Music / the exchange
Exchange tangled up in UK-wide hoax by ‘fake band’
There are many factors threatening independent venues at the moment; but one thing you don’t expect to see is an elaborate hoax from a non-existent band.
Dubbed as an American had rock outfit, the band called Threatin had been booked to play the recently saved venue on Tueday as part of their UK tour.
In the eyes of The Exchange, Threatin were the real deal, complete with a label, PR company, promo videos and a decent online following.
is needed now More than ever
Despite being told by the promoter that they had sold more 180 advance tickets, on the night it rapidly became clear that something wasn’t right.
On their social media channels, The Exchange wrote: “There was no sign of the promoter. The singer told us that she wasn’t here and in Hollywood. This meant we didn’t have a ticket list and the venue hire hadn’t been paid.
“The singer and tour manager weren’t here at the time we opened doors, so we just had to wing it. Only an hour after doors, not one ticket holder had turned up and we couldn’t reach the promoter to discuss.”
Despite the lack of ticket sales, the hire fee did end up being reluctantly paid by the tour manager. The only guests in the empty venue came from the support band’s friends.
The singerless Threatin did eventually hit the stage playing to only the sound engineer, their manager and a few consoling support band members.
It quickly transpired in the days following that all other venues on the tour had the same experience and the band are merely fuelled by paid-for Facebook likes. All other bands on their record label don’t exist either.
The music videos are just made using stock footage cleverly obscured by logos and green screen.
It was a miserable night for The Exchange, as they summed up: “Venue hires themselves don’t cover all the costs of opening, especially when you put on enough staff and security to deal with 180 people. On top of that the equipment hire company and support bands walked away having not been paid.”
Although nobody could have seen this coming, the hoax does ask some interesting questions about how much faith promoters, journalists and fans should put into likes, followers and video hits. The music industry is often driven by such statistics rather than actual artistic merit.
Our top newsletters emailed directly to you
