how much do the pubs pay

nick_D01

hey everyone

i'm puttin up this post as i'd like to find out: how much do the pubs pay per gig for an evening, 2-3 hours, of (cover) music. i've found out a little bit how much they pay over in the uk, if anyone knows what the figues are here? any info, really, really appreciated ?

StephenG

nick_D01 wrote hey everyone

i'm puttin up this post as i'd like to find out: how much do the pubs pay per gig for an evening, 2-3 hours, of (cover) music. i've found out a little bit how much they pay over in the uk, if anyone knows what the figues are here? any info, really, really appreciated ?

from what i heard, unless you a smoking hot band that the pub wants to book, then the money is good....

otherwise u play for free... u get to keep the coins the audience throws into your open guitar case.. and in some cases u have to give 50% of that to the bar.

IceCreamMan

in jhb , i reckon the norm is between 1500 and 3 grand. quite a wide spread but dpends on the location and attractibility of the band. we talking pubs here

MIKA-the-better-one

I think its all dependant on how good you are... and if you pull a crowd, or how decent you are at entertaining people...

I expect you could make good money if you give a good 3 hours of solid covers...

Although then again there are lots of cover bands around so getting booked maybe hard

Why not just ask a pub?

StephenG

many many moons ago - in the mid - to late 90's a local pub paid R850 for a 2man cover band, and that was for a friday night, 2 sets of covers. - they were actually bloody good....

will never forget the one night we were there, a guy from the audience in the resturant asks the band if they would play at his new years eve party... so they said that they were not intending to play any new years eve anywhere, they wanted it "off".... so the guy told them to name their price.... instinctively the one band member said R35,000 and the guy said 'deal..!!"

so they actually played his private new years eve party and got their R35,000

nick_D01

@mika & @icecreaman , thanks for weighing in on this gents. made friends with somebody last night who has done a bit of pub gigging, and he told me exactly what the pay for his band was for every gig, and it was also for the exact local pub whose rates i wanted to know. which is pretty cool. ?

IceCreamMan

nick_D01 wrote @mika & @icecreaman , thanks for weighing in on this gents. made friends with somebody last night who has done a bit of pub gigging, and he told me exactly what the pay for his band was for every gig, and it was also for the exact local pub whose rates i wanted to know. which is pretty cool. ?

was i in the ballpark for CT?

nick_D01

IceCreamMan wrote in jhb , i reckon the norm is between 1500 and 3 grand

he said that their initial rate was R1800-00 per night. it increased from there. so yeah, your estimate was close ? . they were a three piece tho, so now i'm wonderin if the renumeration would be different for a duo?

Riaan-Combrink

I play in a duo in the Cape Town area and have played at most of the well known music pubs, etc. Rates will range from R 1 200 to R 2 500 - but you shouldn't settle for less than R 1 500 unless times are tough! Venues are also different regarding length - some want three sets; others four. My approach is to offer them three hours only if the money is towards the bottom of the R 1 500 to R 2 500 scale.