figure out people’s likes and dislikes and market towards them. Radio play and digital media is how you promote in Ireland, that’s where our focus has been for years.”