Gavin Drake investigates how concert promoters fit into British Christian music's scheme of things.

Concert promoter Alwyn Evans of Norwich is convinced that the biggest single failing in Christian concerts is poor publicity.

"Photocopying fifty leaflets and passing them around your church is not going to bring a crowd in for a Christian concert. But so often that's the kind of level inexperienced concert organiser's work on. The three key areas for publicity are local radio, local newspapers and local churches. Ideally, a poster and covering letter needs to be sent to every local church in the area of the concert."

Having got venue, artist and publicity under control there are still more things a concert promoter has to turn his attention to. After selecting a venue the organiser will need to apply to the local authority for an entertainments licence. Fees for this vary. There is a common misconception that churches are exempt from entertainment licences. There is only an exemption if no charge is made for admission. Christians sometimes try to get around this by making it a free event to anyone who has bought a programme! Beware if you are going to such an event. There are no fire regulations in force for a public performance and therefore organisers cannot guarantee the safety of the concert.

Concert organisers also need to check with the artists if they, the writers, or the publishers of any song they intend to use are members of the Performing Right Society (PRS). If so, the organisers may need to apply to the PRS for a licence for the public performance of the songs. This will involve another fee. For most Christian concerts it's likely to be a fee of £65 for a year. It is normally the venue that is covered and not the promoter, so it may be possible to talk the venue into paying this fee.

After the concert, the organiser will need to get a list of songs used together with any writer/publisher information and send it to the PRS to ensure that the fee (or a portion of it) goes to the composers concerned.

One sobering aspect of concert promotion is that if anything goes wrong it's the promoter who is responsible. If the artist doesn't turn up (he may have broken down, or taken ill) the promoter will have to refund ticket prices. This will undoubtedly mean a loss, as he will have already paid for the venue, publicity PRS licence and so on.

Another area where the promoter is liable is injuries to audience, staff or performers. If somebody trips over a wire, or, God forbid, the venue burns down with many injuries it is the promoter who is responsible for damages and compensations. It is therefore imperative that concert promoters obtain a good level of public liability and special event insurance. You should be able to obtain £1,000,000 worth of public liability for around £90.00.

The Association of British Insurers should be able to advise you on what is a suitable level of insurance. Having painted a black picture of the role of the concert promoter, is it any wonder that there are only two companies in the UK specialising in Christian music concert promotion - Miracle Ministries and Viva Arts Music Europe. Both these companies established themselves in the Black Gospel scene, although Viva Arts now operate in the white CCM scene as well, putting on concerts by US artists like Petra and Kim Hill. It is important to differentiate between black and white music here. It's not always a helpful thing to do, but in this instance it would be helpful to explain a fundamental difference in black and white led churches. In white-led churches, contemporary Christian music is seen as something for young people -that's if it is not seen as a sin!

Christian music is tolerated more than encouraged, whereas in the black-led churches music is a part of the culture for the whole church. Most black-led churches have their own choir which, for musical ability and skill, would tear strips off most white robed church choirs. Black Christians are prepared to pay to go to concerts and promoters are therefore able to hire larger venues. A look through the last issue of Cross Rhythms confirms this.

The Winans and Commissioned were playing venues such as the Aston Villa Leisure Centre, Wembley Conference Centre and the Royal Albert Hall, while the white Christian artists were playing venues such as the small St Mary's Church in Selattyn village, Oswestry (Adrian Snell and Caroline Bonnett), Bab-bacombe's St Matthias Church, Torquay (Garth Hewitt and Stuart Henderson) and Spalding, Basildon and Kettering (Phil And John). It seems that you can reach the top in the UK Christian sub-culture and still only manage to play small venues.

Some years back Word (UK) had their own promotion company, Scope, headed up by the now A&R director Dave Bruce. Word's commercial director Dave Withers told Cross Rhythms why the decision was taken to close Scope in 1985. "It was never viable for us. Because people knew we were the record company they charged the earth. We found it very difficult to negotiate fees. Scope was a distraction from our central core of activity which was to sell product."

In recent months Martyn Joseph has played concerts promoted by mainstream companies in 'proper' venues. Is there a difference between small-time church committee promoters and large secular organisations? Surprisingly, no, there isn't. Gaynor Thomas runs Martyn Joseph's Shark Management which today concentrates on his Christian affairs. "When compared to companies that are 'proper' promoters, it is surprising how well Christians have done a good job. These are people who are probably working full-time and so can only spend their spare time organising a concert. I think we realise now just what a good job they do," Gaynor told Cross Rhythms.

"It is surprising how much the enquiries have dropped from the Christian scene since Martyn signed to Epic. Based on the number of enquiries we got before Epic, Martyn could have played Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday every week - he actually averaged about two or three concerts a year. It's sad that people think 'oh, he's this big pop star and he won't do these small gigs now'. It's not that he won't - he loves these one-off gigs - it's just that he can't because the record company lays on events at such short notice."

It seems a bit perverse that the church, while crying out for an increase in live music events, is laying all the responsibility on a few individuals. As Dave Withers said, "Concert promotion was never viable for us. But it is viable if done right. You need to select the right person and do it at the right level. You can lose your shirt but you can also make a living on it." Gaynor Thomas agrees. "I think it is time for a good Christian concert promotion company," she said, "but there are advantages in both. Recently Martyn played two large solo concerts, one was at the Shaw Theatre in London, organised by a proper (non-Christian) promotion company - the tickets sold eventually; the other was at Swansea for BBC TV. It was organised by a local Christian promoter and it sold out within two weeks.

Local people know their market and know where they can sell tickets. 'Miracle and Viva Art are the pioneers of the 1990s. They need encouraging in the work they do but so too does the one man band with a vision to see his town come alive with Christian music. As part of our efforts to support the British live music scene, Cross Rhythms intends to publish 'Crossed Lines' during 1993, a fully up-to-date directory of artists and services to put the Christian musician right into the hands of promoters and churches. Watch this space.