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Wedding band questions

$5000? For a cover band at a wedding? Absolutely outrageous. Keep looking around. For that money, you could hire a legit touring band that is fairly well-known.

They don't come cheap in NYC either. And not many groups that are capable of doing weddings are oblivious to the local scale.
:D

If you're not already in this area (Northern East Coast), come on by, you can clean up.
;)
 
For 5 grand you could get a signed touring band thats had a hit song or two. A cover band wanting that kind of money leads me to think they aren't getting constant business. Probably because they aren't very good.

That logic is flat out amazing. Thanks.
:D

A band asking for that kind of money because they aren't working? And because they aren't very good.
:hmm:

In the world I'm familiar with bands that aren't very good and aren't busy typically command the least money. And they rarely do weddings/corporate/ other higher paying gigs. I'm only speaking from actual experience. I've been doing this fulltime for six years now. Been performing far longer. I'm fortunate enough to have and keep a full schedule. I sometimes have to turn down business. The bands you described don't cross my path in this circle.

Any examples of the touring bands you speak of?

Every band doesn't know how to do weddings. A higher end wedding band typically does and they typically exceed the wedding party's expectations. So if they can do that by not being very good, cool. Mass hypnosis and all that.

Again, thanks.
:cool:
 
My brother in law paid $11,000 for their wedding band. It was outside of Philadelphia. It was an 8 or 9 piece band, I honestly don't remember. They were awesome! That was for 4 hours of music including the cocktail hour. They played what everybody wanted to hear, read the crowd very well, and entertained the crap out of us.

Not to say that a cheaper band wouldn't/couldn't have been as good, just that $5K in this general area is not unheard of at all...and could be considered "cheap" in comparison to a lot of bands.
 
I would invite all of the folks who are in the "we do it cheaper around here" crowd to also look at venue prices comparatively in your location and in NYC. By way of example, here's a comp between a venue in Augusta GA and one up here...
Invalid Link Removed

NYC....
 
20K?!

:eek:

Zounds.

There must be some serious money in that part of the country. At that price those players better be pocketing $1,500 each MINIMUM, especially the poor schmo's that have to play the dinner set as well as the dance show.

Well... nope. Each player gets $200 flat fee, plus room & board and transportation expenses. So for the guys in the rhythm section it's often a long gig, with as much as 5 hours of playing. Not every time. The band leader is making some serious money though.