Rumors of another business closing

[Lisa]

I just heard yesterday of rumors of another bar who does bands closing its doors. This is sad. We all are hurting with the way the economy is going. Its hard for us to keep the doors open if people aren't coming out. I know that our place, our management, tries hard to come up with ways to get the people out to see the bands. That's one reason I really like coming here. I like to hear/read what you all are saying as band members and as fans.

Breakfast After Hours has been a good thing for us. I think that folks just like the fact that they can come out for a band night and know that they won't be pushed out the door at 2:30.

I encourage you all to post your thoughts on what the venues can do. Mind you though....none of us have the extra cash flow like the old days so the more you can come up with unique in-expensive ways that we can help get your fan based built up and make them want to come out time after time it truly would help all the venue management people here. I would be curious to know how many others come here? Do they know about this place on the web?

Its early....I need coffee.

[rreihart]

I can't really relate to the difficulties of running a business like this, because I am not a business person. But, I disagree that the economy is the biggest part of the problem.

I think a lot of optional entertainment things (sporting events, concerts, bars/clubs) are struggling because of the price of fuel. I know my family has cut WAY back on going anywhere that isn't necessary.

Second, in your line of business, I think smoking has a lot to do with it. When only 15% of the population smokes, and that's who you're mostly trying to draw crowds from, you've got a problem. Most non smokers don't want to be in places where smoking takes place, and so they don't.

Third, the laws are such that for some people, even having one beer/wine/shot would put them in a DUI level BAC, so they avoid it altogether and they stay home.

These are just my opinions and experiences. My family has a group of friends, the adults are within the range of 30-41 and we get together every weekend (Saturday night) at someone's house and have our social time and let our kids play together. I think in our demographic, that is a good trend that is becoming more popular.

[Mikey Wax]

deleted because I'm not in a bad mood anymore

[nightcrawler_steve]

Hey Lisa,

Never been to your bar. Youre out in the "boonies" sorta for me. I would suspect you are going to have a mostly local crowd. You have to cater to that crowd and make them happy. I would suspect its 95% of your business? Having bands is great, but if you are trying to attract people from outside your surrounding area you are swimming against the tide. Also having your myspace page set to "private" is kinda pointless if that is where you put your entertainment schedule. I dont think people are going to ask to be your friend because they want a date

You already know the economy is bad and its going to get worse before it gets better. The dollar is not going as far as it use to and people dont have the disposable income we they once had. People are going to stay closer to home with DUIs, gas prices and less to spend dont you think. You can do all the neat promotional "tricks" in the world, but I dont think its going to help a bar like yours very much.

Cater to your local crowd. Cheap drinks, good food and a good vibe are whats going to keep people coming to your bar. Things are really going to start tightening up around the region. I highly doubt you can afford to bring in the more expensive, larger drawing bands and if you can, I doubt people are going to drive out to the "boonies" to see them.

I wish I had something more positive to say, Lisa. I think its great you are supporting live music. I also think you need to be "realistic about your expectations." Ive been reading your posts for quite a while now. If you havent seen a steady increase in business having bands, then maybe its not working for you?

I hate seeing any club that has live music shut down. I also think the number of bands "getting paying gigs" will start to dwindle as a consequence of the economy. The strong survive during these times. Bars cant afford to take too many hits on bands who are unproven. Its a dismal time.

[DirtySanchez]

"There is only one boss, and that is the customer. He can fire everyone from the President down, by simply taking his business elsewhere"- Sam Walton

I get upset when a venue closes, but I do not know the circumstances.
If it's the Gestapo like tactics of the PLCB, I get more upset.

Usually it's people who have no clue WTF their doing. Well, they got what was coming to them. My suggestion to anybody starting a business is to help run a business and understand what you're getting into.

I hate talking to business owners who constantly bitch about their "Market". Especially when there are many successful examples of what they're doing going on around them. I speak with Presidents,ceo's,Vp's and CFO's daily. Half of which are small business and the other half consisting of every company in the Fortune 1000.

There will always be upticks and downturns. It's how you react to these situations. (Don't spend stupidly in good times, then woder what happened when times get lean.) Idk though, I'm just some vulgar punker on a messageboard.

Go ask Aldo, or Claudio, or The people at Pellies, or 4 D's how to do it.

And quit seeing green and focus on your Customer Service and treat your employees like you'd want to be treated.

[Lisa]

Well fortunately we are one place that is seeing an increase in business. One of the reason's we set our myspace as private is because we had issues with another venue 'stealing' ideals...so I only temporarily set it to private when we start something new...until its established. Then we open it back up. By that time, the word is getting out anyway that we are doing something.

We are seeing more family type crowds coming out early evening and then it goes to a 21-40 year old crowd later in the evenings. Its been really good for us. We've made some changes to the appearance inside and that really helps with the mood.

