Some changes to thirteen13

Hi,

thirteen13 has for the past 13 months been trying to encourage the return of a decent gig circuit in the UK for the type of bands we signed but have found this to be impossible. Despite signing some fantastic artists all keen to play the UK we found that the one thing missing was the people to book them. We are therefore not signing any more artists and will slowly wind down the live side of the company since we can longer carry on putting money into it.

The idea was simple. If we could bring good quality bands into the UK then this would not only shake up the live scene here but also provide a chance for UK bands to get good support slots with artists that would draw a decent sized crowd. The end result would have been gigs that people wanted to see, and not the same ones that were being repeated up and down the country. We started the company with the plan that we'd give it a year of intense work and then re-evaluate, in the end 13 months seemed more fitting.

We also added a promo distribution service to this to help get new music into clubs by contacting bands and offering to mail promo material to clubs and magazines.

However finding enough dates to warrant bringing bands into the UK proved to be an uphill struggle, despite having a mailing list of over 500 venues and promoters. A few people backed us, so huge thanks to them for booking through us, your support was appreciated, you know who you are.

We now feel that enough is enough and if we're brutally honest the large part of this 'scene' of ours has let us, and the gig going punter, down. It's been fun, but since we began on the 6th September 2006 we've had only three days that weren't spent working on the company, working each evening after the day jobs and over the weekends. We even worked on Christmas day!

We will still be operating as a promo distribution company sending discs to DJ's and magazines but would remind those of you on the list that this service relies on you providing feedback, or pointing us at an online review, without this bands are not likely to want us to send you material, and this too will die off.

Thanks

Martin and Brigitte
www.thirteen13.co.uk
.

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