Dude, I hardly think I was whining. I was telling a story about a venue pulling some shady crap and a guitar player that thinks he can speak for the band. The idea that I'm supposed to be a trooper and accept this situation in silence is ridiculous. I said before it is not about the money. The principle of the matter is the venue is reneging on an agreement. Surely this isn't the first time this has ever happened and it will happen again. The other principle is the guitarist accepting the raw deal without speaking to the band. Both will be dealt with. Something that seems to get lost on people here is the art of discussion. This message board "band management" would be an area where "band management" issues can be raised and discussed. Where people new to this business (like me) can hopefully learn from the experiences of others. Advice to the extent of "suck it up", "it happened to me, get used to it", "you should play for the music, not the money" is just bad advice. Getting screwed over happens, but it would be better to give useful advice on how to prevent it or discuss how you dealt with it.
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Renegotiated Pay
- Thread starter Egg250
- Start date
What part of my behavior isn't "pro"? The part where I said I would still play the show? The part where I said I would address this issue with my band mate?
Nope, couldn't be either of those. It must be the part where I criticize, in a public forum, those people who aren't conducting themselves in a professional manner, even though I didn't identify them. Suffering in silence is not unprofessional behavior, it only ensures that same crap will happen again from the same people. Unprofessional behavior would be, at the show, calling out Debbie for shorting us or calling out the guitar player for being weak and accepting that deal. Standing up for yourself is not unprofessional, it actually ensures people will treat you as a professional.
I think they are a 27 piece band, lol. JK.
I guess my point was if it had been agreed upon by the BL and the rest of the band agreed, reluctantly or not, then just do it, have fun, get through it and have a serious band meeting afterward.
Why would the venue ask the pay? What if your buddy told them &1050? Would you be playing for $950? Something isn’t right or I missed something in your post. Sean apparently is no longer associated with the venue?
In my world, $100 is meaningless. The principle of connecting with your bandmates before taking money out of their pockets is not. So yes they should decide as a group how to proceed. Nobody but the guitarist actually agreed to the new terms, and it's up to them to decide if they want to make a big deal out of it or not.
But there are a lot of red flags all over this situation. If somebody speaks for me without talking to me about it in a way that impacts my wallet, I'm going to be unhappy. If someone rolls over when being played by a club owner who's pretending they can't honor agreed-to terms, I'm also going to be unhappy. My degree of unhappiness may not be severe, but the mental note is made that I cannot trust any of these people to do an honorable deal correctly.
To me these are not little things, but yeah, you have to figure out what you're going to do, do it, and then discuss why the CF happened the way it did. Maybe in the end the band just decides the GP is a lousy negotiator/communicator and they remove that responsibility from him. Seriously, the way to avoid this was just to send a group text to the band members asking if the cut in pay would be OK with them. Problem solved.
I wouldn't call this a quittable offense, but if responsibility continues to rest with him, I would be tempted. It's disrespect for the band members coming from someone who, presumably, isn't even the bandleader, and it's disrespect for the band coming from the club. There's a lot about this scenario that is broken and needs to be fixed. At the very least they need to have a discussion about transparency in what is being agreed to. There is not a single contract point that I don't put out in front of my whole band when we negotiate and I make sure they all agree to every single thing before I take it back to the venue and say yes. That way nobody can complain when they don't like something that we all agreed to.
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Going forward (and this won't help for this show), I would register a "corporation name" and use that corporate name as the basis for a written, boiler-plate, contract.
ex; "Downtown Music Inc. DBA: Joe's Garage Band".
New band members/name change? "Downtown Music Inc. DBA: Joe's NEW Garage Band".
This makes the contract non-negotiable solely based upon your band's name.
As for the current situation: it's a big turd sandwich and you may just have to take a bite, this time. Get this new agreement in some form of writing.
Good luck!
ex; "Downtown Music Inc. DBA: Joe's Garage Band".
New band members/name change? "Downtown Music Inc. DBA: Joe's NEW Garage Band".
