Rumors that are not true and some that are
Submitted by onomuse on Sun, 03/19/2006 - 16:54.
There have been rumors reported to me about the February 24th Trey Tosh Show at Fagan's Irish Merrow Pub. The rumors are not true. The owner, Carrie Davis, did not short the band one hundred dollars and she did not turn the power off on the band.
My name is Steve Ono and I was in charge of the door that evening. I have been producing and promoting shows at Fagan's since November 2005.
My basic policy has been to set a ticket price of $5 to $15 with the proceeds split up at 80 % for the band and 20 % to me above the first $185. I have applied this formula to all local acts. Touring acts, like Mark O'Connor and Tempest, get higher ticket prices and guarantees but the same percentage above guarantee and expenses.
Trey Tosh drew 55 people at $5 each ticket. A $275 gross split 80/20 is $220 and $55. After the show I handed Doug Livesay $220 in cash. Carrie Davis had nothing at all to do with the tickets, production, promotion, money handling or bookkeeping of this show.
I agreed to book, produce and promote shows at Fagan's after playing there for four months with Eddie Gordon. Carrie said she didn't want any part of the gate and would make her money on drinks and food.
Carrie was kind enough to let me use the big room for a going away party for Eddie on January 10 which was attended by more than 100 friends. By the way, Eddie's tumor is shrinking with chemo and radiation treatments he is receiving and the care of family in Minnesota.
That evening I talked to Doug Livesay and Trey Tosh and booked them for a show on February 24th. Show time was 8 to 11 PM.
A few weeks later Carrie informs me that she's booked an Opera society after show party at 10:30 PM.
On the evening of the 24th, I requested of the band that they stop at 10:30 for the next event.
The band starts a little late.
She complained that the band was too loud and we asked them to turn down. I thought they did she thinks they didn't. She seemed upset with their selection of music saying it was hard rock. It was pretty typical Stevie Ray Vaughn style Texas blues with the usual Hendrix tunes.
She was also concerned that Doug Livesay, bass player and legal leader of the band, was a part owner of the Belmont and demanded that he not make any Belmont show announcements from the stage.
At about 10:30, Trey announced the last song and started to play, she came up and asked if he said it was the last song and I replied I think so. She went over and brought up the house lights on the band before the song was over. The working class crowd of 55 paid customers and 15 -20 band guests and I were stunned. They immediately started to complain to her and she told several of them to leave and don't come back.
Meanwhile a crowd of 60 to 90 Opera goers were gathering at the entry to the main room dressed in evening dresses and tuxedos.
I don't recall there being a power loss during the show but if there was (it has happened during other shows) it was a funky power strip and the strip was replaced.
At no time did Carrie Davis turn the power off or pull the plug on the Trey Tosh Band. She only ran the house lights up on him and disrespected him, his band, his audience, her customers and me.
I am no longer producing shows at Fagan's for obvious reasons.
All of the shows I produced at Fagan's from November 2005 to March 18 2006 were produced with mostly borrowed sound gear, lights and music community volunteers including members of the Fresno Folklore Society.
I give special thanks to Marcel of the Rogue Festival and Noa for the lighting and Terry Barrett and Terrill Cross for sound and to Henry Kiersch, Cindy Butler and MaryEllen Rowan-Ono for volunteering honest help at the door.
The only promotion I did for my shows at Fagan's were press releases (thanks to Mike Oz at the Fresno Bee and Mike Avila at Fresno Magazine) posters, flyers(thanks to the Fresno Folklore Society) and web calendars(Fresno Famous foremost).
I will never claim to have done a perfect job at Fagan's. I made plenty of mistakes: business and technical. I should have insisted on a pro web developer early in the project and better communications, for instance, but I was never rude or impolite to any of my patrons.
The big room at Fagan's is almost perfect sounding. Carrie's taste in the decor and pub concept is wonderful. The Drinks are great. The food is Ok but service is poorly organized and slow.
Back in July or August when there were very small crowds and Carrie was being nicer to me, she asked what I thought she should do. The answer is still the same. Hire a professional restaurant manager, hand him/her the keys and step out of the way.
Here are my complete statistics:
November 2005
Gross: $535
Number of shows: 4
Tickets sold: 103
December 2005
Gross: $2345
Number of shows: 9
Tickets sold: 368
January 2006
Gross: $3935
Number of shows: 8
Tickets sold: 653
February 2006
Gross: $8150
Number of shows: 10
Tickets sold: 769
March 2006
Gross: $9117 approximate with est gross for 3/17 of $4500
Number of shows: 6
Tickets sold: 809 approximate sold for 3/17 is 300
Carrie took over all management for St Patrick's Day when I gave her my notice after the Trey Tosh show. She said my percentage would remain the same. I have no idea what the actual figures are but Carrie told me they were sold out.
I am waiting to be paid my percentage of the gross for the St Patrick's Day and be reimbursed for the deposit of $375 for April Verch. I have no idea if the other acts got paid. I did a set at 1 o'clock with Eva Scow and Patrick Contreras and haven't seen a dime.
More stats
Check out the fresnobeehive for Mike Oz's blog.
