Based on many years running a space in London, Jimmy Mulvihill at Bally Studios offers his thoughts on the small improvements a space can make to improve their service.
I’ve been running Bally Studios since 2005. Before that, the studios traded as Sync City Studios. When I took over, the key to the studio was left with the bands using the studios. Staff members set up the PA system and then went home, after asking clients to lock up and shove the key under the office door at the end of the session. If the bands needed any help or cups of tea during their sessions they were out of luck.
On my first day of ownership I cleaned up filling six large industrial bin bags. Vacuuming left tracks on the grey carpet to the point where I could spell my name. Six of the 10 light bulbs in studio 2 were blown. One bulb was a 150 watts which generated enough heat it doubled as a heater.
My team and I worked 15 hours that first day. We were rewarded by the reactions of band members when they came in to rehearse. Even the smallest of improvements was noticed. And so began “the law of diminishing returns”, where as you increasingly improve the space and service, eventually the rewards become less evident. Expectations were raised.
The bands using the practice rooms brought their own backline. This got us out of a hole but limited the number of bands we could attract. I sold a Gibson Les Paul Black Beauty guitar, which I still miss even today, to buy a Premier Cabria drum kit and drum hardware. I spent £850 in the first week to attract bands that had ceased using the space because there was no useable drum kit. These three sessions earned us a paltry £168. That’s a 20% return on investment in one week. These additional sessions however generated cash for a studio that would otherwise have been empty.
Spare snare
The next few years were spent improving the studio bit by bit, investing money where needed. In the early days every penny spent made a difference. With three rooms and only three snare drums meant everyone had their own snare. But it left us open to pausing a band rehearsal when a snare skin needed replacing.
Buying that fourth drum snare meant we could quickly swap it out with a broken one allowing the rehearsing band to continue their session. We also eliminated the stress of needing to quickly fix the snare. The same benefit does not apply when I bought the 5th, 6th or even 10th snare drum. Having more snares is better, sure, but such improvements do not accrue as much as the purchase of the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd snare.
Pretty soon I was spending money to change equipment not necessarily to improve the stock. The cost of improvements needed to be balanced against an increase in the number of band sessions to pay for them. I reached the point where I needed to be more creative in how I improved our facilities.
Confession time
There were times when I would book a short session in a newly opened rehearsal space in London. Usually under the pretence of needing to test a new guitar amplifier, but really to take a look round. I visited 19 rehearsal spaces in London, seven as a band member, and 12 under the premise of “needing to test an amplifier”. I have never hidden the fact I booked sessions in other studios to get a perspective on Bally Studios. I paid for my session after all.
There were plenty of improvements I would have loved to incorporate into my studio during these reconnaissance missions. A communal area with a pool table, a licensed bar or even natural light in the office would have been great. Yet adding any improvements would have meant taking on more units within our host building. To cover the extra cost would mean we would have needed to increase the number of sessions by 25%-30%. This would have been difficult when we were at 93% capacity already.
Taking on more units to provide more practice rooms to cover an increase in sessions would also have meant going over the VAT tax threshold. This would mean passing on 20% to the cost of our studio prices to our clients to account for the purchase tax. Suddenly you are pricing yourself out of the market, not to mention the extra time needed to complete all the paperwork.
It would also mean having to improve a building we did not own that one day we may walk away from. These may not be great concerns if you own the building and are already VAT registered. You could keep on adding practice rooms so long as the demand is there. But we are not in that situation. Running a business at our level means making improvements within our physical limitations.
Still, there are plenty of simple improvements rehearsal spaces can offer bands. Here are my recommended nine improvements rehearsal studios can make.
1) Creating a Band profile spreadsheet
The best investment a rehearsal space can make is in extra planning, not spending extra money. Whenever a new band comes to us we add their details to an internal spreadsheet that lists as much information about the band as possible. This includes how many microphones they need, whether the drummer is left or right handed, what guitar amps are used, which practice room they prefer, and even from where they are travelling. This helps us to get the room ready for them before they arrive. We also let them know if there are any transport issues on the day of their session. If a band needs four guitar amps we grab ones not needed from other rooms.
The spreadsheet helps us plan. If swapping a couple of guitar amps over means each band gets one they prefer, it is two minutes of our time well spent. It helps band members to get more out of their session. Upon arrival the room is ready straight away with no need to spend 20 minutes quickly running around grabbing equipment for five bands all starting their session at the same time. A rehearsal space can make no better investment than a simple spreadsheet to record a band’s needs and preferences.
2) Communal WhatsApp messages
Few bands do this, but every band that comes to us has the option of starting a WhatsApp group with all their bandmates. Our studio mobile phone number is added to the group so any band member can book a rehearsal session via WhatsApp. The other band members can see the session has been confirmed instantly, without the need for more messages.
