David Gray, Bono's Sunglasses and Me The flyer for the charity gig But I also learned that January is a hard month to sell tickets, because everybody's broke after Christmas, and payday doesn't come "til the end of a long month. And February isn't much better. In freezing offices, huddled around heaters, I learned about bottom line costs and narrow profit margins, watching overheads mount as backline hire, stage hands and security staff were added in, and came to dread questions like "have you got public liability insurance?" One initially attractive space started off with a price of £400 and wound up, with all additions, costing closer to £7000. When I expressed concern about selling out a particularly capacious venue, worrying how stars might feel playing to a half empty room, a chorus of voices responded, "We'll dazzle them with lights!" To complicit laughter, I was informed that you never tell artists the venue isn't sold out. They'd get nervous. You just turn the lights in their eyes so bright they can't see past the front row. The mood amongst backroom professionals was friendly and bluff, with a shared comical disdain for the musicians people pay to see. "I bloody hate artists," one venue manager told me. That's why I employ people to keep them away from me. The hardest thing, for me, personally, was opening my contacts list to call stars and managers that I have at least a tentative relationship with. I meet a lot of musicians in sometimes intense and intimate circumstances, making a brief yet strong connection, but there is always a necessary quality of distance, because I have to reserve the right to criticise. So while particular artists may have appreciated a good review at a crucial moment in their careers, I certainly don't feel anyone owes me a favour. Yet that is exactly what I was asking for: artists to lend me their time and talent for no remuneration. What's more, big stars are constantly asked to do this, fielding dozens of charitable requests a week. So I prevaricated and procrastinated, carefully phrasing a diplomatic approach that facilitated friendly refusal. Turns out that I was worrying about nothing. Most people do have a charitable instinct, and if they can help, they will. Musicians who couldn't appear offered donations, or other assistance. Bono sent me a pair of his sunglasses for a rock'n"roll raffle. By my third call, I had a headliner, a major rock star whose enthusiastic response took me aback: "I love these kind of things. Is it all right if I just turn up and do an acoustic set? One artist led to another, and I began assembling an eclectic bill, effectively a coalition of the willing. Everything was slightly provisional, however, dependent upon touring and recording schedules. We took a venue and pencilled in a date but I felt like a juggler desperately trying to keep a dozen balls in the air at the same time. Then, one nerve wracking Friday, I dropped them all. With two weeks to go til showtime, we lost our venue, lost the date, and lost our headline star. I was almost relieved to embrace failure. I had been at it for weeks and it was causing sleepless nights, when all I could think about were the details of the show, tossing one possibility after another around my fevered brain. Then David Gray's manager called. He'd been on holiday and missed earlier attempts to contact him. What's this all about then? Trying to save Africa with Chinese medicine? You've obviously gone completely mad! We got a new venue, a new date, and a new bill. My sons were dragooned into designing posters and web fliers, hundreds of emails were pinging about between the charity, the venue, our live events producer and artist managers, contracts were drawn up, databases bombarded. A friendly PR sent out a message announcing the show, with a warning not to expect much of a response. Every time I send out a press release, it's like that scene in Star Trek, when they fire Spock's coffin out into the inky blackness and watch it getting swallowed up by the void. I felt a twinge of guilt, thinking of all the emails I routinely ignore. Now all I can do is wait in a state of helpless tension. I keep clicking on the Moxafrica ticket site to see whether the counter has moved. It's worse than Googling yourself but I can't leave it alone, always wondering what else can we do to shift tickets? It's a beautiful venue with only 700 capacity and we have a magical bill of fantastic singer-songwriters and great bands doing unplugged sets. So go on, put me out of my misery. It's all for a good cause. And did I mention you can win Bono's sunglasses?