Apparently we’re not the only band who have realized this organization is scum.
http://www.wig-out.com/&pay-to-playEMERG.htm
EMERGENZA is the brain-child of Italian Massimo Scialo (at right) and German Andrea Petricca. This is the Euro pay-to-play fest. This company has been going for about 13 years in Europe. Just recently they stretched their slimy fingers to the US. Everyone got the special myspace spam invite (we got several!) to join the fun and enter the chance to win special prizes (lots of equipment from instrument companies that are dumb enough to help sponsor this one), a trip to Germany for the last rounds and the biggest prize of all…five days on the Warped Tour (in 2007 downgraded to the RedGorilla Music Fest in Austin, TX) and six weeks of recording at Roastinghouse Studios in Malmoe, Sweden. and the chance to claim you are the BEST BAND ON THE PLANET (no fooling!). (Again, like Bodog’s recording contract, there is no mention of who owns what, for instance, the music you create. If you enjoy the recordings of other Roastinghouse bands like Cloudscape, Cosmic Ballroom, Faithful Darkness and Timeless Miracle, maybe this is for you. Otherwise Roastinghouse looks just like any other studio. Here’s an important FYI: The Sessions, the band that won the 2006 Emergenza Fest “didn’t accept this prize”).
The Emergenza “Battle of the Bands” represents themselves more as a festival but the basics are still the same. Emergenza requires an entry fee of $70, plus gives you 100 (damn!) tickets to sell. They say that you are not required to sell the tickets BUT if the votes are counted by popularity, that would be pretty much the only way you’ll get a vote. So your choice is buying into the ticket-selling idea or knowing that you’ll automatically lose going into it. It’s the Entertainment Catch-22. Emergenza is so established that all you need to do is google “Emergenza and your choice of expletives” and you’ll get the idea on all the happy bands that have tried this one. YOUR BAND’S CHANCE: 1 in 6,000.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergenza
http://chicagoist.com/2007/12/06/psa_for_local_b.php
http://forums.gearwire.com/band-life/1180-emergenza-schemergenza-pay-play.html
Dude, no way!!! Where did you find this? Emergenzia suck my ballzzz!
I think I will try to recommend this post to my friends and family, cuz it’s really helpful.
yaa i atended the first little “meeting” from these assholes, and she used all kinds of confusing sentences that made it sound like we would get our money back, and 50 quid worth of guitar strings, and she was saying how easy it is to get through the first couple of rounds, but her main focus was on how much awesome free shit we get when we get passed the first few levels, and she didnt really explain much else.. this is nothing but a bunch of fat foreign fucks trying to take advantage of musicans. dont do it.
We entered Emergenza last year, and it was the same idea, our organiser told us how good it was, and the prizes we could get. Regardless, on the first night of the comp, we were the last band on (I didn’t notice the first band, apparently they were playing to an empty hall…) and we enjoyed ourselves. The tricks started popping up though when we got to the natinoal finals (in London, we live in Edinburgh) and Emergenza only gave us £200 to get down to London and live there (we were told all expenses paid). The only reason we were able to go is because I work for a hotel chain and managed to wangle us free accom for two nights (this is not an easy thing to get in London). We were then told we only had a twenty minute set, despite the website cleary stating that EVERY band gets half an hour. The sound quality in London was terrible, and the organisation was appalling. The only thing I was happy about was the Scottish organiser, a chap called Peter, who only worked with them that year because he was that disgusted at the competition and didn’t want to be a part of it again. He helped us get through our regional heats and we ended up playing a kick ass gig at the 02 Academy, one of the biggest damn venues in Scotland for touring acts (smaller than arena size, anyways).
Despite this, Emergenza, as a company, is a money-sucking, self-aggrandising, uppity power-house that needs to be shut down.
Padge, Black Cherokee
http://www.myspace.com/blackcherokeeband