K. asked (about Pipas playing in the Netherlands):

“so.. what skills does one need to organise something like that?”

And I find answering this rather irresistible. Perhaps it is because it brings the excitement of that first gig back. (Or perhaps it is because being able to answer this makes me feel pleased with myself.) Whatever it is, I warn you: don’t take me too seriously. What worked in Athens might not work anywhere else.

The disclaimer out of the way, we can now get on to the interesting stuff! Let’s see.

To start with, one needs:

a) enough craziness

b) a band one really, really, really likes, and

c) someone who shares these qualities

That last one might be a little hard to come by in some places, and even though it is particularly helpful, you shouldn’t worry too much if you don’t have one. You can start out without it; you’ll probably acquire one along the way. Just like with most plans once you jump into it it will take a life of its own and lead you where it wants to go.

The next stage is a little more complicate. You need to make a plan that looks like it could work. For this, you need:

d) a venue

e) a band willing to play (preferably the one from above)

f) a budget

This is the slightly tricky part. You don’t want to lose a lot of money on this. If you do it is all very easy: book the most original venue (my choice: the rooftop of the neighbour upstairs) and a flight for the band, find them a place to stay, give them some nice food, get them a little drunk, and throw a party. If, however, you don’t, you need an amount of money that will cover all the above needs and which you can at least partially make back from the gig. Correctly calculating and balancing those two sums (the one that will cover your needs, and the one that you can make back) is the key to success. And that is, pretty much, it.

You also need to find said sum of course, organise everything, attract people, and pray not too much goes wrong on the last minute, but all these come later.

And to make it a little more concrete for you: we started out with two boys, one girl and the amazing amount of three hundred euros which we split between us. In the worst of cases we would lose a hundred each. Big deal: going to London to see the same gig would cost us a lot more, and this way we got to play our favourite songs to someone other than us as well. It was perfect. We got a cheap easyjet flight from London to Athens for Mark & Lupe and an extra duvet so they could sleep on my sofa bed, and that was it. We had made a deal with a (rather rundown and unpopulal) club whose owner somehow liked us: they’d pay for the (meagre) advertising and for the equipment that had to be rented, issue the tickets, and give us 50% of what they made of those (after tax). I think we needed 60 paying customers to break even.

We got 67. And an extra Sprinkled Pepper boy.