General Ignorance of What Musicians Do

[TimR]

[quote name='brensabre79' timestamp='1340193879' post='1700721']
But this is the point, the band are effectively 5 or 6 (or however many) employees (or freelancers) for the night just like bar staff, chef etc. Some of the bands work does not happen inside the pub but based on the earlier example (it varies from gig to gig) its 6 or 7 hours work.

£50 for 7 hours work is [b]£7.14/hour[/b]. All things being equal, Tax and NI needs to come out of this too. Not to mention, staff usually get free soft drinks and sometimes a meal - that doesn't happen in many of the pubs we play in.

The going rate for a musician playing in a function band is about £200 for 8 hours work (functions are invariably a slightly longer stint), that's [b]£25/hour[/b] - or 3 and a 1/2 times as much as a pub gig.
[/quote]

All I was saying is that the pub doesn't necessarily make your fee on the night you are playing. It's another of their overheads. They may make £1000 on the bingo night on Tuesday and some of that is used to pay you.

Using the £/hour method is not particularly constructive. Our sax player turns up 5 mins before playing and is out the door as soon as we've finished. £50 for 90mins is £33 an hour. The bar staff don't get paid more for a busy night or a quiet night and don;t get paid for breaks or travelling to/from work.

You have to offset the low paid gigs with the high paid gigs. So if you do a Fri at £50 and a Saturday at £200 you've got £250 for 14hours. £17/hour is pretty good in my book.

As others have said, you have to do the pub gigs as advertising, not your main source of income. It's scratch my back, scratch your back. The other option is that the pubs start charging on the door which works quite well even at £2 because this creates an aura of getting something of value and people will actually queue to get in because they think there is something special going on. Mad!

[BigRedX]

I've done the bucket thing too with my covers band. However when we were playing to raise money to send our singer's barber shop choir to a competition in Texas there was no problem getting people to fill the bucket. For just the band though... not a chance.

[chris_b]

[quote name='lojo' timestamp='1340196291' post='1700780']
....I think its fair to say there must be very few pub gig players who do it for the money....
[/quote]

That's a large assumption. May be you just don't know many.

Why would anyone play in a pub if they had other alternatives?

[TimR]

There are a lot of people who do it for fun, who make it a lot harder than it needs to be. 7 hours for a pub gig and 100s of emails? If you're doing it for the money you soon become pretty efficient at it.

Generally we arrive separately at 8:00. Set up and start playing at 9:00 sound check on the fly finish at 11:00 and out the door 11:30.

I've been involved in bands where the drummer starts loading the van at 4 and drives round picking up the rest of the band, all arrive at the pub at 6 and then spend ages messing around. Endless discussions about whether the 10piece drum kit is needed and whether it will fit in the corner, whether the guitarist can use all 7 guitars and where will his 100 pedals fit, where to point the lights, can the singer have a bit more 2Khz in her monitor, whether we're doing the extended remix of Mustang Sally.....

[brensabre79]

[quote name='TimR' timestamp='1340198986' post='1700875']
Generally we arrive separately at 8:00. Set up and start playing at 9:00 sound check on the fly finish at 11:00 and out the door 11:30.
[/quote]

Can I join your band?

[JTUK]

£200 for a 5 piece and that is very hard woprk for the money in pubs.

We don't travel far..and maybe 60 miles round trip at most so you need £60 for the petrol and a drink or two to be left with £40-ish in the pocket
LL may throw in a free pint and that is appreciated but not at every gig.

We don't do pubs for the money but they serve a purpose, and at the same time you need to make it feel worthwhile.
We cherry-pick the pubs into decent payers and decent venues..and that in itself cuts down the numbers by quite a few.

Whatever you charge you need to be worth it... and get that fee time and time again from those venues.

If I see doorman at a pub then that pub isn't going to be paying the band £200 for the night..IMO..!!

The bucket is a for guest players that night...it should NEVER be the fee...as it is suplimentary, IMO..!!
I've done jazz dates as a guest and the main band/trio is on a fee... so the guests get the bucket and you are doing well to get £30 a man that way but you do it to meet other players and get
networked. It is like a paid audition/jam/open-mic..!! and it should lead to more openings..!!

[barkin]

[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1340148407' post='1700148']
"Expenses only"[i] is[/i] undermining what you do, and everyone else.
[/quote]


It's not my day job, nor is it for the other band members. We all have busy lives outside of the band, and have neither the time or inclination to put in the effort needed to do more profitable weddings/functions etc.

The organising of a gig is nothing more than a handful of phone calls/texts.
We don't need to arrive at 5pm to get set up and soundchecked (more like 8pm). Singer usually gets there 15 mins before kick-off. No, she doesn't help with the load-in and setup, and the rest of us don't mind!
We could be packed up and gone 20 minutes after we've finished, but we usually don't - hang around, natter with the locals, perhaps have a beer or 2 if Mrs Barkin's driving...

