The way I get a lot of work is by doing showcases. These are things where a lot of acts perform 15ish mins and buyers watch them to decided whether or not to book them. Here’s how today’s showcase wanted to run our music:
They wouldn’t let us plug into the board. I had to argue for about an hour with people all up the chain of command to get them to allow us to plug in. The organization thought holding a microphone up to your phone was a viable way to run sound for a show. Doing it that way is your Plan B, not your “professional set up” that’s provided initially.
Finally I convinced them that that was an unacceptable set up. We pay a lot of money to perform in front of these buyers, and the least they could provide us with was to be able to plug into the board. I finally got all of the showcase acts to tell the organization about why the sound won’t work. What changed their mind is when we all joined together to tell them why that set up was unprofessional.
I think I burnt a few bridges with people to get the sound right, but it was the right thing to do. If anyone insists that running sound that way is professional, I’m OK burning the bridge as I never want to work for them.