What time do you stop playing?

Craven Sound · Post by **Craven Sound** » Tuesday Sep 21, 2004

Do club owners expect bands to quit at exactly 1:30? In my experience, this has been the norm. However, I can understand if the place is asses-to-elbows, and the band is really killing the crowd to play up to 2:00. (As I understand that's PLCB law.) What I don't understand is why some decide to play until almost 2:00 when crickets can be heard between songs, and it has been the same 5 people at the bar since 8:00. Is there an unwritten law? Is it a late night practice? I've been in situations where there was a good crowd and the band quit as early as 1:00; the crowd still hung out and drank, and I was home by 2:00. Input please.

Sanctify · Post by **Sanctify** » Tuesday Sep 21, 2004

we play till the club tells us to... we talk about it when we book the gig... if something came up the night of the gig and they wanted us to stop early... well then we would... happy bar owners make good friends for bands..

the majority of the time they tell us to stop at 1:45am... however we have played in certain clubs till 2:20am or a bit later... just cause the crowd was crazy and the owner said he didn't care...

and one time the club was trying something new (a full on hard rock band.. namely INNER-G in a venue that does mostly acoustic rock) and they told us they might shut us down if the crowd wasn't into it or wasn't there... (but that they would still pay us our full amount we agreed upon) fortunately we packed the place and played all night... we even doubled as bouncers when a fight broke out in the middle of a song...

Just make sure you discuss with the bar what they want from you and what you want from them.. and it doesn't hurt to get it in writing...

facingwest · Post by **facingwest** » Saturday Oct 02, 2004

How I've always understood it to be is a band is not allowed to play past 2:00 in a bar and all patrons have to be out by 2:30. Most places I've seen will let a band play until 1:45. As far as a club, they get an extra hour out of the deal. I'm not exactly what part of all this is the law. Maybe Big John would know?

jreider · Post by **jreider** » Saturday Oct 02, 2004

We usually gauge it by how many people are still there at the end. If it's 1:30-ish and the place is dead, we stop. It's basically a judgement call. 9 times out of 10 , the owner isn't going to give you hell for it. If people are there to see you , even if there are only 5, I'd play until they had enough.