Paid gigs for amateur musicians......?

[mcnach]

3 hours ago, warwickhunt said:

I've often said that I'd happily rock up, bass in hand and play to 2,000 people for free... I might even offer to pay but if you want me to hump £4000+ worth of my equipment to a venue/pub miles from home that I have no association with, at a time that inconveniences me, to play to a bunch of ar5eholes who have no respect for the hours/years I've put into getting to the level that I'm at... I want paying!  

 

I may have paraphrased the above on occasion!    

 

 

I have said many times that I tend to play for free, I'm just charging for all the other time that the gig keeps me busy and not playing: travelling, setting up, waiting around...

 

[mcnach]

2 hours ago, BigRedX said:

IME the only reason originals bands play for free is either because they have specifically decided to do so, or because they are too disorganised to ask for payment.

 

Similarly there is no reason why bands playing charity and benefit events shouldn't be paid. One of the better paying gigs I did last year was a benefit. We would have done it fro free because we whole-heartedly support the cause but the organisers insisted on paying us and the other performers for putting in the time and effort to do it.

 

I've played many charity gigs over the years. The better organised ones that also appeared to rais the most money were also ones where we all got paid reasonably well. 

[TimR]

There were two death blows dealt to pubs.

 

One was open all day. You don't have to open all day, but people now expect it. So you have to pay staff for that middle of the day period where no one comes in. I realise a lot of pubs do shut, but when our local did that it just got a pile on social media and a load of bad feeling. All because one person wanted a pint at 3:30 in the afternoon.

 

The other was deregulation of off-licences. Which came shortly before the "open all hours". I distinctly remember off-licensces being the only place you could but drinks and they also had licenced opening hours. You certainly couldn't go to a supermarket and buy alcohol.

 

Anyway, that's a thread derail.

[TimR]

13 minutes ago, mcnach said:

 

 

I have said many times that I tend to play for free, I'm just charging for all the other time that the gig keeps me busy and not playing: travelling, setting up, waiting around...

 

 

My dad's function band, my dad (keys) and the bass player would set up everything before the meal. Play background music during the meal, then the guitarist, drummer and singers would arrive, plug in and adjust drum kit and off they'd go. 

 

When we did functions, the drummer would insist we all arrived an hour before the guests to soundcheck. Once we arrived at 5pm, the speeches and auction of promises went on to 11pm. We effectively sat around for 6 hours, played one hour and then packed away. 

[Steve Browning]

38 minutes ago, Steve Browning said:

Tim is wrong. The reason is in my answer. A pub provides a service of catering. That is why it is standard rated. It doesn't sell food.

 

A supermarket doesn't prepare it, cook it and serve it. It doesn't pay staff to do those jobs either. 

I should add that a supermarket cafe charges VAT on catering in exactly the same way as a pub/restaurant. 

[gjones]

3 hours ago, Beedster said:

 

Or because they love playing music?

 

Katie Price does too

 

 

 

[Burns-bass]

I’m not sure how we ended up here, but it’s why I love Basschat.

[Beedster]

5 minutes ago, Burns-bass said:

I’m not sure how we ended up here, but it’s why I love Basschat.

Absolutely 👍 

[TimR]

35 minutes ago, Steve Browning said:

I should add that a supermarket cafe charges VAT on catering in exactly the same way as a pub/restaurant. 

 

Maybe there are just too many restaurants. Tradditional pub grub is generally more expensive and not as good as a dedicated chef manned restaurant. Again talking to people who manage pubs, pub chefs are very unreliable and the pubs can't afford to pay an extra member of staff just to prepare and cook food on the off-chance someone might come in. Pubs that aren't destination restaurants can't survive on selling beer alone. 

 

I'm not sure what Whetherspoons are complaining about, they're very good for 'working away from home' meals. A different special every night. Cheap and cheerful and will do for a few days. Not somewhere you'd take someone to impress them or for a family meal though.

 

And Whetherspoons don't do any entertainment. I don't think they even have fruit machines? 

Edited Sunday at 18:01 by TimR

[police squad]

Many years ago the 30 quid i earned at a pub gig, really supplemented my income.

150 gigs a year and a full time job was great.

Ive gigged hard for nearly 40 years.

Ive also bought a lot of gear with that money, which I couldn't have afforded without the gigs.

 

Then, 21 years ago I started playing solo gigs

My wife had left me and I needed something to keep me occupied

I made a fortune for a couple of years.

I thought I had to charge the same as other solo performers or I would be taking work from them.

 

My Police tribute hardly ever made any money a nd usually we were out of pocket after hotels etc but it was fun

As I get older I really dont need the money and so dont really charge as much as I could for my duo

I still do charity gigs for free.

