Surviving a Pay-to-Play Environment (P2P)

[two fingers]

Not trying to pick on you but 'for the door' isn't good enough. a band provides a service (entertainment), they should get a guaranteed rate for that service. the bartender, waitress, cook, etc, all get paid for being there, the food and booze vendor gets paid regardless of how many people the owner gets into his club, why should the entertainment be any different?

Because in many situations the owners feel as though they could profit more without the band.

Here are some (straight out of my butt).

Owner hires a band and gets 200 people to show up. He pays two guys to work the door, one extra bouncer, two extra waitresses to handle the extra crowd. He profits $600 that night on door and booze after paying the extra help.

Owner doesn't hire a band. He plays music over the system he already owns. He pays 5 less employees because of reduced crowd and no cover charge. He profits $700 off of booze and paying less wages.

Is this real? It doesn't matter. It's the perception of many club owners. I know this because they have told me as much. So, they see live music as something that both the owner AND the band gamble on. They think "Why should I guarantee THEM a certain amount when I could lose my butt that night. AND I could probably make just as much without them, if not more?"

Again, it's perception.

I think it's crap and makes their venues lifeless. But I don't have any skin in their game either.

 

[Vlad5]

Paying to play makes you a chump, imo.
Either do it for free because you love it, or negotiate something equitable and fair and get paid.
But paying a club owner for the 'privilege' of appearing at their venue (ie, supplying them with entertainment and paying them for it), is just a sucker move.

Also, if you're an original band, play your originals only.
This way people will get to know you, not how well you can copy someone elses good ideas.
If you're a cover band, then cover and play the hell out of those tunes.
Either way, stick to your shtick.
Just a thought.

 

[Shoteiro]

Wow..With my band thought that all the P2P, club's that don't allow original music or only accept it "for the door" or with the condition of carry crowd was only here, Antofagasta, a city very far away from country capital, Santiago, where there's a lot of clubs and seems to be more opportunities, but it seems that in the whole world the situation is the same.

Here are 3 clubs that accept live bands...one is little, about 30 people of capacity and a crappy acoustic and pay about $40 bucks for the band, the second the same, but for 50 people, and the last one is for 200 people, but the owners kept the 20% of the entrance fee and the whole show must be organizated by the bands (sound guy, PA, door, etc), all the booze is for the owner, and the rest is divided between the bands.
The city is about half milllion people, all the non-live-music clubs are always full, the ones with music, only the fans, friends and a few people who wants live music...Cover bands have better scenearios here and better pay, about $40-$50 per member

It seems that people nowadays prefer listen music they already know in their homes instead of live music..

Crappy reality

 

[RustyAxe]

With those 50 fans, you could probably find a place that would love to have that draw. I could think of places where those 50 fans would give the place an increase in clientele of 40-49.

I think I've played 'em!

 

[whatizitman]

It's my opinion that the period of approx. 1920-1980, when it was possible for a significant number of people to make reasonable money playing live popular music, is an anomaly in human history, which existed for a number of reasons, and which may not re-occur.

THIS. It's not weekend warriors decreasing the value of music. It's not change in drinking limits. It's not clubs exploiting musicians. All of these things play into it, but they are not the sole reasons. The market has changed, period. You can blame MTV and youtube as much as anything else.

Feel free to unionize, picket bars, yell from the roof tops to every musician that they should be pro or not play, etc... Hang your hopes on the big resurgence of live music in Drinky Smoky Land. Do whatever you like. Just be prepared for the likelihood that things will never be what they once were.

 

[Big Heavy Bass]

I look at pay to play like this...If it's a chance to open for a really big act whose fans are your target demographic and by doing the gig you will gain a lot of new fans and it could be a big stepping stone then it is worth doing a pay to play, I look at it like paying for an ad in a paper or something. If it is anything thing less than that think of it like this....if you can sell say 50 tickets at say $10 a piece then you should be setting up your own show somewhere that you can take all the profits, control how long you play etc..

I remember calling a big club where I used to live an enquiring about opening for one of those one hit 80s metal bands. The lady on the phone never asked who or what we were just said "can you sell 150 tickets at $20 a piece?..you receive no money in return just the chance to play"...ha...if I could sell 150 tickets at that price why in the hell would I be giving you all that money!!!

 

[Charlzm]

I am in the Los Angeles area and play original music.

P2P rules all the "name" clubs here, though you can circumvent it in some venues if you have established a relationship with whomever is booking that night.

My P2P stories tend to go like this:

-We open for a name band (Fates Warning, Iron Butterfly, Gary Hoey) and easily sell all our tickets. We contact the booker and ask for more tickets at a more favorable rate since we have already done our part. We are told that any additional tickets will be at the same split with the venue; no discount. So why would we bust our humps to sell more tickets? Where's our incentive? No cut of the bar profits or any other form of payment. At one venue, we were allowed to shoot video as long as we were unobtrusive, which we were. One camera on a tripod, the other roving near the stage, We got decent video out of it.

