Notes Home at The Grove Theatre, Eastbourne
The idea for this event morphed a couple of times before we got to the planning stage.
First we had an idea to run a one day music festival at The Grove, booking several acts to perform in both the main auditorium and the café, selling day tickets for people to come and go. But it quickly became apparent that this would need a lot more planning than we had allowed time for, plus we’d committed to a couple of new projects, so we parked this idea for the time being (you’ll see later why this might not still be in the pipeline!)
Then we thought it would be nice to get together with our fellow ‘label mates’ from Long Way Home Music* to do a group gig. We met up with Phil Jones, head of the label, and discussed the idea further and he felt it would be good to do something different from the usual format of musicians taking it in turn to perform. So between us we came up with a format of a themed evening featuring label mates plus a couple of other contacts to create a varied ‘arts’ show.
We hadn’t intended to be the event organisers, but that was how it turned out. Phil got in touch with those he felt would fit in well with the event and we all** linked up via Whatsapp to decide on a venue and date and came up with the theme of Notes Home. We booked the venue, designed and printed the leaflets and digital promotional material, organised Charlie to do sound and lighting, arranged the set up times and liaised between those needing projections and Charlie. It was a huge amount of work in advance and on the day – we set off from home at 10.30am having loaded up our and Charlie’s cars with all of the PA and lighting equipment (Charlie had already collected the projection equipment before he got to us) and our instruments, clothes, merchandise, posters and stage set. As you can see from the photos, there was a lot to carry in – not just ‘in’, down 2 flights of stone steps and in – and set up and that took a long time. The other performers arrived from lunch time onwards so we finally got to meet face to face, which was a big part of what we wanted from the event. We had time for a quick rehearsal of the group number, each had a sound check then we had a quick walk through of changeovers at about 5.30, leaving a short time for a bite to eat and a drink before the doors opened.
Once the event started the time went really quickly. It was brilliant to see and hear the other performers but before long we were in the interval which meant standing by the merch table and talking to the audience and sorting out the stage ready for the dance which started the second half. We were the last act on and, to be honest, we were pretty knackered by then but adrenalin kicks in and we enjoyed the set, especially the final number which involved all of the other musicians coming back on stage and joining in. That’s a huge buzz. Katrina, who had linked together the different sections with her poems, had put together a poem from acts and lyrics performed during the evening which she read out within the song – that was pretty special.
As all the audience and other performers were leaving, we started breaking down the set and PA, loading it all back out up the steps. We walked out of the stage door on the dot of midnight. An exhausting day and one we won’t be in a hurry to repeat, but we were absolutely delighted with how the evening went and would love to take part in another similar event – just not organise it!
After an initial VERY slow and disheartening start on the ticket sales, on the day we had sold 22 in advance and there were about 18 walk ins plus a couple on the guest list so we had an audience of over 40. With a cabaret style layout that was a good number, and to be honest a really good turnout for an unknown and somewhat abstract event. They were a really appreciative audience and the feedback we had in the interval and at the end was incredibly positive. The dance and video section could have been shorter, maybe broken into 3 smaller sections, was the only criticism. The Grove is a great venue and we had a really good deal with them regarding ticket split so we didn’t have to pay a venue hire fee. Tickets were £12 then there was a deduction for booking fees and PRS license. Our share of the ticket split was 60% so we got a little over £200. Obviously this is not enough to pay the performers and technician or cover the costs of equipment hire, admin and promotion so definitely not financially viable. It really does bring home how difficult it is for venues to keep running and why many venues and promoters will only book acts that they know will draw in large audience numbers.
But we’ll keep trying, putting on our own events and getting gigs where we can. And we are extremely grateful for venues like The Grove who will take a chance and support new community events and for those willing to come out to see the ‘unknown’.
We videoed the whole evening and will share sections on Patreon soon.
Artists who took part were Katrina Pike – narration, MC and poetry; Alice Hunter – dance; DaveSearbyMason – video with audio; Phil Jones – spoken word and song, double bass; Maple Preston Ellis – vocal and piano; Andy Melrose – vocal, guitar, mandolin plus photo projections; us – vocals, clarinet, guitar and cajon plus art and photo projections. Sound and lighting technician was Charlie Tipler.
*Long Way Home Music is the label under which we released our second album, The Holloway. It’s more of a network of musicians under a label banner, than a traditional record label.
**One of the performers dropped out just as we were going to press with the leaflets so we had to do a bit of shuffling around, but as it turned out the running order was pretty tight anyway!
