Booking Infos

Do you really want to book me? Are you sure about this?

It’s not common to ask back this way, I know, I should sell me to you and tell you I’m the best musician for your money, but really, this is not how I roll.

Look, if you are here you probably know enough about my music to see, that I am an outsider in psychedelic trance. What I do is not mainstream, nor is there really a market for my music at psychedelic trance parties. I have been doing this for 20 years and my experience in the last 15 years is, that my live sets are not compatible with the majority of psychedelic trance crowds.

When I play live a lot of people are not dancing, they stand around bored, they leave the dancefloor and some simply stare at me with an expression that can’t be good. Over and over I tell this to organizers, over and over organizers tell me that their party is different and over and over it happens again and again. It’s frustrating.

It’s frustrating especially since I always took this as a reason to improve my music in sophistication and originality as much as I can, while blaming myself and the quality of my music for the lack of success on dancefloors. However, it turns out, the more sophisticated and original my music has become, the worse the problem has become.

At the same time however I have more and more success and fans on the internet, sites like ektoplazm, more people are listening to my music, are sending positive feedback to me and are appreciating my work. So what is up here?

I have no idea, but it seems like my music is provoking quite polar reactions.

The majority of people on psychedelic trance festivals (Some exceptions occur, for example Boom 2008) don’t react very positively to my music.

A minority however reacts very very positively. At my live sets I usually observe maybe 10-20% of people are having a really good time and appreciate what I do. I’m deeply grateful for those people, you people, it is for you that I make my music and do live sets.

Unfortunately 10-20% is not enough to create a positive dynamic on a dancefloor and also I truly respect the other 80% who want something else for the money they payed, I’m a negative factor for them and I don’t want that.

Therefore I ask you organizers: Do you really want to book me? Do you really think you will have an audience which can click with me?

I don’t ask for all of them, but I think that 50% should at least like what I do. Not even love, but like. Are you sure I’am worth the money and the plane ticket? Really, please think about this and please don’t book me for a minority. This is not how dancefloors work.

Maybe you are making an oldschool goa party and think you are my best bet? Maybe, but see, while a lot of oldschool goa is melodic and my music is strongly influence by it, oldschool goa is mostly not emotional in the way my music is.

It is the very dense, deep, wicked emotionality of my music that confuses people. You might click with that, but most people at parties are careful not to tap into those emotions. Some because they go to parties exactly to not have emotions, others fear the emotionality could be inauthentic, kitsch or just leave them in bad place.

Bottom line is, the style of the party is not especially important: I really mostly only work in a place where people are generally open and trustful towards music as well as interested in feeling emotions.

Most Psychedelic Trance people are not like that. They like the same formulas, they like the same music they already know, they even like the same melodies and moods over and over, they like a 25 year old melody in which they trust being remixed a 100 times, but they don’t like to have to trust in a new melody.

To psychedelic trance people my music is odd, strange, weird, out of place. Or, maybe my music is just very bad, I myself think so very often, which is why I work on it as hard as I do. I really don’t know why you are even reading this, let alone consider booking me.

But, if you really want to book me, it makes sense to place me in a lineup with other musicians who do music like me. To be honest. I can only think of Terrafractyl and DJane Yade who have a similar audience.

Still want me?

Bellow is the fairest way I could think of the calculate a fee / expenses. Please note, that I make music for free and I play it for free. But I do not travel for free. It’s precious time that I lose for other projects, I need to be compensated for it.

To Book SubConsciousMind for a live-gig the following info is important:

  1. Play duration is a minimum of 90 Minutes. Maximum 180 Minutes.
  2. Play time has to be suitable for the kind of music SubConsciousMind is making.
  3. Expense for food and drinks have to be provided from the moment SubConsciousMind leaves the door at home until he returns home.
  4. Expense for traveling has to be provided.
  5. If SubConsciousMind stays over night, a place to sleep has to be provided.
  6. The CO2 caused by flying in a plane has to be compensated with myClimate.org.
  7. Flights have to be organized by the event-organizer, 4 weeks before the event the latest.
  8. The time from the moment SubConsciousMind leaves the door at home until he returns has to be compensated by an hourly rate. Festivals visited by SubConsciousMind as a guest anyways are an exception. An individual fee can be agreed on. (Boom, SUN, Connection, Lost Theory, ZNA).
  9. The time for the live set is free of charge.
  10. The event-organizer has to be aware that SubConsciousMind lives in Switzerland where cost of living, (transport, rent, insurance etc.) is among the highest of the world. Thus the hourly rates might seem very high in other parts of the world.
  11. The time for creating the music is free of charge.
  12. Travel and food expenses, hourly rate for traveling and compensation for myClimate have to be transfered 2 weeks before the event the latest.
  13. SubConsciousMind has to leave home 3.5 hours before flight time and will return home 2.5 hours after flight arrival. Therefore 6 hours have to be added to every travel by plane.
  14. Airport Basel or Zürich

Expense for food and drinks:

Food and drinks while travelling is billed 3 Euro per hour.
Food and drinks while on site is billed 2 Euro per hour or has to be provided.
If food and drinks are provided by the event-organizer: The food has to be vegetarian. Non-chlorinated water is enough for drinks.

Expense for travelling:

The travel from home to the airport and back by train costs 80 CHF (70 Euro).
If travel to some place is by car the costs for the car are charged 0.50 CHF per km (insurance, repairs, petrol, use of car all included).
Expenses for flights or trains have to be payed by the event-organizer.

Hourly rate:

Even though it is to the disadvantage of SubConsciousMind, the hourly rate is dependent on the country of the event.
The hourly rates are as follows:
Switzerland and all commercial events: 60 CHF / hour
Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands, UK, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finnland: 35 Euro / hour.
The rest of Europe and USA and Canada: 30 Euro / hour.
The rest of the World: 25 Euro / hour.

Calculation Examples

Example 1: booking in Lissabon Portugal, direct flight departure Saturday 16.00, Flight Return Sunday 16.00. Set duration 2h.

Calculation:
Time to be compensated: 24 hour + 6 hours – 2 hours = 28 hours
Resulting fee: (Portugal 32 Euro / hour): 28 hours x 32 Euro= 896 Euro
Flight CO2 compensation: 17 Euro (myClimate.org)
Expense for train to Airport: 70 Euro
Expense for food and drinks while traveling: 6 hours (train and airport) + 6 hours (Flights) = 12 hours -> 12 hours x 3 Euro = 36 Euro
Expense for food and drinks while on site: 28 hours – 12 hours = 16 hours -> 16 hours x 2 hours = 32 Euro

Total fee to be payed to SubConsciousMind (except flight): 896 + 17 + 70 + 36 + 32 = 1051 Euro.

Example 2: booking in Zürich, Switzerland.

Calculation:
Time to be compensated: 2.5 hours drive time, 1.5 hour before, 1.5 hour after the gig (arriving, parking, preparations etc.) = 2.5 h + 3 h = 5.5 hours
Resulting fee: (Switzerland 60 CHF / hour): 5.5 h x 60 CHF = 330 CHF
Expense for car (200km roundtrip to Zürich): 200 km x 0.5 CHF = 100 CHF
Expense for food and drinks while traveling: 2.5 hours x 3 Euro = about 10CHF
Expense for food and drinks while on site: 3 hours x 2 Euro = about 8 CHF

Total fee to be payed to SubConsciousMind: 330 CHF + 100 CHF + 10 CHF + 8 CHF = 448 CHF.

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