-We get on the bill without a big name band. There are a certain number of tickets that need to be sold. When we sold all we needed to, it was the same story as above: more tickets are available, but they are not at a more favorable price to the band. These venues do not allow photography unless you pay a ridiculously high fee for a standard def line cut video they provide you or you pay an even higher fee to bring your own cameras in. No cut of the bar.

-Non P2P : poopy little venues for the most part with minimal PA and light and usually minimally skilled sound people. No money to speak of, though they might throw you some drink tickets. Some venues expect a certain draw, some do not.

The best non P2P club I played at shut down recently, so I"m not even sure where my band might play another show, if we decide to. It's a sea of tribute bands and cover bands out here, pushing out original bands in every venue, even the P2P ones on some nights.

We're thinking of renting a banquet hall or small-ish theatre (like for stage plays) or a large rehearsal room for our next show. Make our own pop-up venue for one show only, maybe get another band or two in on it if it makes sense.

 

[Jazz Ad]

My reponse to P2P is simple, I don't do it. I also make sure the practice is well known by potential customers.
There are way more efficient ways to promote original bands.

 

[Gideon352]

THIS. It's not weekend warriors decreasing the value of music. It's not change in drinking limits. It's not clubs exploiting musicians. All of these things play into it, but they are not the sole reasons. The market has changed, period. You can blame MTV and youtube as much as anything else.

Feel free to unionize, picket bars, yell from the roof tops to every musician that they should be pro or not play, etc... Hang your hopes on the big resurgence of live music in Drinky Smoky Land. Do whatever you like. Just be prepared for the likelihood that things will never be what they once were.

"Drinky Smoky Land" - Man, this cracked me up!!! Thanks!!!

 

[DwaynieAD]

Be willing to walk away. Can't stress that enough.

We always did it this way

Club: We want you to play
Us: We charge xxx.xx to play, we don't open, we dont close, we get xx minute set time
Club: We require 30 tickets to play
Us: We will sell tickets if we get half of the money from every ticket sold with no minimum
Club: That's more than touring bands make
Us: I'm sorry for them
Club: Some long speech about what it takes to "be successful" or "make it"
Us: Yeah no thank you
Club: Some long speech about caring about your music and what it means to be a musician
Us: No thank you
Club: Some long speech about "how it works"
Us: Please leave us alone

Club: (2 weeks later) do you wanna play same show as before
Us: Same speech as when initially contacted
Club: No ticket sales, offer money, etc.. Conceding to most terms.

 

[fishdreams]

There is a performance/rehearsal space (no bar, no drinks, listening to music on a folding chair is what you can do as a patron) here with a backline and very good grand piano. For a small monthly fee we get allotted a certain amount of hours a month. We can use those hours to either stage a rehearsal, a performance, or take advantage of the excellent acoustics to record ourselves - all up to us. While it caters to and focuses on modern classical and jazz, seems like a good alternative to me.

 

[9M2E]

My previous project was playing covers with older gents....now I am doing original material that is more my age/an exercise of finger Olympics that I enjoy and this is the crap were running into...PAY TO PLAY...MUST PRE-SALE tickets..ETC..and the bands get no pay period regardless of the amount of heads in there/how good the venue bar does. A cover gig we were at least splitting $350-$500 between four of us at the end of the night even if no one came out that night (im outside of buffalo NY and storms made this happen for us a few times over the years) now it's pay to be heard at a loss..

 

[spanndrew]

I'm in a local band in Atlanta. All originals. We say no to all pay to play schemes, so do all the other bands we know. We don't support pay to play shows by attending. In my opinion that's how you beat them.

 

[Kragnorak]

The key is to create partnerships. And when I say partnerships, it can't be a one and done deal. That's a transaction, not a partnership..

Fantastic post, Jive! I especially like your statements on partnerships and breaking out of the scarcity mindset. The latter is difficult to do when there is a glut of bands and not a lot of venues, but you are correct that alternatives can be found.

 

[Kragnorak]

I think this has something to do with the local audiences. They're very unwilling to pay to watch gigs. And tickets here are already really cheap. I'm talking like US$8-15 for a multi-band gig or album launch. But to be entirely honest, I don't blame them. Musicians from my country seem to have a reputation for not knowing how to market themselves or put together an interesting performance. They write good music, but don't do good performances. There are a lot of deep-set societal reasons for it, but that said, the originals bands that do well do have something special about their live show to set themselves apart.

Thanks for your perspective! This paragraph describes exactly the metal scene in my area. I like the music of the bands, but even I have to admit that the performances are 'samey', so there are bands that get radio play every week on college stations that still don't draw more than a handful of people. My band in particular tries to make shows more interesting by changing up the set list more than most, which means we spend extra time writing and learning quality songs. I doubt that means we have the type of 'schtick' that would help a band thrive in that Japanese market you described.

