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Live band er..... how much to charge?

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Pbassred

Feb 21, 2004
755
7
65
Hatfield, Herts, UK
#1
Before I even went pushing our Demo, Someone put it on at a party and I immeadiatly got offers for 3 gigs :hyper:

I hadn't even thought what to charge. How much do Collages and pubs pay for originals ( this is real fun Reggae)? How much difference does having you own PA system make? Let's pitch it at audiences of 100 - 500, Around London.
 
#2
You'll probably find that most pubs want the band to carry all the risk and have the band just take the door takings ( or a percentage thereof).

The pubs who DO pay an actual fee will be looking at between £200 - £400.

It will be useful to have your own PA rig but it will involve you in more physical work as alot of the venues you are looking at may well have their own house systems (good or bad :D ) and it will be your choice whether to use them or your own more familiar rig.

Colleges/Unis are a different kettle of fish entirely and what they pay is really as long as a piece of string, although they do tend to book through Agencies only so that they have some come back if the band fails to deliver on the agreement. They do always look after the acts though, which can make a very pleasant change from being treated like some sort of inconvenience. ;)

Good luck!
 
#3
hard to say. what will the market bear?

Generally, we played for less the first time in a bar, but when they want us back, we won't play for less than $600 in a bar, and $1000 for a private party.

But if you are decent around here, the market will support those figures.

But yeah when we were starting out, we were playing for $250, $300, ANYTHING to get some experience.

We played for the "door only" only once and we got gipped. We would never do that again.
 
#5
Pbassred said:
Before I even went pushing our Demo, Someone put it on at a party and I immeadiatly got offers for 3 gigs :hyper:

I hadn't even thought what to charge. How much do Collages and pubs pay for originals ( this is real fun Reggae)? How much difference does having you own PA system make? Let's pitch it at audiences of 100 - 500, Around London.
Click to expand...
Are you guaranteeing an audience of 100-500 or just hoping they'll turn up? My recent experience with Lovesjones (who I've just left, albeit quite amicably) is that there isn't a set rate - you'll have to shop around and see what kind of deals you can set up.

Our best paid gigs were functions - private parties in garden marquees out in the country, weddings, etc. Having a PA was a boon, because hiring one (or, even worse, relying on the event organisers to hire one) always turned out to be a hassle.

In pubs and clubs, we got the best results when we ran the event and kept most or all of the door money. Figure out your overheads and minimum reasonable profit, come up with a suitably pessimistic figure for how many people might come along and work out what ticket price will cover that. That allowed us to pay for a lot of rehearsals and a couple of decent recordings.

The lowest return was playing as part of a bill organised by promotions organisations. For example, one place charged £6 on the door or £5 in advance but how much the band got back depended on how many people you had through the door, clearly signed up as coming to see you... towards the end of our run there, we once got about £13, since we'd only got about twenty of our friends to fork out for yet another chance to come and see us and no-one else had even been organised to join us on the bill. Not good for an 8 piece band and a rip-off for our mates as well. Another place offered £25 / musician up to a limit of £125 for providing music from 10:30pm until 2:30am. :eyebrow:

So, lots of different deals out there (and you've got to decide what's acceptable for you).

Wulf
 
#6
wulf said:
The lowest return was playing as part of a bill organised by promotions organisations. For example, one place charged £6 on the door or £5 in advance but how much the band got back depended on how many people you had through the door, clearly signed up as coming to see you... towards the end of our run there, we once got about £13, since we'd only got about twenty of our friends to fork out for yet another chance to come and see us and no-one else had even been organised to join us on the bill. Not good for an 8 piece band and a rip-off for our mates as well. Another place offered £25 / musician up to a limit of £125 for providing music from 10:30pm until 2:30am. :eyebrow:
Click to expand...

Holy crap, talk about shady business tactics!
 
#7
Indeed! I wouldn't jump to play at either place again. In fact, the only reason I'd consider it would be if it was a chance to jam around with some friends. I certainly wouldn't be in it for the money and there'd have to be a compelling reason for me to invest my time.

If you can be sure of getting a reasonable size crowd, then a lot of pub landlords seem happy to let you use their space for free; fifty extra people, each buying a drink or two throughout the evening, is a good boost to their profits and effectively free advertising for them if you're doing the promotion and put on a show that keeps the regulars happy as well.

Wulf
 
#8
Pbassred said:
How much do Collages and pubs pay for originals ( this is real fun Reggae)?
Click to expand...

When we were kids, my sister would make collages all the time. Well, she was in high school, and she would do a New Kids on the Block collage, or something like that. Girly stuff, but, she didn't pay much for it. Poster board, an issue of Tiger Beat, some glue, sparkles, colored markers ...
 

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