Speakeasy Sessions @ Northern Market, Leeds

Table of Contents

Overview

Speakeasy Sessions @ The Northern Market is a night of solo, duo and trio performers – acoustic, electric and pared back acts.

It takes place on 1st Fridays and entry is Free.

We have 6 band slots, and play chill music in before, between and after the acts.

The night runs from 8pm-12am which is the closing time of The Northern Market.

About Not a thing.

Not a thing. is a non-profit promotion run by Dan Akers, based in Huddersfield, working mostly in at venues the Leeds area.

Our model is that generally we pay for the spaces, and most promotion activities, so that bands can split door takings equally. We take (and make) no money from what we do, £0. In fact… minus £400-600 a month.

Our goal is to provide spaces for (mostly) new and upcoming bands across a number of ‘alt’ genres – alt-jazz and soul, alt-rock and all its many variants, plus electronic, afrobeat, latin etc.

Check out our Instagram or YouTube to see what we do.

Not a thing. is a t/a of Startling LTD.

Venue Details

The Northern Market - 12 Great George St, Leeds, LS1 3ED

Northern Market Website

Northern Market is a large, busy and bustling street food and drinks venue just off Millennium Square.

In the main area of the bar there are tables and benches, a large bar and a number of street food vendors serving food through til 9.30pm. Off the main bar is the ‘Speakeasy’ which is a semi-private area which we have reserved for our nights. There is minimal bleedover of sound from the main space.

Although the event is free, we will be stamping all visitors and ensuring that anyone coming into the music space respects the sound level and the performers. If they don’t, they’ll be politely asked to move back into the main bar area.

ACCESSIBILITY

– There is a staircase at the front entrance to the venue on Great George Street; and there is an accessible entrance with a platform lift via the rear entrance on Alexander Street. There is an automatic door open button on the left-hand side of the door which can be operated by a single wheelchair user. Alexander Street is cobbled.

– There is level access throughout the venue except for seating in the Cinema Room, and a raised decking at one end of the venue.

– The floor is Yorkshire Stone flags, they are level but not smooth. 

– There is a mixture of stools, benches and chairs, and tables at various heights. Stools and benches are moveable.

– The bar and food service counters are 1.2 metres tall

– There are segregated toilets and an accessible toilet towards the back of the

venue.

DEAF AND HEARING IMPAIRED VISITORS – there is no Hearing Induction Loop Available.

Fees

Not a thing. receives the space for free from Northern Monk, plus £200 to pay for the running of the night. £80 of that money is taken to pay for the sound engineer, with Not a thing. topping that up to the (lowest) going rate of £120. Additionally, a rep is paid to help manage the night out of pocket.

Performer fees are currently £20 for each set.

We don’t currently have a deal in place for drinks or food.

Equipment & Tech

The equipment available on the night is a mixture of what we bring, and the house PA.

The TL:DR version of below is that basically we have NO AMPS OR KEYBOARD. There is a grand piano in the space, but it currently has no sustain pedal.

We mic up or DI everything on the stage, even if that mic is never being added into the room mix, because we record all nights. These nights are made available on the Not a thing. YouTube channel, and the audio & video recordings are available for performers to do what they want with.

We bring:

Allen and Heath ZED-16 – 16 channel desk with independent monitor mixes

2-3 powered monitors

Mics

DIs

All cables

Some mic stands

GoPro for recording

Northern Market provide:

Main stage speakers

Grand Piano – with no sustain pedal

NOTE: We have no guitar amp or any other store of instruments.

We don’t have any ‘in ears’ kit of our own, or specific instrument mics – though we’re happy to work with these if you let us know what you’ll be bringing.

Load In, Soundcheck & Stage Times

Northern Market is open from 11:45 on Fridays. We arrive at 16:00 to begin setting up the space, which should be completed by 17:30 at the latest. Performers are welcome to arrive before 17:30 but we’ll be setting up the space until then.

We arrive around 18:00 – as does the sound engineer – to begin setting up the space.

We don’t do full soundchecks for Speakeasy Sessions, only individual line-checks during changeovers.

We gather the tech specs of all performers in advance of the night, and set up all mics and channels in advance. We ask the first performers to do more of a full sound check, but otherwise we do quick checks for everyone else.

We have separate Channels essentially for the music that plays between acts, which allows us to do (quiet) checks without killing the vibe.

All performers need to arrive – with their equipment – 30 mins before their set time.

We’ll let you know in advance what time you’ll be playing, and we try and stick (roughly) to these times.

When arriving, please bring your equipment up into the Speakeasy and we’ll direct you where to store your kit

First performer set starts at 20:00 – and can play up to 30 minutes. So we have about a 10 minute changeover.

We then have performances every 40 minutes through til midnight – we have a hard curfew at midnight.

Sign Up Form

Before you complete the form below, PLEASE READ what is above.

We currently ONLY have May and June dates confirmed with The Northern Market - however, we are hopeful that this event will continue. Therefore dates from July onwards are only estimates and we'll reconfirm these if we get the go-ahead to continue!

Not a thing. is a non-profit promotion, run by 1 person and a number of helpful volunteers. We pay for spaces out of our own pocket, and make no money from the nights we run.

This means we can only work with bands/performers who put in the same effort as we do, and who are willing to 'do the work' required to make a good night.

Here's what Not a thing. agree to do for any night you play:

  • Always do our best to be nice, respectful and not rude - to treat everyone like humans.
  • Promote the gig on our own website, via our socials, posters at the venue (whenever possible!) and via paid adverts on at least Facebook/Instagram.
  • Create and share promotion assets for the gig with you, for you to share.
  • Be clear about timings, kit and what you need to bring (see above) with as much advance warning as we can give you.
  • Be transparent about money taken, and pay you as soon as all moneys have been paid out from the ticket platform/card provider.
  • Do everything we can to create a welcoming, safe space, take any concerns you raise seriously, and be clear about what we are doing to address them.
  • Do what we can to produce a video/audio recording of the night, and share it both on our socials, YouTube and with you directly.

The following is a list of things we expect YOU to do, as part of our shared agreement. This is the minimum 'work' we think you need to do to contribute to making a good night.

If you don't think you can commit to doing one of the items on the list, please let us know separately and we can discuss it.

  • Always do your best to be nice, respectful and not rude - to Not a thing. and to all other people working on the night.
  • Understand that Not a thing. is a non-profit voluntary promotion, and not a paid day job - we can't always respond immediately.
  • Take part in the shared job of 'promotion' by sharing the provided assets in as many places as possible.
  • Turn up on or before the agreed time - or communicate as far in advance as you can if this isn't possible.
  • Provide a clear tech spec, agree what you are/aren't bringing, and then bring it on the night.
  • Watch as much of the other bands on the line up as you can, and ask others to do the same. (the unspoken agreement!)
  • Do your best on the night to make it a good night.

Not a thing. CIC.
Company No: 15685867

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