An Open Letter to Venues That Exploit Their Musicians

Psean

Hopefully I'm posting this in the right place. I don't it's was posted on the original site last year but I don't think anyone's posted it here. Anyway, I found it an interesting read, so here it is:

http://www.grassrootsy.com/2012/02/22/an-open-letter-to-venues-that-exploit-their-musicians/

wirt

What the living Hell!? Does this happen in SA too?

Mundane

Sadly, this happens at quite a few of the 'bigger' venues. And, not only does the venue demand that you bring x amount of people in for your gig (house rules they say), they also make you give them a guest-list of the people you have coming, so that they can check up on you.

wirt

I've heard talk of musician's guilds and/or unions in the past and wondered what the point was, but now it makes sense...

BluJu

wirt wrote: What the living Hell!? Does this happen in SA too?

While I thought most if this article was rant, this is my 2c.

This is often how it works. This is why so few live music venues are doing well.

I play in a good band that plays on avg 4-6 shows a month.
We hardly ever get paid (unless we do 3 sets of covers + bring our own sound) and when we do it is a small amount based on how many people we bring.
I can not expect my friends and family to come to 4-6 gigs a month just so that I can get petrol money for the gig.

The other week we were offered a "paying" gig from a new bar in a pretty crappy area. A place that gets no crowd on their own steam.

The terms were:

Bring at least 30 people
You have to provide the PA
You have to provide the sound man

If you do all of that I will give you R1000

I don't hate the club owners for it. It is just a mindset that the bands are responsible for getting feet through the door and should be compensated as such. Rather club owners should worry about providing solid enjoyable entertainment and knowing that the people will come. Dance clubs seem to understand this concept. The blues room (back in the day), Katzy's and sometimes Tanz understand this.

Good venues make bands want to aspire to play at them. They are picky about who graces the stage and take responsibility for their own success.
They can still do this while developing up and comers by letting quality musicians open for established names.

singemonkey

I always agree to bring people. And sell tickets. I'm like "sure." Of course one good insult deserves another so I don't the **** bother to do either. We're not getting paid enough for all the practising and the hours on stage, then we sure as hell aren't getting paid enough to run around doing their promotional work too.

This is a downward spiral right? Asking bands to do this is an exploit. In other words, they don't actually expect live music to bring people in. They just know that some desperate musos will bring a crowd along. They're not hiring a band. They're hiring a party. "We give these guys R1k to bang away on stage and they bring us people who'll spend R20k in drinks."

What they don't realise is that the reason that bands aren't bringing people in (or keeping them in which is just as important but much overlooked. If 20 people stay for an extra 3 drinks you've already made enough to pay the band more than petrol and improved the reputation of your place) is because everyone's paying pittance, and musos can't afford to get good working for pittance.

The good people can't stay in the game, so most bands are far less than good, so they don't pull people in and keep them, which means venue owners won't pay, which means the good musos keep leaving the scene. More money means better music means more, and more regular, punters, which means better money for the best musos which means competition, better music, etc., etc..

Arno-West

Sorry, but having to supply your own PA shouldn't be an issue. How can a band expect to do gigs without their own PA?

DonRoos

So my recently formed band was offered a Sunday afternoon paying gig and we got all excited. Hot off our debut at a free gig where we did a 1 hour set we are rearing to go.

I contacted them and was told I would be phoned back in a frew minutes. After an hour or so I get the call. Get asked about the band and told the venue and times. Also get asked who is in the band and what kind of music we play and if we have our own PA. Get told I will be contacted.

10 days go bye with no contact. The venue start to see messages on our facebook page about the free gig we did and then suddenly contact me. The deal is:

R20 door, venue get R5 and we get R15. BUT, we are required to bring 15 paying guests. That means I have to pay for my wife and family to come and watch me! I did a quick calculation and worked out that in order to pay for the hire of the PA and give each band member enough to cover the huge investment in equipment, petrol money, some money to compensate for the 3 hours of our time and many, many hours rehersing we would have to get about 150 guests through the door. The venue is not big enough to handle that so we would be subsidising them.

As has already been said, we would be paying them to have a private party. I told them that we could not afford to do the gig, oartly because the hire of the sound system would cost R500. It was comented "we thought you have your own PA". That may be so, but that equipment cost thousands. The depreciation on it has to be paid and my bank manager certainly won't be doing that. Each time the equipment gets used I have to take into consideration the wear and tear on that equipment. The more it is used the more likely it is to fail at some point and require replacement. I am sure the venue will not be wanting to contribute to this.

Just for me alone, in order to make a gig like this worth my while I will need to bring one guest other than my family to pay for their entrance (effectively it costs me R5 each). I will need to bring in another 2 for each drink me or my family drinks - about 10 or so to make it a nice round number. Then to pay for the petrol I need to bring in another 2 guests. A new set of strings will require another 8 guests for each of my two guitars. That equates to 29 guests. That is just to break even. Then to pay for my time at R100/hour for 3 hours I need to bring in another 20 guests. Contribnution to my gear replacement fund another 10 or so. A stagering 60 guests I alone have to bring.

