You Are Invited To Our Party

Putting on shows is like throwing a party. Imagine you’re 13 again and you invite all your classmates and friends. And like… only your mom and dad who drove you to your party show up. And maybe 2 friends. But all your other friends didn’t come, didn’t tell you they weren’t coming, you also find out someone cooler at school also threw a party the same night and your friends went to that party and then you also found out that there’s a party a week later and that’s the reason your friends didn’t come to your show (… I mean party) that isn’t on the same day, but around the same time, and you have some friends say that the party is too late at night, but its not really that late and then they post pictures at a party that was even later than your party. That’s what putting on a show feels like.

BUT BUT BUT - you’re so super proud of your party and YOU, the person throwing the party, will be at that party and that’s all that really matters. I learned a long time ago to not worry about who doesn’t show up and focus on who does show up. That’s why I love our discord. That’s why I love this newsletter. I love focusing on the people that do come to our parties. You are appreciated.

If you ever wanna know what it’s like to put on shows, remember that scrumbled up paragraph. 

Oh! Wow! What serendipitous timing! We have shows coming up! Hahaha. The idea of throwing together shows has been on my mind a lot. Here are some thoughts.

1. Throwing shows is hard! We’ve been fortunate to work with some really cool promoters lately. Shout out Vigilant Booking. Shout out Bleed For the Scene. Shout out Silverback Booking. We have 2 April shows coming up. Saturday, April 11 in Whittier, CA. Sunday, April 12 in Vista, CA

2. It’s super important to buy tickets in advance. Have we talked about this too much? Have we talked about this at all? It’s really important. For the venue. For the promoters. For the bands. Here’s the deal - we have two shows coming up in April, right? We have no idea how to plan for them. Are there gonna be 200 people? 20 people? How many shirts should we bring? Should the venue hire security? Do they need extra bar tenders? Does the promoter need to bring some extra staff? Or maybe they don’t need any extra help?

3. “But why? It’s not gonna sell out” I can’t articulate why you gotta buy tickets to every in advance. You just should. But I fully understand that there’s no urgency to buy tickets for DIY shows. We’ve had promoters email us… ummm… Cincinatti and Philadelphia… saying we hadn’t sold any pre-sales and they were considering cancelling the shows. Was a bummer email to receive but in both cases, we convinced the promoters to keep the shows on. I get that online tickets are expensive with fees and what not. I get that.

4. None of this is coming from a negative head space. We’re actually really excited about what we have coming up this year. Mostly, we’re concerned about risk tolerance. Meadows is spending money to get across the US and come play So Cal in a few days and we need to make sure they are taken care of when they’re here.

COMING UP SOON

Saturday, April 11 - Whittier with NIV and Meadows

Sunday, April 12 - Vista with NIV and Meadows

Saturday, May 23 - Oceanside, CA 

Saturday, May 30 - North Park, San Diego

Friday, June 12 - Nashville??? Speaking this into existence. 

Saturday, June 13 - Indiana?

Sunday, June 14 - Grand Rapids, MI?

Monday, June 15 - Chicago, IL?

Yea yea yea - who cares. WHAT WE CARE A LOT! Lets go! No way we’ll stay idle. Don’t threaten us with a good time. 

MERCH - we just spent a lot of money re-upping merch. Get ready to buy some, please. Windbreakers are in the shop and shipping now!

Movies, shows, etc: I’m not watching new stuff right now. I did catch up on Wonder Man. Low stakes but great. Watching Yahya got me into a Watchmen re-watch. That show rules so hard. Taking the kids to Mario on Wednesday.

Music: Music is awesome. Go listen to music.

That’s it for today.

Song of the Day