no fixed abode

29th dec 2008 concert

Well December proved to be a very interesting month, our highlight was the “lets get out of the house concert on the 29^th. This is the first time we have organised an event and boy did we have some fun and games! Firstly we would like to thank all those who bought tickets and made the night so special for us, all the hard work was worth it in the end.

Let me start at the beginning, we decided last year to do a concert around Xmas but for various reasons it did not happen, so this year we were determined to do it. We spent a lot of time trying to find the right venue and it is surprising how hard they are to find!. After a lot of visits we decided on Masson Mills as it is a lovely venue with all the facilities we needed. Everything was agreed and the people at Masson Mills were very helpful as they have never put on a live music event before so we would have been the first.

We printed the flyers and Una set off distributing them all over within a 10 mile radius of Matlock and we sent our press releases to the local papers and created posters E.T.C so by the second week in December we had sold 60 tickets. Now the Matlock Mercury (a local paper) printed a half page feature about the concert on Friday 12^th. Within half an hour of the paper hitting the streets Masson Mills got a call from the local council telling them that they could not put on the concert as they did not have the right licence (Public Entertainment Licence) and that they had informed the police and if the event went ahead the police would shut the concert down! Now this is the unbelievable part…….they told Masson Mills that the good news was that they could apply for a temporary licence, so Masson Mills said yes please we will come down now to sort it out. They were then told no problem and it will take 10 working days for them to process the licence…………….now for those of you who are not good at maths this meant that there were just 8 working days ( the council did not count Xmas eve as a working day!)Left so try as they might Masson Mills could not get the council to do it inside 10 days. The councils suggestion was to move the gig back a week………………….

So No Fixed Abode seemed an apt name yet again… we had an audience of 60 and no home for them!

On Friday night we set off looking for another venue that was within a 10 mile radius of Masson Mills. Luckily the Red Lion at Wirksworth 2.2.miles from Masson Mills had just reopened after a big refurbishment. The room was great but had a capacity seated of 80 people so we thought that this was the best venue we were going to find at such short notice.

Now as we got nearer the concert more and more people started to want tickets so that within a week of booking the Red Lion we had sold out all 80 tickets and were having to keep a reserve list so that if anyone pulled out we could offer them the tickets. By the time of the concert we had lost a few people because of the flu bug that was going round the area so we were able to offer some people tickets at short notice. Eventually on the night we had 75 people turn up as some people did not turn up…guess the flu bug got them.

Now after all the trials and tribulations just to add more to the mix Una went down with the flu just before Xmas and Jack three days before the concert…in fact Jack almost cancelled on the Sunday night he was feeling that bad…..It did not show on the night just how bad Jack was feeling and it is a testament to his professionalism that he did the gig without any problems.

Well would we do it all again…..ABSOLUTLEY.. It was a great night and we could have gone on longer as we felt we were just warming up! Yes all the trial and tribulations were a pain but we learned some lessons and we would love to do it all again next year! If you came to the concert we would love to hear your comments and any constructive criticism so please leave a message here on our guest book page or email us at tonynfa@aol.com.

Here are some links to a couple of press pieces.http://www.derbyshiretimes.co.uk/times-out-no2/Chance-to-try-before-you.4818385.jp

Finally from Jack and ourselves our thanks to all those that came along to the concert and made it a wonderful magic night