I don't find that a chore - I enjoy it, and as long as I'm not out of pocket I'm happy.

Many of the gigs I'm talking about are small village pubs, struggling to keep afloat and looking for ways to get people in the door and keep the business going, so that it doesn't turn into an Indian takeaway, or affordable housing. Even if the place is crammed, I'd be surprised if some of them take enough over the bar to cover our modest fee. If we asked for more, we wouldn't get the gig. Simples.
We do the gig for not much more than expenses, people go who perhaps wouldn't normally, have a good time and go back to the pub again...maybe on a sunny Sunday lunchtime for something to eat, etc.

I'm not moaning about the way we're treated - in fact we're almost invariably treated very well. I don't feel we're undermining what we do and, as things are at the moment, we've every intention of carrying on enjoying ourselves most Friday/Saturday nights for the foreseeable future.

I can't see anything wrong with that.

[essexbasscat]

Just looking at the opening statement "General ignorance of what musicians do".

Q. Is it realistic to expect that the general public will understand in depth and detail a wide range of jobs or hobbies out there ? including musician ?

Substitute job/hobby title to taste...

[Truckstop]

At least a musician can make a bit of cash out of his/her hobby. Try complaining that you don't get enough money to a guy that likes to build model airplanes or go fishing. Gear probably costs the same as ours but they dont get to out and earn with it!

Truckstop

[ThomBassmonkey]

[quote name='muttley' timestamp='1340022724' post='1697704']
What's that story of Picasso and the napkin sketch?

edit: Here it is:-

[url="http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/being-modern-conceptual-art-2370214.html"]source[/url]


Ask them what they would charge for 2 hours freelance work. How much does it cost to get a plumber in? Or go to the dentist?
[/quote]

Ask them how many hours in a week they get paid for working. Then consider how many hours a week a pro musician is waiting around before playing that they're not getting paid for. You could also ask how likely it is that they'll fall out of fashion and their jobs will go south just because their time has passed.

If you think musicians should get £10 an hour, a decent hourly rate, gigging 2 hours a day 7 days a week for the whole year without a day off would only be £7300pa. Does that sound a fair amount for someone that's likely never going to get any time at home (doing that many gigs, you're going to need to be touring)?

If someone gigs 4 days a week on average and gets £50 per gig (£25 an hour), they're still only on £10400. And that's before expenses too, mind.

So £100 a gig, 4 days a week on average through a whole year will get £20800 before expenses, that's really not a lot.

I'm not sure how a job that consists of lots of rehearsal and then very little actual "work" (as in paid time) can be compared to something that gives regular hours. I'm not sure of the relevance of the Picasso thing, I'm sure anyone with any sense and the money to do it would jump at buying a Picasso for $10,000, whatever it was drawn on so you're kind of arguing against your own point I think.

[JTUK]

Had this same conversation with a heavy metal guy yesterday...he said the had two gigs in the diary.

I asked him how many people they could get to a pub..and he thought quite a few.
He also said they were desperate for gigs and charged next to nothing.

I said this wasn't a good diea as it sets that precedent and also if you charge nothing
then it doesn't say much about how much you value yourself, IMO.

If you sell too cheap..do you want 'too' cheap'...?

Any cover band round here charging £150 isn't going to be any good...but I am also horried at who thinks they can justify £300.
I am not saying pubs don't pay it and some bands aren't worth it for certain reasons......just horrified at the sheer gaul that some bands dare charge it.

[TimR]

Most comparisons don't stack up.

You could compare the Musician with a Plumber. A plumber doesn't sit around all day hoping that he'll get called out late at night to an emergency.

Emergency call outs are fun, you don't know what you're going to get. During the day you have to do the boring stuff. Blocked drains, central hearing installs, train apprentices etc.

[brensabre79]

I don't get the plumber comparison at all. How many musicians, pro or otherwise sit around waiting for the phone to ring for an emergency pub gig?

I've worked as a freelance designer for years. Some days you work, some you dont. The days I work I get paid considerably more than my PAYE counterparts, it's the going rate because its the only way freelancers CAN make a living. You're paying for the availability as much as the talent!

Pub gigs have a going rate too. I think they are too low personally, our drummer is a former landlord and he knows what these places can afford to pay for a band that fills an otherwise empty pub. Moreso, as was said - these are people that wouldn't come otherwise, and may come back again (if its a nice pub).

So musicians/bands are being used as a marketing tool by the pub just as much as the other way around. Why are bands so popular in pubs? Because they are cost effective for the landlord. If they weren't then they wouldn't do it. most places we play we go back time and time again, we start at £50 a man as an intro rate. Once we've packed the place we ask for more, it a negotiation and at some point the line of profit will be reached where its not worth the LL doing it.

