Gig fees

[Bluewine]

5 hours ago, Pea Turgh said:

I play in a 9 piece soul band, we do weddings mostly. Happy to walk away with £70 for 2x 45 minute sets. Would love to earn more from it, but hey ho. 

I would say $200.00 a man for a functions gig is a good benchmark.

Function bands in my neck of the woods might ask for anything between $1,500.00 to $3,000.00. 

*Keep in mind most if not all function bands over here contract out for sound and lights. So at the end of the day I'm not sure how much more they actually take home than a bar band. Sound and lights usually cost at least $700.00

Our bar band has been gigging for the past twleve years , we won't turn the car key unless every walks away with $125.00.

Friday night I walked away with $155.00. $125.00 for the gig and $30.00 in CD Sales. Sorry guys, I'm not British. You know how us Yankees are. Everything is about money.

Blue

* Guess who owns the sound & lighting company. The agency that books the band.

Edited August 20, 2018 by Bluewine

[MacDaddy]

10 hours ago, Happy Jack said:

and I have no reputation

i wouldn't say that 

[FinnDave]

I usually get 50-60 quid for pub gigs (4 or 5 piece band) and 100 plus for the Dead tribute (6 piece band). But it is worth noting that the pub bands tend to play reasonably locally, or up to 50 miles away at a pinch, whereas the tribute band has members from around the country and so far my shortest drive to a gig has been about 120 miles. Next year we have one week with two nights in Dorset with the following night in Yorkshire and then southern Germany a few days after that. I doubt that any of us will have much money to take home after those 4 gigs!

[Sibob]

11 hours ago, Happy Jack said:

 

This is a capitalist country, and everything is driven by supply and demand. Supply has been soaring for the last ten years, at exactly the same time as demand has been falling. Do the math.

Cor I hope you're never put in charge of minimum wage

Supply has been soaring because expectation, due to lower priced bands, has been dropping. Everyone charges the same (or similar), quality expectation rises, supply falls (wheat/chaff and all that), prices rise.

To stay relevant and answer the OP. £150 minimum for a function, again, have been paid upto £250 for a dep gig, more on significant dates (NYE etc). 

Si

Edited August 20, 2018 by Sibob

[Happy Jack]

Si, I'd love it if that were true, but it simply ain't how it works. Not because I'm any sort of expert, not because I know all about the music biz, but because of basic economics.

Supply has not been soaring because expectation has been dropping. Supply has been soaring because ... erm ... the supply has increased. This country is now full of music colleges that either didn't exist 20 years ago or were very much smaller. They make money by selling people degrees in music, and of course they want to sell as many as possible. They're not interested in how many musicians the country "needs", if that's even a valid concept, they just churn out thousands upon thousands of well-trained musicians who are desperate to get away from burger-flipping.

Demand has been falling because the number of venues has been falling very sharply. Changing attitudes to drink-driving, the introduction of the smoking ban, the morphing of the big breweries into property developers, and especially the fact that 'young people of today' are - broadly - far less likely to go and check out a live band than their parents were (or, in my case, their grandparents probably). 

There are now far more, and far better-trained musicians out there looking for far fewer gigs.

Please note the complete absence of chaff in this argument.

wheat wheat!!

 

 

[MacDaddy]

8 hours ago, Bluewine said:

 

* Guess who owns the sound & lighting company. The agency that books the band.

We provide our own sound and lighting.

well, Happy Jack does.

[Sibob]

34 minutes ago, Happy Jack said:

Si, I'd love it if that were true, but it simply ain't how it works. Not because I'm any sort of expert, not because I know all about the music biz, but because of basic economics.

Supply has not been soaring because expectation has been dropping. Supply has been soaring because ... erm ... the supply has increased. This country is now full of music colleges that either didn't exist 20 years ago or were very much smaller. They make money by selling people degrees in music, and of course they want to sell as many as possible. They're not interested in how many musicians the country "needs", if that's even a valid concept, they just churn out thousands upon thousands of well-trained musicians who are desperate to get away from burger-flipping.

Demand has been falling because the number of venues has been falling very sharply. Changing attitudes to drink-driving, the introduction of the smoking ban, the morphing of the big breweries into property developers, and especially the fact that 'young people of today' are - broadly - far less likely to go and check out a live band than their parents were (or, in my case, their grandparents probably). 

There are now far more, and far better-trained musicians out there looking for far fewer gigs.

Please note the complete absence of chaff in this argument.

wheat wheat!!

 

 

I disagree with a number of those points, but we'll leave it there at risk of derailing the thread!

