Sonicbids - AVOID

[Paul Marangoni]

Just a warning to anyone who may be so inclined to use this service. There seem to be more and more businesses taking advantage of musicians everyday. I can't believe that this service is still operational.

http://blog.brandontyler.net/post/48622 ... -is-a-scam

http://paulblow.tripod.com/sonicbids.html

http://hucbald.blogspot.com/2009/10/son ... p-off.html

http://www.jimhodgson.com/2007/02/01/wh ... ids-sucks/

[Jim Richman]

Anyone who would sign up for this service deserves to get ripped off.

[Rhythmatist]

The same way I feel about entertainment agencies. I remember being in the hottest band in town until we signed an exclusive with a local agency. It ended up with a mutual breaking of the contract after 8 months and us threatening to sue...they hadn't actively booked any gigs for us...anything we booked on our own we had to pay them 15%. They never picked up the phone on our behalf even after agreeing to book x-amount of gigs per month. Currently in my area there's a guy who has all of the best venues in town wrapped up and has booked a couple of the bands I play with but it's nowhere near steady...he has his handful of Pet bands that he books regularly and will book others, begrudgingly, only when there is enough pressure from venue management.

I remember "The Space" in Evanston requiring bands to submit fees to Sonicbids...my vote was a resounding NO.

[Josiah]

You can lump 90% of the ReverbNation services into that as well, they appear to be mostly be fronts for SonicBids. Total scam. They must make millions alone off bands just trying to get into SXSW.

[DeeP_FRieD]

...They must make millions alone off bands just trying to get into SXSW.

Absolutely, lots of the indie folk in my town have been swindled trying to do just this. Funny thing is the groups that actually got to go never touched this.

[Josiah]

Funny thing is the groups that actually got to go never touched this.

Bingo.

I do the booking for my original band, and have learned quit a bit in a short time about some of this nonsense.