 

[Kragnorak]

Actually you are good at communicating with written words ...

Thanks, I consider myself good enough with words to write lyrics and forum posts and stuff. Speaking to actual humans is another story!

 

[Milo Spleen]

the bartender, waitress, cook, etc, all get paid for being there, the food and booze vendor gets paid regardless of how many people the owner gets into his club, why should the entertainment be any different?

Absolutely! If you are willing to play for no $$, that is what you are worth, and you have set your own value, not anyone else.

 

[DwaynieAD]

I'm in a local band in Atlanta. All originals. We say no to all pay to play schemes, so do all the other bands we know. We don't support pay to play shows by attending. In my opinion that's how you beat them.

I am the same way. I have really good friends in really great bands and I feel bad, but I don't support them because i'm supporting the pay to play scheme.

 

[VinnyIuspa]

I was just reading the thread "Playing at a Famous Venue" where the OP polls about playing a play-to-pay gig at a club that apparently used to be hip. Many in the thread understood the temptation to travel 5 hours to play in this club but there was also a lot of advice such as "NEVER pay to play!" and "I haven't paid to play in x decades".

So my question is specifically for those in original bands that do not have label support (whatever that means these days). How do you cope in markets where the pay-to-play model dominates? Do you have any tips on setting up or finding alternate gigs? Do you have sample counter-offers that actually work on club owners? If you settle for P2P gigs, do you have effective avenues for marketing without actually losing money on the gig?

My story: I play music because I have social anxiety and communicate better through music than through words. Being painfully shy makes selling tickets quite difficult. For example, this month I'm opening for Queensryche at a great (for performance) venue, but many of my friends that would normally buy tix are musicians that will be across the country at the NAMM show. The club uses opening bands to pay the headliners while they make bank on drinks, and there are carrots we must deal with (not the fun kind): We get about 10% of each ticket sale so we must sell every one of the 200 tickets we were given to even make a bill each; there are 6 bands on the bill, and bands are ranked by ticket sales - obviously after months of prep and advertising we don't want to go on first.

This is the problem with playing original vs cover music right now. This gig is causing more anxiety than it seems to be worth although the show itself should be great, but meanwhile my cover band could've played a gig that night and I would have been compensated more just for showing up. For those that might sneer at bands like ours for accepting such a gig, I played at this same venue just a few weeks ago with a band that has had a hard rock album in the top 30 and they had to sell tickets as well. (Even though just a little while ago they were invited to play there without selling tix and opened for the Winery Dogs)

I am riled up about this topic from reading neverpaytoplay.com! How do original bands in P2P markets get 'normal' shows?

I gather that you're playing starland ballroom? I'm from north jersey myself and have just played at Roxy&Dukes a few weeks back. I've also opened up for Overkill and Municipal Waste at starland. In general, it is possible to avoid pay to play shows in jersey and the city. There are quite a few clubs that don't run that way. The clash bar and dingbatz in clifton have a thing where you only really get paid if you bring a certain amount of people, but I've never been asked to pay the difference out of pocket. If its a big show opening up for national established bands, like at starland, I'm willing to suck it up just for the exposure. But for small local dives? Forget it. No way I'm going to be selling 20 tickets at $15 dollars each for a Tuesday night. That's why I'll never book pay to play, unless its opening for a big band.

Another trend I've seen happen in pay to play, is that these venues don't seem to care whether the bands actually bring the heads, they only care about the money. There are bands who will just buy their own tickets. The places that do pay to play should make sure those sold tickets actually come through the door. The reason is that this not only hurts bands that do bring people, it also hurts the bottom line of the venue because they loose out on drink sales.

 

[DwaynieAD]

I gather that you're playing starland ballroom? I'm from north jersey myself and have just played at Roxy&Dukes a few weeks back. I've also opened up for Overkill and Municipal Waste at starland. In general, it is possible to avoid pay to play shows in jersey and the city. There are quite a few clubs that don't run that way. The clash bar and dingbatz in clifton have a thing where you only really get paid if you bring a certain amount of people, but I've never been asked to pay the difference out of pocket. If its a big show opening up for national established bands, like at starland, I'm willing to suck it up just for the exposure. But for small local dives? Forget it. No way I'm going to be selling 20 tickets at $15 dollars each for a Tuesday night. That's why I'll never book pay to play, unless its opening for a big band.

Another trend I've seen happen in pay to play, is that these venues don't seem to care whether the bands actually bring the heads, they only care about the money. There are bands who will just buy their own tickets. The places that do pay to play should make sure those sold tickets actually come through the door. The reason is that this not only hurts bands that do bring people, it also hurts the bottom line of the venue because they loose out on drink sales.

the "unless it's for a big band" caveat is part of the problem too.