I know that the place that is rumored to be closing has tried for years. I can't say what they do right or what they do wrong. I really don't know. And I am not going to really discuss what I hear but....

The thought of customer service and treating your employees like you would want to be treated does say a lot. We try hard to get our employees to think of this place as their place. Realize that for every person that may leave here upset is one less family plus 20 of their friends that won't be back to leave them a tip in the future. We try hard to run some small competitions among our employees to encourage them to do well in their jobs. Right now, 90% of our current staff is excellent. I'm only saying that there is a 10% down side because we have one who will be leaving soon and we need to fill that spot. It took us 3 years though to find the right staff. Staff who want to work. Staff who realize that its up to them to drive the customers to want to come back. We recently had two former employees who left a year or so ago because they thought they weren't making enough tips. Now that they are back, they have a different attitude. They know they have to work for the tips and its more than just serving the customer with a smile. Its making sure the place is clean, food served looks good, and that they feel welcomed. They have become our best employees. And the increase in their tips show!

I once heard, "You are only as good as your worse employee," and that is very true.

Promotional tricks...yup, they do work. Wing Frenzy...$2.99 a dozen eat in only...the house is packed! You should have been here last night...wow. It was wonderful. We have some other things going on too that are picking up like our Two-fer tuesdays....etc.

Serious Jones draws a good crowd for us. They have people that come in from State College and Clearfield to see them. Is it the band that has this influence? What are they doing that allows for this type of draw? I noticed the other week when their crowd was in...it was a great time watching the local normal crowd interact with the SJ fans. In fact, I think a few ended up leaving together Our local crowds for our bands have been building. I tribute that to the fact that they know what to expect from our bands. Even if they never heard of the band before, they know that its going to be classic rock or the best of the 80's and 90's. I know a lot of great metal bands out there, but our area just doesn't go for it. I could never get the locals to commit to showing up for them.


DUI laws are a big issue. That is why we started staying open 24 hours on Saturday nights into Sunday. Breakfast After Hours is kicking off pretty well for us and I think that has helped our band nights. We also are not known to be a nuisance bar...not a lot of fights here. So the cops don't target our roadway.

My thoughts are this on the other place closing..I hate to see it happen. They really were not our competition because they attracted a different crowd and different bands. I like the fact that people could travel to our area and if they didn't like what was happening at one place, they knew they could travel down the road to another place, or down a little bit further to another place. And so within a 5 mile spread, they knew they would find something to do that evening. It made it more worthwhile to travel out of the way. Now its up to us to pick up the slack and make it worth the people to travel in....I like giving the folks a variety of choices. Maybe I've been into tourism way to long...I have the thought that it takes a town to make the area a hit...not just one venue.

[VENTGtr]

I think it's all part of the problem, economy, gas prices, etc. included.

I hear from a lot of people how they want to come to shows more
often, but just can't afford to go out at all. Winter and the gas/oil prices
certainly didn't help, but even before.

Cripe. We do okay, but if my family goes out for a night I think about
much we just spent. Have to.


A friend from another band called last night and he was saying they'd
just played Saturday and had the biggest crowd he's seen in a couple
of years. A place they play fairly often, and usually a decent crowd, but
sometimes not so many people. He said he didn't know what was up.

I said I think it's just the nature of things nowadays. If you're from a more
populace area, you may have a larger initial base to start from, who may
come where you are, which is certainly good. If you're based in an area
where there are a few places that have bands (Which is certainly good)
but don't have as many people to him all of them and get a bigger crowd,
it just might be the nature of things now.

Also, with the economics, etc. people aren't as likely to go see bands
they've not heard of/don't know. That's where it's important for the
bands and venue owners to understand that this stuff happens, and
you building a following isn't a one-or-two show proposition.

Also, and a few bands are going through this right now (And we did
for MANY months), the "gene pool", if you will for members that may
work for your project isn't what it used to be. I know I've said it to
several on here before, but we went through many months of, what
I felt, a somewhat mediocrity (Not all the time, but enough that it
was an issue for me) in comparison to where we started.

After going through a lot of people that just didn't work out for whatever
reason, and were with us for however long, we're finally at a point where
things are where they need to be. How frustrating that is and how it
effects everything else. Some bands just don't 'last through that and
there's a constant reshuffling/renewing that makes it hard to keep names
around.

I think there are a few more venue folk on here than post. Though, I'm
not sure they all deal with the same issues to the extent as, say A.P.

[BDR]

One of the reason's we set our myspace as private is because we had issues with another venue 'stealing' ideals...so I only temporarily set it to private when we start something new...until its established. Then we open it back up. By that time, the word is getting out anyway that we are doing something.

I've always been of a mindset that you never look in the rear view mirror to see what you're competition is doing, just do what you do and do it confidently. If your strategies are being borrowed or stolen by your competition, I'd consider it a marketing victory, maybe even call them up and thank them for the compliment.

