Leicester has a lot of venues where bands can play. See the list below. Check out the kind of gigs going on at those venues by looking at our gigs listing. If yours is a young band with a 14+ or 16+ following, ask The Shed to play you at one of their Saturday afternoon gigs. Contact Dawn at the Shed about this.

Out of town bands

If your band is out of Leicester/shire, you can contact the various venues or promoters directly to see if they can offer you a gig. Alternatively, contact one of our local bands to see if you can get a support slotwith them. You will need to bring some people to support your slot; use either Facebook or Myspace to do this.

We provide a list of all known leicester bands. Also you might want to read our guide to the Leicester live music scene.

Things to check before you contact a venue or promoter

Research your venue before you phone. See what kinds of bands are playing there. Don't try to get a gig at the Donkey if you'r a heavy metal band! Dont ask Ragebreed for a gig if you'r a light acoustic emo band. You can get the links to the venues from this page or from our gigs page. Look to see if bands with a similar musical style to yours are already playing that night.

Things you should check before you agree to play

If a venue or a promoter is prepared to offer you a date to play, ask the following questions

• Will you get paid, if so how much and when and by whom
• What equipment is provided by the venue and what will you have to bring
• What will the venue or promoter do to support your performance, in the way of publicity
• What is the age group for the night, some are 16+, some 18+ and some are all ages
• Where can you park for load in. Often a nightmare in Leicester's city centre.
• What time is load in
• What time will your band be playing and when will that be decided

Don't assume anything and if you dont ask, the chances are they wont tell you. Always ask for an email address of the promoter. If for any reason your band is unable to play, tell the person who hired you as soon as possible. The one thing people hate most is bands that just fail to turn up and don't bother to tell anyone they are not coming. They never get invited back. The next worst thing are bands that turn up and play and dont sell any tickets at all.

How to prepare for your gig

Leicester's live music scene is perhaps unusual in that there is no walk-in, ready-made, crowd for live music events.

Bands playing on a night make their own crowd, for pretty must all the venues. So bands can't turn up and expect to play to a audience, unless they are on a line up with a set of crowd-pulling local bands. If your's is an out of town band, you have to work hard to get fans to come down and support your set. People in Leicester don't go out to see unknown bands, but they can be enouraged to support a band if they like their music.

There are a few venues which offer free entry gigs (e.g. The Pavilion and the Loaded Dog and sometimes the Firebug) but most of the others charge between £4 and £6 entry with £5 being a typical ticket price. Pretty much everyone buys tickets on the door.

Venue owners and promoters watch bands to see how much effort they put into getting people down to support them. If you don't do anything to publicise your performance your Leicester show is likely to be a one-off. Even if venues or promoters do publicise an event, its is still necessary for bands to encourage their fans to come down and support them.

Publicise your gig

Make sure that everyone knows that your band is playing in Leicester/shire. Send the details of your show to us at Arts in Leicestershire so we can put it on our gigs listing. Use Myspace and Facebook to promote your show.

Newspapers

You can also get details into the weekly entertainments guide at the Leicester Mercury. The guide is published on Thursdays so you will need to get the details to them well in advance. Phone the details through to 0116 222 4241.

Leicester's Live Music Venues

The Shed

Yeoman Street, Leicester, LE1 1UT. Tel: 0116 262 2255. The Shed on Myspace.

The 200 capacity Shed is one of Leicester's five permanent live music venues. It's main room has a stage, theatre style lighting, a permanent sound system with sound engineers present throughout the gigs, licensed bar and a lower bar (100 cap) which is sometimes also used for smaller live music events. A variety of music styles are played, either when the Shed organises its own nights or when promoters come in to put on nights. Kat is available on Thursdays between 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. for Metal bands that want to play at her nights. 101 Productions (Paul Matts) organises most of the punk nights. General bands can apply to Silver Bullet Records (see below)

The Shed runs gigs for young bands at their fans (14+ or 16+). Contact Dawn for details on the above number.

Glastonbudget festival auditions are held at the Shed on Sunday evenings.

The Shed is also available to bands to hire if they want to put on their own shows. Such shows can be more successful than those where bands just book in on a first come first served basis. Some nights promoted by bands have been very successful.

The Charlotte - has now closed down

A 400 capacity permanent live music venue with one room and a small room upstairs. There is a stage, fixed lighting and a house PA system with a resident sound engineer present at all gigs. There is a licenced bar.