I've never really thought of playing for free, the way you do Chris, it's an interesting conundrum 

[tauzero]

The covers band charges to pay, although we do do very occasional charity gigs for nowt - they're gigs direct for the local charities in question though, not charidee events with promoters etc.

 

I've just joined an originals band - that looks like being unpaid, at least for a while, but I don't mind. I think the eventual plan is to get paid.

[Downunderwonder]

I read the first page and 

12 hours ago, Beedster said:

 

And coy I will remain @BigRedX  

 

Until very recently most sports were amateur simply because the Olympics only allowed amateur participation, so many if not most athletes had to make a living outside sport (and in some sport still do), but spectators still paid to watch, and promoters made a lot of money 

The Olymics of amateur musicianship is what? SongStars, Eurovision, Britain's Got Talent, you get the idea. Those tasty carrots are not appealing to most of us.

12 hours ago, Beedster said:

 

Which sounds equivalent to the argument I heard recently against open-mic and jam nights, that we shouldn't take part because they allow venues to make extra money without having to share those profits with the musicians and therefore they threaten the livelihood of musicians

The open mic jam stuff I used to participate in and run all had generous bar tabs for all involved. I lived close enough to one that I could walk home well shickered after buying my first drink and playing a few numbers three times. Many of the bonafide professional musicians frequent them after their gigs.

11 hours ago, warwickhunt said:

I've often said that I'd happily rock up, bass in hand and play to 2,000 people for free... I might even offer to pay but if you want me to hump £4000+ worth of my equipment to a venue/pub miles from home that I have no association with, at a time that inconveniences me, to play to a bunch of ar5eholes who have no respect for the hours/years I've put into getting to the level that I'm at... I want paying!  

 

I may have paraphrased the above on occasion!    

Sums up gotta get paid very well.

11 hours ago, Beedster said:

 

Now I struggle with that (which I hear an awful lot from fellow musos), because to me it reads "to help others take money out of a limited pot of money I take money out of that same limited pot of money..."?

 

I get it and applaud the sentiment, I'm just not convinced

Have it your way I suppose. Nobody is going to come to your show and heckle you for playing for free.

 

Pay to compete for amateur glory/ personal satisfaction/ while interested observers of your slog also pay and the organizer makes out like a bandit. It's a different world.

 

I enjoy making coffee but I am hardly going to go on a barrista course so I can go work on a real deal 10,000 dollar coffee machine for free in my spare hours.

 

The only reason that racket hasn't been invented is no hospitality venue has the balls to try it on. They could run free courses in the evening to train them up. They will quite happily abuse interns from the hospitality school though.

 

From what I have seen pubs that want to put on bands and refuse / skimp on payment only get dregs of bands that aren't good enough for functions. Musicians with the pride to insist on getting paid look at those venues as the vultures that they are.

[Downunderwonder]

9 hours ago, Steve Browning said:

Tim is wrong. The reason is in my answer. A pub provides a service of catering. That is why it is standard rated. It doesn't sell food.

 

A supermarket doesn't prepare it, cook it and serve it. It doesn't pay staff to do those jobs either. 

Sure it does, well some of it. Their own bakeries bake, their butchers cut up portions. The deli section prepares hot takeaways out of some of that product.

 

That is why our VAT in NZ is a universal Goods AND Services Tax. No phaffing about classifying anything. Accounting GST is dead easy.

 

Everyone has to eat but you can pay less tax by eating less fancy foods. Quite a good tax I think. The GST in your average rich person's shopping cart is enormous compared with a minimum wager or saver.

[Steve Browning]

I was slightly generalising. Food sold above ambient temperature becomes a service of catering and standard rated. Everything else is food and sold according to the Law

 

 

That's why chocolate Nesquik is standard rated and strawberry isn't. 😂

[lemmywinks]

I've done the odd local charity gig, for free, depped for a mate's band at a barely worthwhile fee, short spots at a mate's wedding for free (when I've been a guest) etc, apart from that always make sure you get paid. We've all been told enough about this wondrous newfangled currency called "exposure" enough to know where it leads to when you don't.

[SteveXFR]

If a band is being used as an attraction to make money, then the band should receive a cut of that profit. Either a fixed fee or a share of the ticket sales. 

Gigs can be expensive and hard work (especially if you have big amps) and there's a fair bit of boredom between sound check and gig. 

I've read that some headline acts are now charging support bands to tour with them, I think it was Disturbed charging $12,000 to support them on their US tour. 

[Beedster]

I was thinking about my analogy with sport and the fact that in many cases, a sport simply wouldn't exist without people doing a lot of important jobs without payment, often on the basis of 'putting back in...' or giving back to...' the sport, and that can be anything from people who stand on a Marathon course to guide the runners to officials at Track & Field or swimming events, and often even coaches. OK, these are mostly at grass roots and amateur level, but that levels accounts for the vast majority of sports participation in the UK and worldwide. The pro sport category is very small by comparison. Perhaps sport and music aren't in any way equivalent in this respect? 