Putting all the communication between a band and the studio in one place cuts down on the need to pass messages on. Whether it be needing different equipment for their session, reminding band members they owe money, or sending receipts for sessions, group chats can make communication a whole lot easier.
3) Sanitizing microphones
In 2020 everyone suddenly begun wiping everything down with disinfectant spray. We started disinfecting our microphones the end of every session in 2007. The lips and tongue of a lead singer is going to touch a microphone for four hours, and the singer in the following session will do the same thing. Not only is it gross not to clean the mic, but an easy way to catch a virus. If the band's singer falls ill, the band may cancel their next session with us.
It costs us very little to buy enough disinfectant to clean every microphone every day. If you prevent one cancellation every two years then it pays for itself.
4) Drum spares in a box, and drum keys on a chain
Drum spares in a box started at Bally in April 2015, drum key on a chain started in March 2006. Many of our staff members are drummers, including our studio manager who is a drum teacher. It is important drummers can get good results from our drum kits, and that includes ensuring we have enough cymbal felts, wing nuts and hi hat clutches. However, if you have worked in a rehearsal studio you will know how often these things go missing. If a few bands pocket a few of them each day, the cost soon adds up.
We have used lagging insulation as drum cymbal felts and fish tank oxygen tubes as cymbal protectors. They have helped get us out of a bind, but they are not as good as the real thing. Giving each band a box of drum bits at the start of their session, and returning it at the end, means we can count each item to make sure nothing has gone missing. We save money on not having to replace drum bits, it helps to keep session prices low and drummers always get what they need. This way all the essential drum kit pieces are all together, and drummers are more conscious about what they borrow, and what they return.
5) Stage lights
We bought our stage lighting nearly a decade ago to help bands prepare for shows under “match conditions". I once had white gaffer tape on my guitar amps and pedals, with all my preferred settings written in red pen. During the first song of a gig, to my horror, when the stage lights went red it was impossible for me to see the red pen. I managed to stumble through it, but realised if I had rehearsed under stage lights in the practice room then that wouldn’t have happened. It was then the decision was made to invest in stage lighting.
A modest one-off investment was enough to fit all our practice rooms with basic stage lighting. Since then the cost of LED lighting has dropped dramatically. There is no reason for a rehearsal space to not install stage lights in their practice rooms. We have never had any problems with our stage lights and they make an attractive feature at a price we can absorb without raising our session prices.
We have thought about adding multiple lights to each room, maybe even a DMX controller. But we decided against it on the basis band members may spend more time fiddling with the lights and less time rehearsing.
Offering a standard LED light system with an in-built automatic lighting program means bands get a stripped down version of what they are likely to get live.
This comes without an extra cost or the time needed to work out how to use it. Mistakes are caught ahead of time, which is the whole point of a rehearsal session.
6) MP3 connectors on the mixing desk
We connect a cable with a headphone jack on one end and two mono quarter inch jacks the other end to a single stereo channel on the mixing desk. This allows band members to play tunes on their mobile phone through the desk while setting up/packing down. We use a cable tie to clamp down the cable so it cannot be removed. This has proved, at a small cost, a big benefit.
7) Availability calendars
There are companies happy to act as a middleman between rehearsal studios and their customers. They can take as much as a 12% fee offering bands to see what rehearsal sessions are available at a space.
We’ve spoken to some of these businesses that say that they offer the “latest technology” that allows them to do this, but here’a an alternative: Google Spreadsheets that are set to “view only”. It’s simple, it does the job, and it’s free as well.
8) Checking all plugs with socket testers, as standard
This is such a basic thing that it should be done in all studios as standard. But incidents such as London's Grenfell tragedy have shown us that nothing can be taken for granted. Important safety checks should be double and triple checked, and this is the easiest of them all.
For less than £10 you can buy an electrical socket tester that instantly reports if any wires inside a plug have come loose. We use two different testers to check on a regular basis all the electrical sockets in all our rooms. It takes five seconds to test each plug socket, ensuring our rehearsing bands are kept safe. It not only protects the band members themselves, but their equipment too.
If a rehearsal space can't supply a plug tester to a rehearsing band member wishing to use a power socket, you should start looking for a new rehearsal space sharpish.
9) Not using credit card machines
Most businesses are happy to take payments from their customers by credit/debit card. We don’t offer that option at Bally Studios due to the extra costs. When you take payments via a card reader, the money is going via a middleman company such as Visa or Mastercard. For most businesses it is a necessary cost so they will raise their prices by 5% to account for this and the convenience. By contrast, customers who pay for their sessions via bank transfer, direct from their bank to yours, pay no fees.
All the customer has to do is set the studio up as a contact on their bank account/banking app. We simply ask bands to put "Band-Name-Studio#-Date" in the “reference” section, making it easy to know who paid what for a session. It also provides instant notification the payment has been taken.
It is a wonder more spaces do not ask their customers to bank directly.
Adapted from an original piece first published on the Bally Studios kindly given permission by Jimmy - here.
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