band guys - what do you charge?

[Fragle]

so, what's your usual fee for gigs?
please also mention how popular the band is, so we can put it into perspective.


the reason i'm asking is that my band's also frequently organizing gigs etc, and lately i've gotten some pretty ridiculous answers from bands.

the local community over here (let's say 80km radius, bands we know and are friends with) is pretty cool, many times people will play for gas money and free drinks, maybe a few euros on top of that if it's a bigger band. but most of them are unsigned or signed to small shit labels so that's reasonable to me. depending on the band and how far they have to travel we're talking around 40-80 euro here.

once you ask the *somewhat* better known bands it quickly seems to get ridiculous IMHO. i'm obviously not gonna mention any names, but let's just say that there are a few somewhat local-ish bands (100km radius) that have a few full lengths under their belt and have decent record deals, yet they're not well known by ANY means, absolutely don't frequently play any noteable gigs, don't attract a lot of people (100-150 at max) and they're asking for 400-600 euros, which is total bullshit in my book.

think about it from a promoters POV: even if you're doing a show with a headliner of that caliber, and fill up the rest of the lineup with cheap local stuff, once you start adding the other expenses like venue, foh system, drinks etc you're easily up in the 1500 euro range (400 venue 400 pa system e.g.).
in this area, a decent ticket price for a show like that tends to be around 8 euro. that's like 200 people for break even. sounds pretty fucked up to me.

well, anyways, sorry for the short rant.
so, what's your fee?

 

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

once you ask the *somewhat* better known bands it quickly seems to get ridiculous IMHO. i'm obviously not gonna mention any names, but let's just say that there are a few somewhat local-ish bands (100km radius) that have a few full lengths under their belt and have decent record deals, yet they're not well known by ANY means, absolutely don't frequently play any noteable gigs, don't attract a lot of people (100-150 at max) and they're asking for 400-600 euros, which is total bullshit in my book.

Our organization often pays that amount gladly for even smaller acts. I think it's pretty far from ridiculous. A decently well-known metal act around here usually costs about 3000-5000€. For 400-600€ you usually get a demo band with little or no fanbase.

 

[Jevil]

With my parody band we are charging 2.800 € + all other costs like van, gas, hotels, food... so it depends on how far are we travelling can cost from 3.000 to 4.500 €. And next year with the new allbum... we'll probably raise the fee.
The band is becoming very popular in spain cause our albums are free and internet gave us lot of populaity, we sold out every venue of 500 people and promotors want us to play in bigger venues.
Last summer we play in front of 3.000 (because the show was free)...that was amazing.
But we only accept venues and festivals which we are interested, we could play every weekend for less money... we are very selective, and we don't want to do more than 12 gigs/year.

On the other hand, I play in a serious band (VALHALLA) since 1997, we used to charge 2.000 or 3.000 in 2003-2004... but now the business of metal music has fallen and we charge 500 €, that's why we play only twice a year... just for fun and being all together... good times were good times... In our city, we can have 300 people...sad but true.

 

[vespiz]

For 400-600€ you usually get a demo band with little or no fanbase.

 

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

Not written in stone or anything, that's just what we usually end up paying for party bands and small acts Of course there are bands that are willing to pay for nothing but gas money, food and drinks, and on the other hand some bands ask for way more with nothing to back it up with.

 

[Fragle]

wtf? that's fucked up imho.

so, what are the ticket prices like? they must be quite a bit higher, otherwise i just can't see how you could reach break even, let alone make some money.

 

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

wtf? that's fucked up imho.

so, what are the ticket prices like? they must be quite a bit higher, otherwise i just can't see how you could reach break even, let alone make some money.

At a normal bar gig tickets are usually 5€ or 10€ depending on the act, and the size of the paid audience varies usually from 150 to 200. We're a non-profit organization devoted to getting live music into our small home town, so all the labor is free. We get a couple of free beers for one evening, but other than that we're doing it because we love to, and because we're a bit stupid.

 

[vespiz]

Some of the gigs we've done were sort of budgetary tax write-offs or something like that.
Meaning the bar had already alloted some money for a band in their budget and needed someone there to (at least potentially) attract customers.
Tickets vary from €0 - 8.

That €400 goes pretty quickly, €1-200 for the van, €100 for the sound guy and, yes, sometimes we need to rent the PA...

Well, at least we usually get meals and a place to sleep.

 

[Fragle]

At a normal bar gig tickets are usually 5€ or 10€ depending on the act, and the size of the paid audience varies usually from 150 to 200. We're a non-profit organization devoted to getting live music into our small home town, so all the labor is free. We get a couple of free beers for one evening, but other than that we're doing it because we love to, and because we're a bit stupid.

i still don't see how you can do this more than a few times without pumping in large amounts of your private money.

let's say 5 bands, 500 each (you said that you'll gladly pay 500 for a local support act, i'm not even adding the aforementioned 2,5-3k for a decent headliner here, let's assume a local underground show), that's 2,5k for bands alone.

let's say 200 people with 10 euro per ticket (which is unlikely as we're assuming a local underground show), that's 2k income.
i'm not sure how thing's are handled in your neck of the woods, but over here the venues tend to be somewhat cheaper but you get no money from sold drinks etc in return, only ticket sales. these 2k (which is a high figure, reality would be more like 150 people (underground gig...) and 5€ per ticket) would be your only income.

now, add expenses for the venue, PA system, sound, band drinks etc, and you're easily in the 3,5k range as far as expenses go.
that's 1,5k loss per show.