Taking your MySpace offline and then putting it back up again, IMO, is a very bad marketing strategy, however. MySpace is becoming an extremely valuable marketing tool to businesses of all kinds. Taking it down and putting it back up will cause a lot of people to become frustrated and they'll stop checking it out.

Again, my advice, for what it's worth, is to focus on your marketing and to hell with the competition. If they're stealing ideas from you, they're already in trouble.

r:>)

[Lisa]

One of the reason's we set our myspace as private is because we had issues with another venue 'stealing' ideals...so I only temporarily set it to private when we start something new...until its established. Then we open it back up. By that time, the word is getting out anyway that we are doing something.

I've always been of a mindset that you never look in the rear view mirror to see what you're competition is doing, just do what you do and do it confidently. If your strategies are being borrowed or stolen by your competition, I'd consider it a marketing victory, maybe even call them up and thank them for the compliment.

Taking your MySpace offline and then putting it back up again, IMO, is a very bad marketing strategy, however. MySpace is becoming an extremely valuable marketing tool to businesses of all kinds. Taking it down and putting it back up will cause a lot of people to become frustrated and they'll stop checking it out.

Again, my advice, for what it's worth, is to focus on your marketing and to hell with the competition. If they're stealing ideas from you, they're already in trouble.

r:>)

Good point...opening it up again for good. See...I do listen.

[BDR]

One of the reason's we set our myspace as private is because we had issues with another venue 'stealing' ideals...so I only temporarily set it to private when we start something new...until its established. Then we open it back up. By that time, the word is getting out anyway that we are doing something.

I've always been of a mindset that you never look in the rear view mirror to see what you're competition is doing, just do what you do and do it confidently. If your strategies are being borrowed or stolen by your competition, I'd consider it a marketing victory, maybe even call them up and thank them for the compliment.

Taking your MySpace offline and then putting it back up again, IMO, is a very bad marketing strategy, however. MySpace is becoming an extremely valuable marketing tool to businesses of all kinds. Taking it down and putting it back up will cause a lot of people to become frustrated and they'll stop checking it out.

Again, my advice, for what it's worth, is to focus on your marketing and to hell with the competition. If they're stealing ideas from you, they're already in trouble.

r:>)

Good point...opening it up again for good. See...I do listen.

Cool. Glad to hear it. And kudos for not mentioning the venue you're referring to by name.

r:>)

[Lisa]

Not mentioning names....lessons learned the hard way I suppose Rumor is starting to pick up pretty good though....its spreading around. Just got a myspace message from one of our regulars asking if we heard...of course, I said, I've not heard a thing. Ha. I don't want to spread rumors attached to a name. If its confirmed it is one thing...but a rumor is a rumor. And the purpose of this post isn't to spread the rumor, but to discuss what a venue can do to prevent this type of thing from happening. What works and what doesn't work. The band members and their fans are the ones that are in many of the places week after week. You've seen it all. But the one thing to keep in mind....its not just what you do on band nights...its what you do all week long. You can not rely on the band to bring in everyone. Heck if a band brings in 20 fans that's amazing. But that's not enough to pay for the expenses involved in having a band.

I would love to hear what some of the altoona places do all week long to help their weekend events. How do they build up the regulars that come in during the week?

[BDR]

I would love to hear what some of the altoona places do all week long to help their weekend events. How do they build up the regulars that come in during the week?

Two words: Guitar Hero. But jump on it while it's hot.

r:>)

[Brian of the Clan Plush]

I think Steve makes some great points Lisa, especially in terms of recognizing where you are and where you draw your customers from. In some ways bars are like bands - if most bands are playing similar material, why do some have more of a following than others? If bars mostly do the same thing, why would people choose one bar over another? In both cases I think its a matter of (1) doing what you do a little bit better, and (2) developing personal relationships and making people feel special.

If someone gets a shout-out over the mic (in mid-song) every time they walk into a band's show, or have the band members sit down during a set break and buy them a drink, they're going to feel a special connection to that band and probably become a regular follower (assuming the band is keeping up their end of the "doing what you do a little bit better" part). Likewise if someone feels a personal connection to a place, thats where they're going to go. Picture Cheers. You don't need to develop that personal relationship with 200 people. You know the crowd mentality. If you have 30 people, and those 30 people are regulars, you never have to deal with the empty parking lot syndrome, and it snowballs from there. I'm sure you know the kinds of things that make someone feel "special" and at-home in your place. So target 20 or 30 people and make it a point to do those things. You don't have to alienate the rest...most of what I'm talking about doesn't cost any money. I'm not talking about giving away free drinks (although done judiciously that can be a great tool).

I guess my point is that its not about gimmicks, its about a quality product and recognizing basic human nature.