Charlie's Soapbox
Benefit Concerts
by Charlie Daniels

I receive quite a few requests to do benefit concerts for anything from an organized charity to people with personal needs and all of them are worthy.

I am writing this piece to try to convey what most people donıt understand about doing a benefit.

First of all, promoting a concert is best left in the hands of a professional, someone who has spent years and developed the understanding of what it takes to have a successful event.

There is a lot more involved in doing a concert than meets the eye. I know to a lot of people it would appear that you plug in a few instruments and microphones, open the door, and start selling tickets.

Consider this, first of all, you have to have a venue which usually doesnıt come for free, they can be very expensive. Then thereıs the sound system and lighting system, which cost thousands of dollars a night.

Then you have to have a stage for the act to perform on and they donıt come cheap.

Also advertising is an expensive item which has to be taken into consideration, tickets to be printed, security to be hired, insurance and catering and so many other icebergs, which lie below the surface.

Even if an act performs free, they usually have to have hotel rooms and transportation and even if you overcome all these obstacles there is always the possibility that you wonıt sell enough tickets to even pay your expenses.

Then you end up actually losing money. I have seen it happen.

I totally believe in doing benefits and The CDB does its share of them. But they must be properly handled and most ordinary citizens just canıt make it happen.

No matter how good the intentions or how hard they work at it, if they havenıt had experience in promoting concerts theyıre more than likely going to leave something undone, something small but vital, which could affect the successful outcome of the event.

And if youıre thinking, well we could just go to a field somewhere and do it in the daytime so at least we wonıt have the expense of the venue and the lighting system, you face a whole new set of problems.

There could be a torrential thunderstorm on the day of the show and even if it happens after the crowd gets in, you could have cars stuck in the mud and damaged equipment to deal with.

I am not trying to discourage anybody in their efforts to raise money for a worthy cause. I just want to educate people to the pitfalls.

Pray for our troops.

What do you think?

God Bless America

Charlie Daniels
(forwarded by Michael 'Buffalo' Smith, Editor of Gritz)