Comments on: Showtimes?

By: Chuk

Chuk — Tue, 15 Nov 2016 20:27:38 +0000

Huh, here in Vancouver most of the music shows I go to put up set times the day of the show on Twitter (sometimes the venue, sometimes the promoter), it’s often on Facebook too. Most of them are fairly accurate, and they’ll list doors, act 1, act 2, act 3. They don’t usually have an end time — they might say ‘early show’ if they’re going to have something after. I don’t recall ever seeing more than one time on the tickets or ticket orders, and that time is usually the doors open time. (Of course sometimes the times are way off, like the time a band tried to drive from Edmonton to their Vancouver show in one day, in winter…they rolled in a couple of hours late straight off the road. The singer had flown in to do an interview earlier in the day and he did a few solo songs while we waited.)

By: Tim Hall

Tim Hall — Mon, 07 Nov 2016 13:50:55 +0000

My local venue is sometimes the opposite; the opening act is sometimes on stage within minutes of the doors opening, and sometimes it can take a long time getting in especially if they’re checking IDs for age on the door.

Occasionally for 16+ gigs with three bands on the bill you need to be in the queue well before doors open if you want to see the whole of the first band’s set.

By: Synthetase

Synthetase — Mon, 07 Nov 2016 13:35:18 +0000

Yeah, and to give people plenty of chances to get at the merch stand as well.

I saw Steven Wilson last week, with no opening act, there was a good hour between doors and stage. Anyone who wanted a T-shirt (and a drink or three) got one.

By: The Other Tim Hall

The Other Tim Hall — Mon, 07 Nov 2016 08:21:32 +0000

Well, _some_ London venues do it, and those that do, do so inconsistently, and even then it’s a pretty recent trend. And you can almost always add 15mins to get the true “on stage” times.

My slightly cynical assumption has long been that they want to get people in early to maximise the bar take.

By: Synthetase

Synthetase — Sun, 06 Nov 2016 09:56:45 +0000

Generally speaking, tickets in Australia have a “doors open” time printed on them. That doesn’t mean they’ll follow their own advice, though. At the last Opeth gig in Melbourne, the doors opened around over an hour later than advertised on my ticket, but discussions in the line between patrons soon showed that they’d printed lots of different opening times. Mine said 7:30, someone else’s said 8:00, still another one said 8:30.

I’ve never seen a finishing time for gigs here either, and missed the last train at least once. By a happy chance I met someone I knew at the gig and scored a lift home

By: John Hunt

John Hunt — Sun, 06 Nov 2016 00:48:27 +0000

Even in Liverpool, venues are quite vague about this. The first time I saw Amy Winehouse, I got there about 7.30pm, and she didn’t come on until almost 10pm. That might have had more to do with her requirements, though. Liverpool University is better. The acts almost always come on stage at about 9.20pm, but even then, it only has the time the doors open, printed on the ticket, so you’re never quite sure, which must be frustrating for fans travelling from further afield.