Andy

Well, it took a bit of work, but we now have all of the "die-hards" who said they would "Never use IEMs" on IEMs now and they are loving it.

Here's what worked in our case:
1. Get the best gear you can afford. We got the new Sennheiser 2000 series IEMs with one of those fancy-shmanzy (directional?) antennas. The band bought UE-11s for each player with custom moulds. They wore the IEMs for a while with their iPods to make sure they fit well and were comfortable.
2. Use a virtual-soundcheck setup to allow time to build "perfect" mixes for each player. Use the virtual soundcheck system to let the player hear their mixes before they play a note. Let the player play and sing along with the Virtual Soundcheck tracks and see how they like their mixes.
The band were "Blown Away" by how amazing their mixes sounded. The extended low end of the UE-11 made it so that even the bass player didn't need an amp or kick from the sidefill. I turned off his amp while he was playing, he never noticed. The drummer doesn't need or want a thumper either.

One player who was particularly hard to convince, after just one show said. "Why the hell didn't I do this years ago?".

The roadblock I think for a lot of players is the 1st time they try IEMs they weren't using quality equipment, proper moulds and their mixes weren't dialed in. If that's what they think IEMs sound like, then of course they're not going to be excited when the idea is brought up with them again. All they remember is how crappy it was the 1st time.

Now to clearing the stage of wedges and all that cabling!