This makes the contract non-negotiable solely based upon your band's name.
As for the current situation: it's a big turd sandwich and you may just have to take a bite, this time. Get this new agreement in some form of writing.
Good luck!
Agreed: $100 divided by any number of band members is essentially a meaningless amount of money in the current inflated era. That's not going to make or break anyone's rent. It's about relationships and expectations. Going back to the money/music/hang trifecta, the music and hang in this scenario had better be pretty good at either $750 or $650 for the band. And if there's a band breakdown over an essentially meaningless amount of cash, there's probably some underlying issues to address that are going to impact music and/or hang. Especially if the gig is expected to be for a handful of drunks.
As a weekend warrior, I do it for the music and the hang and do not bring up money before the gig. Ever. After the gig I say "thanks." I occasionally get the chance to follow that up with "Holy smokes, that's a lot of money ... thanks!" - but that's never the motivating factor, which also means it's never a source of friction. I suppose this is a luxury.
P.s. I believe in handshake deals and trust. There's a place for written contracts, but they're only as valuable as your willingness to litigate breach. At the dollar values most of us work, it would be pointless, particularly if the other side is going to fight it or is judgment proof.
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Usually the audience won't be paying full attention for the 4 hours, the band is more of a background, but as a band yeah, I love playing but that gets very tiring.
As for the beer, I noticed that the more beer the audience drinks, the better we sound
(to them)
Quote: “Guitarist agrees and then tells us about it.”
Let’s be clear.
The Venue and the Band made a verbal agreement to perform for 4 Hours for $750.
Later, the venue contacted the Guitarist and said they could only afford $650. The Guitarist agreed.
So, the Guitarist has agreed to perform for 4 hours for $650. Its sounds like a good deal for the Guitarist. $650 just for him, all on his own.
Without consulting the Band that’s all that has been agreed to. Make that clear to the Guitarist and the venue as soon as possible, so that everyone knows.
If the venue wants the complete Band to turn up, they agreed to price for that and should honour the commitments they make. If they seek to not do so, or simply don’t, they are not honourable.
Why would anyone want to have anything to do with people like that?
If there’s one thing that to my cost, I have learnt through working in the field of music.
It’s that there are people who are plausible but highly manipulative. To get you involved they will appear to agree and acquiesce to everything right from the start.
Once you are committed, your anticipations and expectations along with those drawn in by advertisement etc. But if it suits them, they can suddenly introduce a change. A change they always knew at the beginning, you would not agree to. They get to where they want by salami slices. It is a modus operandi.
You either comfort and reward their manipulative behaviour by giving them what they want.
Or create discomfort and disarray in their midst by demonstrating to them that you will only fulfil the agreement that both parties have actually agreed to. Which is a legal necessary in contractual law, even verbal agreements.
Let the Guitarist who agreed to $650, have a good pay day, after all, he agreed to it.
And let the venue know that’s what they will be getting for their money. One guitarist for 4 hours.
I hope he’s exceptionally good!
Let’s be clear.
The Venue and the Band made a verbal agreement to perform for 4 Hours for $750.
Later, the venue contacted the Guitarist and said they could only afford $650. The Guitarist agreed.
So, the Guitarist has agreed to perform for 4 hours for $650. Its sounds like a good deal for the Guitarist. $650 just for him, all on his own.
Without consulting the Band that’s all that has been agreed to. Make that clear to the Guitarist and the venue as soon as possible, so that everyone knows.
If the venue wants the complete Band to turn up, they agreed to price for that and should honour the commitments they make. If they seek to not do so, or simply don’t, they are not honourable.
Why would anyone want to have anything to do with people like that?
If there’s one thing that to my cost, I have learnt through working in the field of music.
It’s that there are people who are plausible but highly manipulative. To get you involved they will appear to agree and acquiesce to everything right from the start.
Once you are committed, your anticipations and expectations along with those drawn in by advertisement etc. But if it suits them, they can suddenly introduce a change. A change they always knew at the beginning, you would not agree to. They get to where they want by salami slices. It is a modus operandi.
