Extra deductions from fee by venue (Rip off?)

[cetera]

To address the confusion re: the PRS fee......
The venue has to raise their licence fee in whatever way they see fit.
At PRS we SUGGEST that they swallow the fee themselves or add a penny on a pint, but some venues charge the bands for this.

Should they do that? No, of course not.... but we can't stop them.
If you don't like it then you should complain to the venue that the bands shouldn't be charged for PRS since it is a requirement for the venue to stay in the business of 'live music'. You could of course choose not to play there..... but then you'd have to find another gig at a similarly good venue.

However, all of this is idealistic and the fact is that almost everyone who plays in a 'live concert' licensed venue pays the PRS regardless of whether they realise they are doing so. I've lost count of the times I've found out that the PRS fee has simply been added into the fee for 'security', 'use of PA', 'engineers'. 'ticket printing' etc etc and the bands have been none the wiser.

[Rich]

It's the £100 'venue expenses' that would have annoyed me. If the sustenance wasn't gratis, they should have bloody said so beforehand so you'd have the option of taking it or not. If you're a five-piece band, that'd be [i]*counts on fingers, makes 3 attempts*[/i] £20 each. What a rip.

[Johngh]

[quote name='Mateybass' post='723527' date='Jan 24 2010, 08:50 PM']Well, I've had a sleep on it now and time to reflect and I'm guessing that most of my initial annoyance was that, according to our "manager", there was no mention of being charged for food and drink or of the venue recovering their VAT from the band. According to our "manager" the last time this band played there, it was a straight 70/30 split.

Thinking about it and pondering the fact that our "manager" didn't get it in writing, it being merely a verbal agreement, that perhaps the verbals she was hearing were different to those actually being spoken by the venue to her on the phone.... or she didn't ask the pertinent questions. Either way they've learned a valuable elementary lesson, though one which I didn't want to be on the receiving end of again. I have suggested to the "manager" that this shouldn't happen again and that all the current bookings and any future bookings should be backed up by a written or email agreement.

Anyway, thanks for all your comments, I get the VAT thing now and I DO understand getting it in writing (see my earlier postings), but unfortunately the "manager" didn't. I'll just have to take it on the chin and if it happens again I'll look for a less cluelessly managed band or do it myself [/quote]


Good old Jill. Some things never change.

Not 100% sure if I've got your band right. But this same thing happened to my mates band on Friday. I used to play bass with them. Bet it's the same band. Clueless doesn't come close.