[BigRedX]

Being successful at sport is almost always about being very good at it which is relatively easily quantifiable.

 

Music on the other hand is nearly entirely subjective.

[Burns-bass]

7 minutes ago, Beedster said:

I was thinking about my analogy with sport and the fact that in many cases, a sport simply wouldn't exist without people doing a lot of important jobs without payment, often on the basis of 'putting back in...' or giving back to...' the sport, and that can be anything from people who stand on a Marathon course to guide the runners to officials at Track & Field or swimming events, and often even coaches. OK, these are mostly at grass roots and amateur level, but that levels accounts for the vast majority of sports participation in the UK and worldwide. The pro sport category is very small by comparison. Perhaps sport and music aren't in any way equivalent in this respect? 

I think in sport you have a tiny elite level where people will pay (although we were able to watch some of the UKs best female hockey players for nothing), and a massive amateur and semi-pro tier where people won’t pay (and mostly won’t watch).

 

Live bands you’ve got a the elite level and a massive semi-pro tier where people receive some payment, but from the venue not the audience.

 

When I play sport (badly) or run, cycle or canoe (badly) I do so for myself. When I play music it’s almost always with and for other people.

 

Quite what this means I don’t know.

[BigRedX]

11 minutes ago, SteveXFR said:

If a band is being used as an attraction to make money, then the band should receive a cut of that profit. Either a fixed fee or a share of the ticket sales. 

Gigs can be expensive and hard work (especially if you have big amps) and there's a fair bit of boredom between sound check and gig. 

I've read that some headline acts are now charging support bands to tour with them, I think it was Disturbed charging $12,000 to support them on their US tour. 

 

Name bands have always charged support bands for tour slots, with a few notable exceptions. In the days when the tour was a loss-leader for album sales it helped keeps the losses down. Now that the live performance is the main source of income ofd most artists having a support band that pays is probably more important than ever for making the tour profitable.

[Beedster]

12 hours ago, police squad said:

I've never really thought of playing for free, the way you do Chris, it's an interesting conundrum 

 

Just to clarify Mart, I'd always prefer to be paid, but for me the money is lower down the list than the enjoyment of playing music I choose to play with good people and to an appreciative audience.

 

7 minutes ago, Burns-bass said:

Live bands you’ve got a the elite level and a massive semi-pro tier where people receive some payment, but from the venue not the audience.

 

That's a good point Lawrie

[SimonK]

This thread just emphasises the knotty problem that is monetising music. Only a very few can make money, for the rest of us it is a hobby, and yes while we do need to be alert about others taking advantage, for the most part small venues and pubs are also struggling to survive.

 

As I keep telling my kids, the most likely way to make money in life is to do well at school (in STEM subjects).

Edited Monday at 07:19 by SimonK

[TimR]

1 hour ago, Burns-bass said:

When I play sport (badly) or run, cycle or canoe (badly) I do so for myself. When I play music it’s almost always with and for other people.

 

There is a cross over point.

 

We all enjoy playing music. And therein lies the root.

 

Some people will play at home, or with mates, and never go out and perform. 

 

Some people (me) the only reason to play is to perform. That's where the fun is.

 

Some people would happily play Mustang Sally all night, others would rather pull teeth.

 

There is a point at which it becomes work and the enjoyment is secondary, and that point will be different for everyone.

 

For someone who's passionate about performing music they write, the satisfaction and enjoyment of doing that is going to far outweigh what they get paid.

 

For someone who plays several gigs a year, the same songs, some of which are great, some which they don't particularly enjoy, some gigs are stupidly crazy, others are to empty venues. Some you wonder what the point of even loading the car was. That's work. 

Edited Monday at 08:19 by TimR

[Beedster]

5 minutes ago, TimR said:

For someone who's passionate about performing music they write, the satisfaction and enjoyment of doing that is going to far outweigh what they get paid.

 

For someone who plays several gigs a year, the same songs, some of which are great, some which they don't particularly enjoy, some gigs are stupidly crazy, others are to empty venues. Some you wonder what the point of even loading the car was. That's work. 

 

Yes. 

 

But this thread has been really helpful in calibrating how my views fit - or not - with those of the wider community. I don't agree with everything posted but it's always good to hear them and take some time to think them through. Thanks folks 🙏

 

[BigRedX]

54 minutes ago, TimR said:

For someone who's passionate about performing music they write, the satisfaction and enjoyment of doing that is going to far outweigh what they get paid.

 

I would like to be able to earn enough from writing, recording and performing music so that I could give up my day job and concentrate on it full time. The more time I have for music the better I think it will be.

 

Currently I'm posting this in between laying out pages for a very boring magazine that will take me most of this week and pay the bills for the next month. I would not be doing this if I didn't have to.