I think the point of the OP is that this line of profit is often underplayed, the value of the music and musicians performing it doesn't really enter into it. Which is a contrast to the small gigs I've played in other countries - places will charge a small fee to cover the expense of treating the band properly, like professionals. In return the standard expected by both venue and audience is high. The audience will happily pay to see a good show. Over here its expected that you'll get a band for free at a music pub.

[TimR]

[quote name='brensabre79' timestamp='1340268558' post='1701847']
I don't get the plumber comparison at all. How many musicians, pro or otherwise sit around waiting for the phone to ring for an emergency pub gig?

....
[/quote]

Exactly my point. Relying on the pub gig and even a function gig as your main source of income is not going to cut it.

During the day, teach, do shows, session work, work in an office, whatever....

Don't feel sorry for the pub because they appear to have a small turnout. The fruit machines only pay out 10% so every £10 they payout the landlord gets £90.

Small pubs are closing in rural areas so there's no money there so you're not undercutting anyone.

[TimR]

[quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1340259090' post='1701722']
Had this same conversation with a heavy metal guy yesterday...he said the had two gigs in the diary.

I asked him how many people they could get to a pub..and he thought quite a few.
He also said they were desperate for gigs and charged next to nothing.

...
[/quote]

I would have asked why they thought they were desperate. Are pubs calling out for Metal bands. Do they bring out the girls? If the girls don't come the the guys don't either. Are they good? People don't tell you when you're not good or you're not playing what they want to listen to. They just don't turn up to the next gig.

If you're not getting gigs you need to look at what you are selling, NOT how much you're selling it for.

[JTUK]

Indeed... I told him his was a niche and they hadn't cracked how to deal with it.
Loud and screechy doom vox can clear a place in seconds round here..but there are one or two pubs that will take them.
This then brought on the old 'mustang sally and Sex on Fire' tracks in the set for a lot of bands old chestnut.

But the equation is simple..who is buying what you are selling and does it stack up..?

[lojo]

[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1340197940' post='1700834']
That's a large assumption. May be you just don't know many.
[/quote]

Yes, maybe I am wrong and some people do pub gigs for the money, but my assumption was based on the fact I have not played with or met any

[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1340197940' post='1700834']
Why would anyone play in a pub if they had other alternatives?
[/quote]

Sultans of swing I guess round here "he's got a day job he's doing alright" and if no bigger gigs are on offer that weekend a pub gig is fun with pocket money

Edited June 21, 2012 by lojo

[Thurbs]

[quote name='TimR' timestamp='1340271955' post='1701934']The fruit machines only pay out 10% so every £10 they payout the landlord gets £90.[/quote]It is published on the machine now next to the coin slot. Usual payout is more like 70 to 80%. I would imagine the landlord gets a small cut of the rest.

[TimR]

I guess it's changed then. In the 90s when I used to temp during the day and was a rock star during the evening I worked a few weeks swapping the machines between pubs.

My local landlord used to take his wife and two kids to Florida every year off 3 machines.

Beer is something like 60% profit before overheads.

[Lozz196]

Yep, fruit machines drag the money in. Few years back, someone I knew ran a cafe in a factory, and stocked it entirely with what the fruit machine used to take each week, so all the money from the food was profit.

And pubs - one of the gigs my covers band used to do, we found out that the takings at that pub was usually over £5000 a night when we played there. We used to get £300 for that gig. So pubs can still make money, especially with bands pulling in the punters.

[fretmeister]

My 2p worth.

[seashell]

This is a very interesting thread. It has made me think of many similarities with how people react to you as an actor or dancer.

As an (amateur) chorus line dancer I used to get the 'well done, you looked as if you were enjoying it' comment the whole time. Of course that is the impression we want to create. But once in a while you'd like to get 'well done, that American timestep looked really difficult how did you do it so effortlessly'.

As an actor the classic comment is ' how did you manage to learn all those lines?'. It's never 'how did you manage to transform yourself from a Brummie office administrator into an Oklahoma mother of 6 who has just seen her home bulldozed into a dust bowl?'

The comments about whether or not you should play for free are interesting. You don't tend to get that kind of debate over amateur vs professional theatre. The amateur theatre scene has a long history and professionals just seem to accept that it exists in parallel.
I wish I had time to comment more about why this should be but I'm in a bit of a rush. If I get time to return to this thread I might give you a more considered opinion!

[TimR]

Funilly enough I've always been paid quite well for playing for AmDram musicals.

[seashell]

[quote name='TimR' timestamp='1340307249' post='1702755']
Funilly enough I've always been paid quite well for playing for AmDram musicals.
[/quote]

Interesting point. Yes in my experience the musos often get paid for am dram musicals. But usually the musical director doesn't.

[TimR]

That will be because he knows what a difference having musicians who can read and play well makes. IME You turn up to the tech rehearsal having only skimmed through the parts if at all.