Following last night’s incredibly frustrating and disappointing turn of events in (and outside of) Cabaret Voltaire Edinburgh, we thought it was only right that we explain fully what actually went wrong. First of all we want to say we loved playing the show, and would like to thank everyone who was there for being a great, great audience.
Initially, we were under the impression that this would not be a ticketed event. It would be £4 on the door not £6 which they charged some people and the capacity would be 250 – a reasonable number for a room the size of Cabaret Voltaire. Then, on Monday (16th Jan) I find out VIA A TWITTER FOLLOWER OF OURS that tickets have gone on sale on Ticketweb. The venue made the valid point that it’s cold outside and big queues are an unnecessary evil, and we understood that but we could have been told about the online sales, having already informed our mailing list and FB & Twitter followers that tickets were on the door.
So, upon speaking to the booker at Cab Vol, they agreed to stop selling the advance tickets, so that those we had informed of the ‘door only’ deal would not be disappointed. I was told at that point that we had done 200 sales in that first hour, and that it would stop at that, and we would stretch the room a bit and do another 200 on the door. In hindsight, even that is way too many for the downstairs venue. I should have said so at the time, but I didn’t and I feel bad about that. Sorry.
Then, having finished soundcheck (a little bit late – our fault entirely) we learned that the advance ticket sales had been 400, not 200, and that there were still plans afoot to sell the further 200 on the door. Using all the maths skills at our disposal, we quickly realised that’s exactly ummmm… too many people for that fucking venue! Their plan was to shove the extra bodies up into ‘The Speakeasy’ (the bar upstairs) where they would stream the show on a television, to which we replied, “WHIT???!!!!”. They were actually going to make people pay money to go upstairs and watch it on the telly! After 30 mins of negotiations with the management, we decided finally that those people would not be charged if they decided they wanted to have that ‘unique’ experience. So we ended up with around 460 folk inside, still too many in our opinion.
There were those who gained admission and got downstairs only to find that they couldn’t see or really hear anything of the show. In the apparent absence of an apology from the venue, we’d like to apologise to all of those people, and we hope that in reading this, there is at least a valid explanation provided on our part as to why the show basically never happened for you. I hope it doesn’t put you off coming to see the band again. We love what we do, and the reason for the slightly vitriolic posts last night was that we were just genuinely upset. Angry as hell, but also truly upset and disappointed that we appeared to have let people down.
To those who complained that we arrived on stage 25 minutes late, I will apologise, but the reason for that was I was playing a few songs outside for those not even fortunate enough to be in from the cold.
It’s also important to add that we don’t wish to tar the ENTIRE staff at Cabaret Voltaire with this tarry, tarry brush. The bouncers were polite enough to us personally, and the bar staff and the two people at the door were just doing their jobs. No beef with them (and sorry for giving the lad on the door a bit of hassle – that was a particularly low point in the night).
Thanks for reading all the way down.
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