Credit: Music Towers

Festival & Concert season is in full swing and a few of us are on the blag again. The feeble excuse to ourselves that don’t earn enough is holding fast. A few phonecalls have gone to that Glastonbury gully sucker we once snogged. Time is getting on and you are getting desperate, crawling the walls for a sniff of entry. It used to be easy? Is it me or are guest lists harder these days? Where did all go wrong?

Over the years an unspoken etiquette of requesting guestlist has emerged. It is likely you have fallen foul to it. Serial offenders probably have lost friends, collegues and lovers over these rules and wondered why.

Music Towers is here to help - so stop the second guessing. If you have ever asked for guestlist or plan on doing just adhere to these simple guidelines and you should be ok.

The Do's & Don'ts of Guestlist requests

1. Don’t ask on the day – Don’t ask 6 months ahead – about 2 weeks before a regular gig or one month before a festival is a respectable time.
2. Do tidy your desk. talk to your receptionist. But don't say "the tickets never arrived" if someone in your office has signed for them.
3. Don't say "how many am I entitled to?" as the honest answer is "none"
4. Do go! If you can’t, try to warn them before – this person might have gone out of your way or got someone else shoved off the list if you don’t - expect some blue air to be said about you - probably not to your face.
5. Don’t assume or ask every week. A couple of times a year is just about acceptable.
6. Do only ever say ‘just me’ or ‘me + 1’.  Maybe if it is a birthday/wedding/leaving do/funeral only attempt to push the number.
7. Don’t under any circumstances ever ever ever say ‘As many as possible’. You will be labelled a barbarian.
8. Do - Offer to Pay, insist if the entry if it is under a fiver.
9. Don’t expect to be given an AAA or an aftershow pass or table or VIP area pass. A guestlist is free entry to the show, any upgrades from there are only a bonus and usually reserved for people who have worked on the show in some capacity (and that includes gay favours).
10. Don’t ever give or lend your pass to someone else. This is a cardinal sin and the pain of Torqemada’s dungeon of fun is the punishment for such a breach. This is likely to get you and or your mate marched off site. UNLESS: It is the NME awards then you must use your pass to bring any and all troublesome characters as possible into the otherwise soulless event.
11. Do try and return the favour. This person saved you money and possibly sorted entry into a money couldn’t buy show. If the only time they ever speak to you it is because you want something you are very likely to find a lot of guestlists ‘are closed’. Maybe take them out for dinner to say thankyou. Or give them some sports/theatre/cinema tickets. Fuck it buy them a Woolworths voucher you cheapskate.
12. Do Say ‘Thank you’ afterwards – a txt or email to say thanks will insure your future lists requests are known to be appreciated.
13. Don’t ever Sell your pass – if the last Don't was a cardinal sin this one is a breaking of the space time continuum. And yes the entire music industry might be based on cocaine, VAT fraud and brown paper bags but selling your guestlist or pass will get you banished and you be calling those musty yellow bucktoothed touts friends.
14. Do you realise ‘Do you know who I am’ is ‘Do you know who I think I am?’