 

[Brett - K A L I S I A]

Doesn't sound ridiculous to me. Especially if those bands have several albums, that's pretty cheap. Also keep in mind that people drink at gigs and that's a big part of the income. Also add sponsors to this...

 

[Fragle]

Also keep in mind that people drink at gigs and that's a big part of the income.

as i said in my previous post, most of the time profit made out of that goes straight to the venue. in return the rent of said venue is rather cheap.

 

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

i still don't see how you can do this more than a few times without pumping in large amounts of your private money.

let's say 5 bands, 500 each (you said that you'll gladly pay 500 for a local support act, i'm not even adding the aforementioned 2,5-3k for a decent headliner here, let's assume a local underground show), that's 2,5k for bands alone.

let's say 200 people with 10 euro per ticket (which is unlikely as we're assuming a local underground show), that's 2k income.
i'm not sure how thing's are handled in your neck of the woods, but over here the venues tend to be somewhat cheaper but you get no money from sold drinks etc in return, only ticket sales. these 2k (which is a high figure, reality would be more like 150 people (underground gig...) and 5€ per ticket) would be your only income.

now, add expenses for the venue, PA system, sound, band drinks etc, and you're easily in the 3,5k range as far as expenses go.
that's 1,5k loss per show.

I guess I was kinda unclear. It's usually one or two bands per show. A normal gig night. When it comes to bigger acts that cost a lot more, it's usually our annual outdoor show that gathers something around 700-900 people, where we have sponsoring etc, food and drinks for sale etc.

We have our own PA, our own sound guy (that's me), and our own backline if needed. When there aren't any gigs, all this resides in our rehearsal space, which we offer local young bands to use for a 10€/year membership per person.

I know this might sound ridiculous to you, but we've been rolling for fifteen years, and people in such a small town with pretty much no cultural life whatsoever are glad to support our cause and come to our shows.

 

[Fragle]

no, sounds fine actually. that's a whole different set of circumstances.

and to add to my original post: 500 euro for a signed band with multiple albums is indeed fine - provided that they attract a decent amount of people.
obviously, that's a matter of selecting the right band for the show, too, but the thing is there aren't a lot of such bands in the area. and once you start to consider bands from further away, costs increase too.
being signed and having multiple albums certainly doesn't equal popularity, and imho the latter is what you should base your fee on.

 

[StefTD]

we got gas money and most of the time 1 euro per guest, so it depended on the size of the venue and stuff,
all in all it was about 150-250€, we were a local death metal group, but prices like the ones Jarkko mentioned
are completely different from the ones we have here.
Our first gig was with two, I would say well known, bands, the second band was signed to century media at that time
with 3 full lengths and the headliner had their 20th anniverary that evening, played about 500 shows in europe,
released a few full lengths and had interviews in a few big zines (like Rock Hard).
In the end, we got paid 50€ (no gas money because we lived 5 minutes away) and free drinks and food, the
second band got gas money and 150€ and the headliner got 250€ and gas money, they traveled 450km just to
play that show...
The hidden hand played in the same venue and they got way less than 2,5k, Mother Superior (backing band of Henry Rollins)
played there, got like 750€ as far as I know.

 

[Torniojaws]

With my grindcore band with a little bit of following and a bit short of 40 gigs done, we usually get gas money and often free food. And with my industrial death metal band, with not so much following and less than 10 gigs so far, I also usually get gas money, and sometimes free food.

The highest amounts I've gotten:

Grindcore - about 120 euros for the whole band (3 persons then)
IDM - 50 euros + free food (2 persons)

 

[guitarguru777]

My cover band here in Vegas gets between 1500 and 2k a night

 

[Torniojaws]

Yeah, it's the same here in Finland. Bands that play original songs get very little money, but cover (especially light music/schlager) bands can even provide some people their whole income!

 

[-Gavin-]

Graspop 08 paid 250€ to get 4 guys + gear from Scotland (Sco->Eng->Holland)... oh and we got no choice about playing... and Napalm never gave us extra.

 

[EerieVon]

My cover band here in Vegas gets between 1500 and 2k a night

Which band? Up until 2 yrs ago I lived in Vegas for awhile. Where do you guys play? Please don't say you're in Yellow Brick Road or what ever that band is that plays Boulder Station

 

[Melb_shredder]

Well gigs here pay bands decently if it's a flat rate. My band gets paid minumum $150 per gig, even at opening spots. Bands who have a few album etc get about $500 or so. The tickets for these gigs are about $15 but have generally 4 - 5 bands at a good venue with good sound etc.

So it's pretty normal!