You either comfort and reward their manipulative behaviour by giving them what they want.
Or create discomfort and disarray in their midst by demonstrating to them that you will only fulfil the agreement that both parties have actually agreed to. Which is a legal necessary in contractual law, even verbal agreements.
Let the Guitarist who agreed to $650, have a good pay day, after all, he agreed to it.
And let the venue know that’s what they will be getting for their money. One guitarist for 4 hours.
I hope he’s exceptionally good!
BobDeRosa
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I'm no lawyer, but I'm not sure a contract would have helped in this case because of the significant changes, like the name of the band.
And we all need to remember that booking bands is far from the most important thing that venues do. In this case, they've got a campground to run; in other cases, they're running a restaurant, club, festival, or whatever. When your primary attention is elsewhere, lots of stuff can fall through the cracks. I'm not saying that the reduction in pay was right, but a little understanding goes a long way.
And we all need to remember that booking bands is far from the most important thing that venues do. In this case, they've got a campground to run; in other cases, they're running a restaurant, club, festival, or whatever. When your primary attention is elsewhere, lots of stuff can fall through the cracks. I'm not saying that the reduction in pay was right, but a little understanding goes a long way.
Ok it's pretty clear that there were certainly issues of clarity as to what was originally booked. But allow me to play devil's advocate just for the hell of it.
I booked Band A to play a gig for 750.
Band A has now split and a couple of the original members have formed Band B.
The newly formed/named Band B are offering to play the gig in place of the non existent Band A
Why does Band B expect to be paid the same as Band A? They are not the band I booked and being new I have no idea if they are any good or will bring a following.
Until Band B get out there and perform, who's gonna know if they're worth 250 let alone 750.
I booked Band A to play a gig for 750.
Band A has now split and a couple of the original members have formed Band B.
The newly formed/named Band B are offering to play the gig in place of the non existent Band A
Why does Band B expect to be paid the same as Band A? They are not the band I booked and being new I have no idea if they are any good or will bring a following.
Until Band B get out there and perform, who's gonna know if they're worth 250 let alone 750.
God, everybody's such a hardass on line. I have to assume that you're either not so hardass IRL or you don't have a functioning band.
Anyone with any experience in life would understand that hearing one view of a story (especially from someone who's involved and upset) is rarely accurate and rarely fair.
Maybe whoever agreed to the 750 had no idea that it was way over the norm... and 650 is still high but she was trying to be reasonable considering the circumstances... I mean there are so many other aspects of this that we can't know, and shouldn't assume.
Around here, $100 per man is typical, and $125 happens occasionally, and that's for 3-4 hours.
I'd really like to know what's standard where the OP lives, and not corporate gigs- campground gigs are just not huge, stressful affairs.
Anyone with any experience in life would understand that hearing one view of a story (especially from someone who's involved and upset) is rarely accurate and rarely fair.
Maybe whoever agreed to the 750 had no idea that it was way over the norm... and 650 is still high but she was trying to be reasonable considering the circumstances... I mean there are so many other aspects of this that we can't know, and shouldn't assume.
Around here, $100 per man is typical, and $125 happens occasionally, and that's for 3-4 hours.
I'd really like to know what's standard where the OP lives, and not corporate gigs- campground gigs are just not huge, stressful affairs.
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Always, that's the first thing to do.
I've renegotiated deals in the past, and as long as they are favorable for both parts that's the correct thing to do.
But, you need to have some kind of contract that will cover you in case of any inconvenience, like this one...
JeezyMcNuggles
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- Feb 23, 2018
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Or no problem, just the $100 comes out of the guitarist’s pay. And certainly not just reparations of a 12 of Keystone Light for the band.
I took that post to represent three things: 1), there's really not that much difference in terms of how much is being earned per hour, and 2) the idea of knocking the play time from 4 to 3 hours isn't even close to proportional with the pay reduction, and 3) therefore, just play the gig already.
Pretty good insight, really.
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