Money for nothing

The chaps at Ginkgo decided to try and charge a door fee for the second appearance of young Scottish folk band Skerryvore there on Saturday.   I find that a very puzzling choice.  Door fees always cause a certain niggling resentment (they were a comparative rarity even at the mainstream music venues until two or three years ago, and still cause significant price resistance amongst the cash-strapped Chinese punters).  And the amount being demanded here - 20kuai - was too trivial to have made much of a difference to the management.... but still enough to be irritating to the customer.  Basically, almost any amount is irritating to the customer.  I firmly believe that, especially at a venue like that, attempting to impose a door fee will drive away some customers altogether, and possibly have an adverse psychological impact on those who do attend - perhaps even inhibiting their spending to a degree that wipes out the paltry 20kuai cover several times over.  It just doesn't make any sense to me.   Moreover, door fees can work at the dedicated music venues because they're relatively easy to police.  And because there's not much danger of deterring any punters who aren't interested in the music (most of these places are in sufficiently out-of-the-way locations that there's little chance of any walk-by custom; nobody ever goes there except for the music).  Ginkgo, however, is a regular bar and restaurant.  Many punters going to the restaurant portion upstairs probably have no interest in any music event downstairs.  Folks who might happen to be passing by on the street might fancy just popping in for a drink or two, and not be much fussed about a band that's due to come on.  These are the kind of customers Ginkgo is trying to build its business on; and these were the kind of customers they were turning away on Saturday.  Daft!   Ah yes, and the final insult was that..... there was no band.  I looked in at about 10.40pm - by which time you would have expected the gig to be in full swing; or, at the very least, to be obviously about to start imminently.  But the band were not even yet on the the premises, and there was no confident prediction as to when they might arrive.   Now, when your band has let you down, and they're not there on time, and you have no idea when - if at all - they will actually start to play, then it becomes a downright cheek to try to ask people for money, any money at all, to come in.   Sorry, chaps - serious loss of brownie points there.