How much should we be paid for playing parties?

[skidder652003]

Very interesting debate guys!
im happy to discuss our "going" rate. As your fairly typical 3 piece rock covers band down in the South West (Devon)
we try to get a minimum of £60 each (£180) for pubs, although we are willing to drop to £50 each if the landlord/lady umms and ahhs (plus we offer that rate for first time gigs in the hope of further work). Christmas/bank holidays/carnivals etc, it creeps up to hopefully £80 each. Its really tough out there at the moment and we have played to a lot of poorly attended pubs this year and know the landlord must be loosing money. I dont want to see the number of venues offering live music ever diminishing, you have to cut your cloth accordingly.

[geoffbassist]

[quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1334859041' post='1622557']
That is just poor, poor, poor... !!!!!!!!! The whole point of a pick-up band is that you shouldn't know it is a pick-up band even if you are meeting guys first off on the gig.
If they are regulars then that is even more scandulous
[/quote]

I agree that professional deps should be as good as the regular guys. Rubbish music by regular player of deps isn't good enough.

[kjb]

Think of what fee you would like to receive, and then negotiate down if necessary. You can't really ask for more money at a later date.

Personally I'm of the opinion that a gig is a gig. I'd rather be playing and end up £20 or £30 better off than stay home and earn nothing. It's not just my hobby though, so I can't really afford to discriminate.

[kjb]

I just read the post about the band of deps and the £1800 fee.

I dep quite regularly, I ask for £200 plus expenses, but I'm open to negotiate on that, see my previous post above. I've done loads, so I have charts for pretty much every function set.

I wouldn't dream of not giving 100% to any gig.

[TheG]

Another article here too.

Do You Work For Free?
[url="http://elisabethhobbs.co.uk/2012/04/16/do-you-work-for-free/"]http://elisabethhobbs.co.uk/2012/04/16/do-you-work-for-free/[/url]

[PURPOLARIS]

I'm in a three piece acoustic band that gigs regularly and we get anywhere from £90 for a 1 hour Sunday night gig to £500 for a wedding. We'll do a local pub gig for no less than £150 and if we have to travel it's no less than £200.Our average pub gig is £200 although some pubs pay £250. It is a tricky thing to get right because if you charge too much you won't get gigs and if you charge too little you're underselling yourself and upsetting other gigging musicians.