To get a gig there, obtain the venue's email address from their web site and send them an email with your band's Myspace address. The Charlotte told us "If given a gig, it is important that we see bands make every effort to promote their event/slot in a very visible way so we are aware of their efforts. Any band that just turns up and expects to play to an audience with no effort made rarely gets a rebooking." "It is important that local bands don’t overplay the city. We would struggle to offer bands a slot should we see them advertising gigs at several other venues in Leicester in the same month or so", they said.

The Musician

Clyde Street, Leicester, Tel: 0116 251 0080. The Musician web site.

The Musician is a permanent live music venue with a stage, lighting, house PA system and sound engineer present throughout. There is a bar. It is a one room venue. Check the Musician web site before you apply to play there because their music policy is different from that of the Shed or The Charlotte, where they tend on the whole to play rock. The Musician tends to specialise in rockabilly, americana, roots and folk but does sometimes put on rock bands. It is also a noted venue for solo singers and acoustic artists.

The Firebug

1 Millstone Lane, Leicester, LE1 5JN T: 0116 255 1228. Firebug web site.

The Firebug is a large pub in the city centre, popular with students and the music fraternity. It has an upstairs room where most live music events are held. This is a stage and a fixed PA system and lighting. A sound engineer is present at most gigs. The upstairs room has its own bar, in addition to the main bars on the ground floor. It is possible to hire the upstairs room for shows.

Sumo

54 Braunstone Gate, Leicester, LE3 5LG. Tel: 0116 255 1906. Sumo bar on Myspace

Sumo is a bit out of the City centre in the Narborough Road/Braunstone Gate area but this is a popular neighbourhood for students and young people. The bands room is downstairs and is about 200 capacity and has its own bar. There is a stage, fixed lighting, house PA system and a sound engineer is present at most gigs. To enquire about gigs go to their Myspace and send them a message. The promoter is Grant and he is responsible for the majority of live music events there.

A promoter called Degenerate puts on shows on Thursdays and all their dates are on their myspace.They told us: "We are looking for young(age 18-25 type ages)bands that are any of these genres: Indie/Punk/Ska/Rock/Electro. To apply for a gig all a band has to do is message us on myspace. www. myspace. com/degeneratesumo

"Out of town bands are very welcome but we'l be unable to put any money towards travel costs etc. We don't have enough to pay any band that plays but we do put any profits Degenerate has from previous nights towards advertising and promoting each event. If a band is booked we need them to arrive at Sumo for about 6pm on the night for sound checks and bring their own equipment." To find out where the venue is put their postcode (as above) into a mapping system like streetmap.co.uk

The Pavilion

Victoria Park, London Road, Leicester, LE1 7RY. See our page on the Pavilion.

The Pavilion is a one room venue with a stage, fixed lighting and a bar. There is a non-fixed PA system which is set up when gigs take place. Full details of this are on our page (above). Many of the gigs held at the Pavilion are organised by Promoters or by the bands themselves.

The Donkey

The Donkey Pub, 203 Welford Road, Leicester, LE2 6BH. The Donkey bar Myspace.

The Donkey has a definite music policy and they tend to put on the more melodic, acoustic shows. They seldom play rock bands. It is however a busy venue and usually has a good crowd for its style of music. Don't try to get a booking there unless your style of music fits with what they usually put on.

Walkabout, Granby Street, Leicester, LE1 2DE.

See our page on this web site for Walkabout; we book the bands for this venue. A branch of the national Walkabout chain of pubs.

Promoters

Quite a lot of the gigs in this locality are put on by promoters.

Check out Leicester Music Promotion, they run a new indie club night.

Melting Pot puts on bands and acoustic artists on a regular basis.

One of the busiest of our local promoters, who puts on the largest number of gigs and bands, is Silver Bullet Records . They don't have a web site or an email address but you can phone the promoter - Will - on 07971 428 613. He runs shows at the Pavilion Venue, The Sun Bar and the Shed and sometimes other places.. Will also books bands for the Glastonbudget Festival auditions.

Tim Hill of Outsider Promotions puts on gigs in Leicester and else where and works with some big bands. He is keen to get crowd pulling local bands to play support slots with his bigger bands. Outsider Promotions web site.

Arts in Leicestershire also puts on gigs but not on a regular basis.