3 of the 37 shows presented at Fagan's between November 1st 2005 and March 18 2006 were booked by ownership outside of Onomuse Productions. They were Hugh on November 18 with no tickets sold, Gypsy Soul on Dec 11 with 92 tickets sold and Marina V on Jan 13 with 129 tickets sold. The Mark O'Connor show was a co-production with the Fresno Folklore Society. And both Super Lucky Catz shows and Crosby Loggins were co-productions with Souls and Sounds Productions.
I like Sequoia Brewing
I go to Sequoia Brewing alot (maybe 100 times a year). I like strong ales, stouts n' porters. BJ's has a few good beers too. I used to go to Fagan's until they kept running out of all the good bottled beers...Bison Belgian Ale, 8%, was good while it lasted.
RUMORS THAT SEEM TRUE?
AS TREY TOSH MAKES HIS WAY INTO FRESNO'S HEARTS NOT ALL ARE KEEN TO HIS MUSICAL TALENTS. THE TREY TOSH BAND WAS NEVER INFORMED THAT THERE WAS ANOTHER FUNCTION THE NIGHT OF THE GIG. OUR FANS WERE NOT DISAPPOINTED WITH STEVE ONO, IN FACT THE SUPPORT WE RECEIVED FROM HIM WAS TRUE TO HIS NATURE, KIND HEARTED AND WELL RESPECTED. HOWEVER THE MANAGEMENT THERE WAS TO SAY THE LEAST, VERY RUDE! THE OWNER MADE IT CLEAR THAT WE WERE TO NOT SUPPORT ANY OTHER FRESNO VENUE AND ESPECIALLY " THE BELMONT ". SHE WAS VERY OFFENSIVE TO OUR GUEST AND FANS AND REALLY DID NOT CARE WHAT THEIR FEELING WERE....SEVERAL GUEST WERE IN FACT TOLD ITS TIME FOR YOU TO LEAVE....NOW THATS TEAM SPIRIT??
TURN THE LIGHTS ON BEFORE THE GIG IS COMPLETELY OVER! COME ON GET A LIFE!
compare/contrast
I defer to Mr. Delpit, a person whom I greatly respect and has
the credentials to know what's up, and for whose sake I will cut slack and even give the party under discussion another chance. Thanks Mr. Delpit--long may you rock.
Compare/Contrast
Let's hope that the recent rough spots at Fagan's that have been chronicled here are just that, rough spots, bumps on the road to success for we truly need as many bars/ nightspots as we can get Downtown. That said let me say that I've been treated extremely well by everyone there especially the owner and so have my friends. My disclaimer though, is that I play music there every Friday at the Happy Hour. Nonetheless let's try and put this in some historical perspective. There's a learning curve involved and they've only been in business for about a year or so. I played the Happy Hour at Club Fred for more than 11 years(until Ernie's Inferno just became too hot)
and the original owner(Fred) is truly one of the friendliest guys around but if I submitted a laundry list of complaints on the order of those listed here about Fagan's it would go on for days and would certainly make them look like small potatoes. So let's cut them a little slack here. Again let's try to put a little historical perspective on this and let the dust settle on a new business. As for Steve's idea about letting someone else run the day to day operation maybe it's not a bad one but not that easy to do if you're the owner and this is what you went into business for in the first place. So Thereminman give it another shot if you will and maybe there'll be some back-slapping, have-a-drink joviality there for you.
Contrast/Compare
I agree with you Jarah, more pubs , more music places, more hangout spots in downtown is important---I also dig the idea of an irish pub.
I like the idea offered in Ono's original post that the powers-that-be hand over the day-to-day management to someone else ( I don't know how hard that is financial-wise)---cuz the *idea* of an irish pub downtown is cool---but if I compare how I'm treated there to how I'm treated at the back-slapping, hello-everyone-knows-you-by-name, here-have-a-drink joviality that I find at Full-Circle, I know which one I will visit for a drink, and which one I'd recommend to friends.
(as a post-script, I'd like to say that *everyone* but one at Fagan's HAS been super-friendly and helpful anytime I've gone in there, problem is, that "one" has been there everytime I've gone in there. I would think, if you dream of running a pub, you have to have at least a bit of friendliness to the general public; if not, you should just remodel your den with irish furniture and pictures of irish soccer teams.)
I like Fagan's
I'm really sorry to read about the conflict at Fagan's. Thanks to everyone for being civil as they voiced their opinions. I feel I should note that this is only one side of the story (but that doesn't invalidate what's been said). Folks should just keep that in mind. Running a business is hard- especially a restaurant. I hope with time the kinks are worked out because Downtown needs more bars, not less!
Mystery food & service
Yep, after almost a year of going to Fagan's the service varies from "not too bad" to "rediculous". The chefs go from "good" to "I can't eat this - but who knows what I'll get if I send it back".
Fagan's has a lot of potential, but their food service is outrageously slow. I don't know what is going in that kitchen, but to make people wait over an hour for food, even on a slow night, is ridiculous.
Noise next door
The people living in the Californian next door can't handle too loud of music. There was a police injunction against the Fagan's location wnen she moved in (no loud rock bands). It took awhile for the police to lift that ban.
Steve Ono!
Steve Ono has always been a positive and uplifting force in the local music scene. Unfortunately, not everyone he's recently worked alongside has been as positive and uplifting. I applaud him on what seems a very balanced look at an unfortunate situation and wish him
best of luck in the continued use of his vast musical and scene-supporting talents.
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