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djhive
![Me (finger in face) & Thomas Rainer [Nachtmahr]](http://pics2.vampirefreaks.com/d/dj/djh/djhive/27418920_s.jpg)
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Latest Journal Entry: Igudesman & Joo September 03, 2008, 09:51am
Profile: Organising the monthly Vampire Party event(s) in Belgium, with a monthly attendance between 300 and 400 people. Parties are going on in Antwerp TWICE a month (every 2nd and last Friday) as of January 2007. I also organise some live shows this year. Next show will be on Friday 12th September, with SAM (DE) and Agonoize (DE)! For all information, check www.vampireparty.com Next party:  Photoshoot Competition 2009:  The competition has now been closed. Out of 45 applications, our photographer Electrinity will now select 12 models to participate in our flyer photoshoots. The final selection will be made by the end of August and will first be announced on the VP of 29 August! Photoshoot Competition 2008:  De Flyer boys & girls 2008: - Clay van Oijen Hivepolitiks (formerly known as 'Buropolitik with DJ Hive')  You have been able to download the demo version of the song "Ouroboros" for a while now from the Vampire Party website. Now, the first official release is a fact on the first CD of 'Extreme Suendenfall, vol. 5'. CD1 (clean) 01 THE RETROSIC „Revolution" 5.08 * = unreleased ** = exclusive version We are hard at work on more songs and hope to release our first Hivepolitiks EP 'Ouroboros' sometime after the Summer of 2008. As of, 3rd August 08, you can find Hivepolitiks on MySpace and VampireFreaks . Vampire Party T-Shirts: New T-shirt design will be coming Summer 2008! VampireParty featured in VampireFreaks Video Contest winner Essay on the future of live shows - 02 May '08 Last Friday, 25th of April, we hosted the very first Heimataerde gig on Belgian soil. It was an exclusive club concert (as they usually only play festivals) and it was not a part of any tour, and so I figured we could draw quite a crowd with the show. Supports for the evening were Statik Sky (NL) and Schallfaktor (DE). Imagine my surprise and disappointment when not even 100 people showed up for an evening, that was otherwise spectacular. The organisation went smoothly, sound and light were top-notch and all three band performances were memorable. Granted, the people who WERE there, obviously enjoyed it and showed enough enthousiasm, but still... not even 100 people for HEIMATAERDE's first Belgian show? Obviously, something like this is a like an alarm bell going off, and it has made me consider and reconsider several things. I have been doing live shows since 2003 now and have done so frequently since 2007. I know by now, that you don't do live shows to make money. Hell, in most cases you're just lucky to break even or minimize the loss as much as possible. No, you do live shows, because you enjoy organising live shows, because it shows support for new bands, because you want to give your public the opportunity to discover something different. The finest motivation possible, but it needs to be backed up with a big wallet. And that is where reality infringes on our dreams, desires and motivations. I think most people underestimate the costs involved with setting up live shows. Bands are not cheap (prices, even for small bands, go from a couple of hundred euro to well over a thousand), PA and light, sound & light engineers, catering, hotel, flyers & posters,... A typical budget is therefore several thousand euro. It doesn't take a genius to figure out how many tickets you have to sell then, to break even... We have consistently made small losses on every concert night so far, even though (I feel) we put up some of the best newcomer bands in the scene. Most pull in no more than a bit over 100 people. In February, we presented Haujobb, on its second to last show EVER, thinking this would draw in the old skool crowd, who always complains that we don't pay attention to THEIR music anymore... Where were they? No more than a 100 people showed up. And now with Heimataerde, not even 100 people bothered to come and have a look. I have heard many reasons for this: tickets are too expensive, people just don't care about live shows, there are too many concerts to go to,... All perfectly good and reasonable explanations, and not something we can do about... Not a lot anyway, but we will be taking some steps. The easiest thing to do, would be to stop doing the live shows altogether. BUT, I have always felt it somewhat my responsibility as a club promotor to also pay some attention to the live aspect of our scene and to spotlight some lesser known bands that deserve an audience. So, we have been looking for a compromise, that allows us to continue to do these shows for now, without throwing money out of windows. As we are already in the middle of planning our September 12th and December 12th concerts, this is what we'll do. Instead of three bands, we'll only get two bands over. This allows us to save some money, lower the price to 15 euro (still only 5 euro/band + entrance to VP), and start the concert a bit later (seeing as 21h00 seems to be a bit too sharp for a lot of people). Next year, we will tackle the problem of the 'there is too much stuff on the calendar'-issue, by reducing our number of concert nights from four to two, again also with only two bands playing. We know we are not the only one facing these problems. Every concert promotor knows that doing live shows is more losing than winning, but I think it would just be bad sense to keep going on, as if nothing is wrong. If nobody shows up at concerts (unless it's VNV Nation, Covenant or Suicide Commando), then every promotor should ask himself the question, whether it still serves any purpose to 'spoil' the audience with so much choice and variety. Perhaps the concert-going audience is a dying breed in this scene, or perhaps everybody is content to just 'shop for bands' at the annual Summer festivals. Whatever the reasons (and many have popped up over the course of this short essay), it means something has to change. And that is why we are making a change... DJHive Likes: Naked kissing and pizzaOh...and Dark Electro as well, of course ;-) Dislikes: * Nasty surprises* Karma coming round for a payback * Weekends without parties * Big egos Favorite Music: Dark Electro, EBM, Industrial Dance, TBMHomepage: http://www.vampireparty.com
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