For the PA (owned by my son) I need to bring an additional 30 guests to pay for the hire of his equipment and for his time and expense in transporting the PA, setting it up and doing the monitoring for 3 hours.

I won't waste your time with the calculations for the Lead Guitarist with his 2 guitars, the Bass guitarist with his guitar or the drummer with his expensive kit.

But, it would appear that there are some idiots willing to pay the venue to get a little exposure as another band was advertised for the date we were due to play. The sum total of edvertising - 3 adverts on their facebook page. This for a venue that hidden is away in an industrial park with no regular assing traffic and no visible advertising at the venue, barly instructions to get to the venue.

We will rather stay home and enjoy a good movie, we are not that desperate. Sooner or later, a decent venue will give use a decent deal to play and then we will be quick to take them up on it. It is not good to over saturate the market with the band playing in too many gigs any way.

Keira-WitherKay

i think it all depends on the venues you perform in and also the genre that you perform ,

AlanRatcliffe

^ that's criminal Don. There is no excuse for taking 25% of door. Not only do they expect not to pay the band anything but have the door cover it, they expect to make a profit on every body through the door too?

I've taken to giving them a non-negotiable flat fee. If they don't advertise and get people in, they don't make a profit. They mustn't try make their problems mine.

The venues with suss know it's all about numbers: don't charge the punters to get in the door and you get more punters - the same guy that will turn away when faced with a R20 cover, will happily spend minimum R300 on drinks while he watches a "free" band. Gross profit of drinks sales is about 50%, so the first 20 punters and you've covered your cost to pay a small (R3K) band and you're starting to cover your other overheads. With a decent band you are far more likely to get 60 - 100 punters in and then you are smiling.

On the other hand, charge R20 cover, get 20 people (if you are lucky), band only gets R400 and you barely cover overheads. Or get a band that won't charge anything, but drive the few punters away after only one drink...

Keira-WitherKay

oh and i also supply all the PA /backline needs even lighting if needed .... being self sufficient as a gigging musician is critical ...

also don't just fob off those "festivals" ect where you do a free set ... i have been seen at a few such events where i did it for free but landed bookings for corporates /functions or venues ...and the thinking is if i wasn't there cos it was beneath me to perform free i would have missed out on a lot of work ... i even had a pro studio record me for free cos the owner saw me at an open mic type event and thought i needed to be recorded ...

so i don't suggest you do all ypour gigs for free but sometimes it can be beneficial in the long run .... even if that free performance actually cost you money .... if you "impressive" and a good player you need to be exposed to be noticed no one is gonna come to your rehearsal room and seek you out

but like any bussiness.... in music you need to develop your Band(product) into something which is marketable and has something "special"/unique to make you stick out from all the other acts .... so skills /performance on stage /image/ repetoire is so important ... find a target audience then market towards them with everything you have and use the "free" shows to fine tune your "product" ....

briang-telkomsa-net

but like any bussiness.... in music you need to develop your Band(product) into something which is marketable and has something "special"/unique to make you stick out from all the other acts .... so skills /performance on stage /image/ repetoire is so important ... find a target audience then market towards them with everything you have and use the "free" shows to fine tune your "product" ....

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Like your "can do/ will do" attitude Keira - positive approach always does it so find a way.
Also, even a good product needs to be marketed and if its not as good as it could be make it good, no?

DonRoos

Kiera, we are not averse to doing free gigs where we get great exposure, we have just done one for our first gig and got amazing response. In our humble opinion we were as good as the bands that have been performing for more than 10 years.

Playing a gig like we were offered has nothing to do with the genre - we play a unique mix of rock covers for now till we get a good following and start doing our own songs. So the genre is what punters want. We have really great musicians - our lead is phenomenal and really entertaining. It has everything to do with venue. The venue is in a bad locartion, does not have a regular clientel and are trying to get bands to bring them clients. Absolutely no risk or efforty on their part - if we don't bring in 15 people we probably get nothing and they get ALL the door takings due to us not complying with the contract.

We are fully prepared to do free gigs as a means of promoting ourseves in a decent venue but fully expect to get a good fee for subsequent gigs. We do have the PA, back line and everything to do a gig in an empty venue. We are busy working on lighting as well. We have an LED board that advertises the band, a strobe light and a black light. We just need some LED strip lighting and some colour changing LED lamps. We have a logo and facebook page and we wear band t shirts with our logo so I hardly think we are going about this in the wrong way. We just don't want to be so desperate to get a gig that we give ourselves away for free and in so doing, foul up the business for all other bands as well.