This is my response to a blog entry by JBarks, bassist of one of my favourite Singaporean bands, the Firefight, about the recent Singfest. You'll find similar points to the ones I mentioned in my previous entry, but hey, this is definitely an issue worth talking about twice! :)

Read his blog post here.

Hey J,

Just to clarify, we were paid for our role in Singfest in 2007. When we were originally approached, we quoted our minimum fee for an event of such as scale. They offered us publicity (“advertisement in all media formats”) but no money (“no budget for local bands”). We have a strict policy against this so we formally turned down the offer to play the gig. This was a good month-and-a-half before the event.

About three weeks before the event, Midas got in touch with us again and offered us two options: the sum we requested but with a stipulation that we had to leave immediately after our performance, or 40% of the sum we requested. Needless to say, we accepted the former.

After the event, we sent our invoice to the company for billing. The whole time we’d been liasing with a Mel Tyler, with Michael Hoskings kept in the loop via email cc. A month after the event, Michael sent a note which said “I thought this was $xxxx?”, a sum which was a good 25% less than the agreed fee. This, even though he was fully aware of all prior discussions of the agreed sum. Thankfully, we had email records of all correspondence and were therefore able to insist on the agreed fee.

Administrative matters aside, the festival experience itself was great. We were very well taken care of, with due attention paid to our musical demands. And we did get to stay on after all - no one asked us to leave.

It became clear to us through all our correspondence with them that Midas appears to have a policy of not forking out any amount of money for a local band, which is something we are fundamentally opposed to.

The local stage at this year’s Singfest really typifies Midas’ attitude towards local bands for me. I view their supposed apparent support for local music (by dedicating a whole stage to local acts) with the greatest scepticism, for the following reasons:
1) The sponsorship leverage for having eighteen local bands on the bill is massive. Any corporation would love to be seen to support an event that supports local music in a big way, even if very little of that money goes towards the bands themselves or the cause.
2) The cost of erecting a stage for local bands, compared to the above, is minimal at best. Midas has everything to gain, the most important of which is getting those patriotic monkeys (who were overtly critical of them for the lack of local bands in the 2007 edition) off their backs once and for all.
3) This year’s event had the support of some major sponsors. Despite all the costs involved in holding an event of such a scale, there definitely was money for local bands. Them not paying local bands was more a matter of policy (choice) than it was of necessity.
4) Despite the promise of publicity, there was actually little mention of local acts in all wider promotions of the events.

I do agree with you about the numbers ratio and about getting the numbers right, and hopefully that’s something that will be put right in next year’s edition. Personally, I just hope that the organisers will see that local bands can hold their own against the international big guns and give bands like yours the stage you deserve.

Sorry for the impassioned reply to your post. Keep on keeping on!

Saiful
GSE