Best dollar to songs played ratio at gigs?

[BWB]

Me and an ex-bandmate got to reminiscing last night over some of the great and some of the crappy gigs that we played over the years and got to talking about the times where we got paid a pile of cash for essentially NOT playing ....

My favorite:

Country club gig scheduled for the same night as the 2001 SEC championship football game. We're in Knoxville; it's LSU vs. Tennessee. Cotillion dance. People way overdressed - we're a wedding band getting paid $1200 for this shindig. Supposed to play two 90 minute sets with a break in the middle.

Dinner starts...yadda yadda...room slowly empties out and we realize almost everyone there has gone into the lounge to watch football on the big screen TV. We elect to wait...halftime comes, we start playing -- we play 3 songs. Third quarter starts...UT is losing, people are grumbling, people start leaving. No one pays the band a thought. We never came back on.

3 songs, $1200, and I was home by midnight. $1200/5 = $240 = $80 per song for my share on that gig.

[iamoldschool]

Ouch! I was at that game. 50 yard line, first row, club level at the Georgia Dome.

My best payday was a $1,000 New Year's Party. 5 men, $200 per man, 4 10-song sets, that would be .......... $5 per song. But the Vols didn't lose.

[zachbass02]

$50 for 2 song writers night once...

[Mon Rominee]

Just played a wedding this past weekend.
All funk and 70's-80's pop covers.
Stayed the day at a gorgeous estate in Orleans, MA.

Cleared $400 take home, got a gourmet meal (salmon & chicken & fixins) and looked at hot women shake their asses.

2 15 song, 55 min sets. 13.3 bucks a song.

[cutthroatmolloy]

closest weve come to something like that is being booked to play 2 sets for $400 at a kind of party.
we set up, sit around waiting for people to show up, a few do, not many. the organiser comes over and says more people willl come soon, and says we can play just one set if we want for the same price... ok. so we start playing about an hour later, practically noone watches, we cut the set short, pack up, snaggle as many of the free beers as we can and go to my house to drink it.
haha.

kinda felt bad for the guy organising it though, he was cool.

[jonathan_matos5]

I get food when i play

[vision]

My best ratio was $100 for zero songs...I was supposed to play piano for a wedding, on just 2 songs, but at the last minute the singer changed up her songs and ended up using a cd so I didn't have to play at all.

[agreatheight]

Private party
2K for a three piece band
$667 my take
Minus $80 for tux rental
$587 net
Played 2 short sets (approximately 1/2 hour each)
I'll guess each set was 7 or 8 songs each, so I'll estimate 15 songs total
$39 bucks a song, give or take

[stoneboy26]

Did a show in a country town, drove about an hour or 2 to get there. the pub was packed with locals (biggest crowd there in about 5 years apparently). Power went out during the 2nd band, came back on after we had finished packing the cars again. Never even plugged a bass in, got paid around $100 each. Best pay day ever!!!

[Hawkeye]

Wedding gig, quintet of keys/vox, bass, sax, drums, guitar playing jazz standards. We had 4 sets of 12 each ready to go and 50 more in the alternate list. Reception got started late and dinner & speeches went longer than expected so we ended up playing only two sets. Accomodation was provided and $400 each, so that was $16.67 per song. Net wasn't as much because I had to take a vacation day from work and drive for four hours and we practiced for months to get all those songs down. Great money on a per-song basis but pretty brutal if I count it as an hourly wage. All-in-all though a very fun gig.

I think if you're not in the more competitive "rock cover band" genre, you can earn a bit better. Jazz rules.

[clewi1091]

worst for me was when i was in 8th grade. i had just started playing and joined a band. we played a new years eve dance at the skating rink. we played from 8 to midnight. 5 of us in the band and got 25 bucks to split 5 ways......lol. we loved it though.

[jsutton414]

$62.50 for 5 songs, or $12.50 a song.