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We are based south of London and will generally travel up to two hours from there. Most of our work is within London, Kent, Surrey, East Sussex, West Sussex, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Suffolk, Berkshire and surrounding counties. We will always consider engagements further afield – please contact us.
Because of the way the band is set up, the space required actually does not differ with the 7/8 piece line up. Most of the room is taken up by compulsory instruments such as drums, keys, bass & guitar. The horn section & singers slot in at the front of the band taking up hardly any more room.
To give you an idea, an ideal space for us would be 6m x 3m. If you can give us more than that, great! We can also compact down to about 3/4m x 2m. If in doubt, please contact us and we are quite happy to speak with the venue.
Bare Groove is self contained with professional sound desk, speakers, lighting, sound engineer, £5 million Public Liability Insurance and PAT certifications. The size of our standard equipment is competent enough to perform at venues for an audience of up to 200 persons - (additional lighting and sound can be hired in at very good rates through a reputable company which we use – see on links page).
We also supply all the recorded music before, between and after the live sets to negate the extra cost of a DJ. We do also have our own DJ who can come along to play through to the early hours if you wish – just let us know on your enquiry form. If you require extra sound systems for background music, ceremonial music or microphones for your speeches, these too can be provided – just ask.
Generally, we do not use staging mainly to keep costs down, but we would be on the same level as you and your guests, all of us having fun!! If you would like the band to be on a stage (and there is no staging at the venue), this would need to be provided by yourselves.
We try to keep our costs down and pass these savings onto you so we do not generally send anything out in the post to potential clients. We are environmentally conscious and communicate via email to reduce paper trails. We have tried to design our website to include everything you may need to know about the band.
If you are a venue and would like to have an information pack to show to prospective clients, we can supply this to you upon request.
Most of our performances at are for paying clients (weddings, birthday parties, corporate events etc) and so restricted to the client and their guests. We do occasionally play at public venues (festivals, pubs & clubs) and will publicize these on the home page of our website, or you can follow us on facebook, to receive updates and notification of upcoming gigs.
We do STRONGLY RECCOMMEND that you hear a band live before booking one from the internet. Most bands upload studio recordings of their tracks to a website which sound fantastic; but this sound cannot always be reproduced live. If you do wish to hear us, we have uploaded live tracks for you to listen to. If you still want to meet the band and hear firsthand what we are like, but we do not have an upcoming show, you are very welcome to come and hear us rehearse in South London – just ask us.
We work closely with a huge pool of high quality musicians across the country. We have well rehearsed 'deps' who are ready to stand in at the last minute should an emergency occur. We can guarantee that the standard of the band will not falter should this be the case.
Ideally the band will need 90 minutes to set up and thoroughly sound check to ensure the best performance. We understand that timings can run tight on the day so, if needed, we can minimize set up to an hour. Please ensure that when planning your event, you allow enough time for this, as a decent set up is vital to the band providing you with the best entertainment possible.
Please let us know if there is not enough time for the band to set up early evening – especially for weddings where the wedding breakfast is held in the same room as where you will have your reception and evening entertainment. Logistically, it may be easier for the band to set up prior to the wedding breakfast (please specify this on your enquiry form)
Sound limiters read bass frequencies above everything else. This usually means the rest of the band can be incredibly loud but as soon as the bass guitar and bass drum kicks in, the power is likely to cut, at whatever volume. Basically, if you are booking any kind of band, we wouldn't advise booking a venue with a sound limiter as they really do lower the tone quite a bit - it is difficult for any musician to get a good sound with such low bass levels. However, this is not an ideal world, and we understand that a sound limiter will probably come last to watch out for on your list of venue criteria! We will, and have played at a multitude of venues with sound limiters; you'll just have to be prepared for a bit of a volume drop!
The band may have been travelling to your event for up to 4 hours and in the interest of getting to you in the best time possible, may not have had a chance to stop. Once we have arrived at the venue, we will launch straight into set up and sound check and performing the first set usually comes shortly after that. Travelling and gigging is usually an exhausting process and without proper food and drink, the band will not be able to perform at their best and they have a long night ahead! For this reason, we kindly ask that you think of us when organising refreshments. We don’t expect a three course meal, just something to keep us going. We want to be able to give you the best show possible!