“One More Cancellation and I Would Have Filed Bankruptcy”

This is an excerpt of my interview with trumpeter and entrepreneur Steve Baker. Steve founded the Bull City Syndicate, which does a lot of weddings, festivals and corporate events in the Raleigh/Durham area.

Steve was hit hard by the Covid lockdowns and opened up how they affected his business, to the point he was one cancellation away from filing bankruptcy.

To listen to the entire interview, and subscribe to the podcast, go to https://jamesnewcombontrumpet.com/stevebaker

His story, as well as many other trumpeter’s stories are on my mobile app. Click here to access the app.

James Newcomb: I know that you made your living performing, and then March of 2020 comes and all of a sudden the gigs just completely dry up and there’s no hope of any live gig for the foreseeable future. And we’re told it’s going to be two weeks and then two weeks turns into two months.

And now here we are a year and two months later, and there might be something that resembles a light at the end of the tunnel, but we still don’t know like that light kind of changes and it’s in its brightness. We just don’t know when exactly things are going to get back to normal.  So I would just like to know what was that like for you?

Steve Baker: When the whole thing started happening, the talks of  shutdowns, lockdowns, flattening, the curve, all those things and all the things that were necessary in order to do that began to hit our radar screen.

I obviously began to think about that in terms of the gigs that we had on the books. And then  obviously the secondary thing I’m going to think about is the earnings that I  derived from those performances. So it was a bit amusing at first when the first couple of weeks of lockdowns happened and we did in fact have to cancel some gigs.

 It was uncomfortable and we had to move.  We either had to reschedule, we had to postpone. And that was just something we had to do.

It wasn’t pleasant. It wasn’t fun, but it was just  a couple of weeks  maybe a couple of months. And then as we got into the couple of months, and as you can imagine, because the type of band that particularly that Bull City Syndicate is a being a private event, variety act we do a lot of corporate events. We do a lot of weddings. We do a lot of those types of events.  All of a sudden, now those venues are themselves just shutting down and there is no hope of doing anything during those actual lockdown time periods.

So now everybody’s rescheduling. So the whole industry, the whole private event industry is scrambling. So what’s happening now is obviously the people that  have hired venues are either, if they’re still wanting to try and go on, some people actually move their events across state lines. They did that  because  the states enacted their lockdowns at different periods.

So they would move their event and their day across a state line. And then all of a sudden that state would lockdown and boom, then we had to move it again. So all of a sudden the calendar became a nightmare, especially as it extended out.

And then all of a sudden you start running into clients that can’t postpone, they can’t reschedule. Oryou have multiple clients rescheduling on the same date. So then all of a sudden you just lose, you lose the opportunities, and this is money lost. This is money that’s not coming back. And then the next thing that happens is you get into the point to the point where, because we take security deposits on these, then you have clients asking for money back. So now not only are you not making money, but you’ve got to start giving money back.

The music business is full time.  You’re like an insurance agent, you’re living off of how many rescheduled dates you’re going to have, or how many refunds you’re going to have to do under the course of a normal year.

But when you get plopped into COVID lockdowns and those demands for return of security deposits happen over a 12, 14 month period, then you’re talking bankruptcy. So myself being a guy with, I have three bands of my own that I perform in, and those are my bands.

And those bands had all three of them  had bookings all the way into, from March of 2020 all the way deep into this year, 2021. And so we had to start seriously looking about at whether we were going to  file bankruptcy in order to just keep our stuff or we’ll find some other method to get by with it.

And I may be giving something away here to some other guys, which is fine if I can help somebody out with this statement. But here’s what I finally had to start telling my clients.  I finally started telling them, I said, look, here’s the bottom line. We’re at the point right now that if I get one single letter from the attorney of a client demanding a refund of a security deposit, I’m filing bankruptcy the next day.

So you’re not going to get your money back.

On the other hand, if you’ll just work with me, when this thing comes back to live and we’re allowed to all gather together again, in large groups, we’re going to give you the best party you ever had.

So we had that exact circumstance. So the guy had booked us in May of 2020 for his wife’s 50th birthday party in Virginia Beach right on the beach, big  elaborate  party for his wife’s 50th birthday party.

And what ended up happening was is after we tried to move it a few weeks into the future. And then the lockdowns extended to over a year. And he came back to me and he asked me for a refund of his security deposit and I had to have that exact conversation with him, his name’s Chris.

And I said, Chris, here’s the bottom line. I just can’t do this. And I said, but on the other hand, if you will hang with me, when our turn rolls around and we’re legally allowed all gather together again and throw that party for your wife. It may not be her on her 50th birthday. It may be her 51st or 52nd. I don’t know. We’re going to give you one hell of a party and I’m telling you, we got out there and we did the show last weekend, actually it was last weekend.  He went online and he posted the most glowing five star reviews actually said he wished he could give him 10 out of 10 stars. And we laid it down. And those people were ready to party too.”

To listen to the full interview with Steve Baker, go to this link: https://jamesnewcombontrumpet.com/stevebaker