Si

[Bluewine]

6 hours ago, FinnDave said:

I usually get 50-60 quid for pub gigs (4 or 5 piece band) and 100 plus for the Dead tribute (6 piece band). But it is worth noting that the pub bands tend to play reasonably locally, or up to 50 miles away at a pinch, whereas the tribute band has members from around the country and so far my shortest drive to a gig has been about 120 miles. Next year we have one week with two nights in Dorset with the following night in Yorkshire and then southern Germany a few days after that. I doubt that any of us will have much money to take home after those 4 gigs!

That Dorset/Yorkshire weekend sounds fun.

Blue

[Bluewine]

5 hours ago, MacDaddy said:

We provide our own sound and lighting.

well, Happy Jack does.

Good idea.

Blue

[mrtcat]

I certainly don't see a fall in demand for function work. If anything I've seen a rise and more and more purpose built venues (big farm barn conversions, out of town hotels etc etc and i've been in probably 30 tipis this summer). I'm out 1-2 nights every week and have 60+ already booked for 2019. All paying between 150 & 200 a night depending on distance. 

Pub work however seems to be a totally different kettle of fish tho. Lots of venues closing, poor punter turn out due to drink prices and a market flooded with classic rock bands prepared to play for "the love of it" and lots of landlords not prepared to take a risk on different bands / styles. 

To answer the op I'd probably say look for somewhere between £50 - £70 for a pub gig and £150 - £250 for function work.

[FinnDave]

4 hours ago, Bluewine said:

That Dorset/Yorkshire weekend sounds fun.

Blue

It'll be fun, but when we played the same place in Dorset last month, I ended up sleeping under a tree, so  I really hope we can get something better arranged before the 4 1/2 hour drive to the Yorkshire gig.

[Happy Jack]

2 hours ago, FinnDave said:

 I ended up sleeping under a tree ...

Have you tried drinking less?

[casapete]

2 hours ago, FinnDave said:

It'll be fun, but when we played the same place in Dorset last month, I ended up sleeping under a tree, so  I really hope we can get something better arranged before the 4 1/2 hour drive to the Yorkshire gig.

If it makes you feel any better Dave, we travelled down from East Yorkshire to do a gig in Dorset not long ago, and then travelled back home afterwards. Wasn't easy but a lack of reasonably priced accommodation (due to the time of year ) for 8 band members and 3 crew made it the only feasible way we'd come out of it with any money.

[goblin]

Function work here in the NW I can get anywhere between £150 and £250. Theatre tour I'm on gets me £200 a gig, and when I'm doing recording sessions, I charge £45 an hour to be pair in a minimum of two hour increments, so if I turn up and box off a session in half an hour (which I've done), I'll walk away with £90 still. Other dep work, I pick and choose determined by whether I'm available, and what the fee is. I don't go letting people down for the sake of an extra £50 either. My reputation's more important than £50 ultimately...

I run a PA rig too, so depending on the band and such, I get extra for PA too. With one of the function bands they'll pay me an extra £150 just to bring the PA along, and they'll cover expenses and such on top, but on the flip side of that I did PA hire for a local festival this weekend and got a really good fee for the day, and one of the party bands I'm with closed the night... but to make the budget work, I had to do the gig at a lower fee to keep the musicians reasonably well paid, but the way I look at it is that I had to hire a Sprinter anyway for the initial PA job, and I had space to stick the bass rig in. I was mixing from iPad all day so I can keep the desk and amp rack well out of the way of drunk punters, and I don't mind taking an extra £100 to play a fun set at the end too. 

[FinnDave]

7 hours ago, casapete said:

If it makes you feel any better Dave, we travelled down from East Yorkshire to do a gig in Dorset not long ago, and then travelled back home afterwards. Wasn't easy but a lack of reasonably priced accommodation (due to the time of year ) for 8 band members and 3 crew made it the only feasible way we'd come out of it with any money.

Some of the band managed to get free accommodation at the venue, I hadn't joined the band in time to get a bed for the night before it had all been taken. Not sure yet whether we're doing two nights or one in Dorset - if it's two, the we'll be driving up to Yorkshire on the Sunday and gigging that night. Should be a good weekend!

[FinnDave]

7 hours ago, Happy Jack said:

Have you tried drinking less?

I've actually quit drinking completely. I had planned to sleep in the back of my car (it's a fair sized SUV) but couldn't stop the alarm going off, so kipped under a tree instead. It was a warm night, but the sun woke me up before six in the morning. Managed to get a couple of hours nap in the afternoon while most of the band were off watching the world cup. Played 2 full sets that night as well, then drove home, didn't feel tired until the day after that.