How Much do you charge?

piperhahn · Post by **piperhahn** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 10:59 am

I have a 4 person Traditional Irish band.

1. Dancer/Vocalist
2. Uilleann piper/ Flute/Vocal
3. Guitar/ Bodhran/Vocal
4. Guitar/ Fiddle/ Vocal

playing two hour shows.. what is an expected pay rate for

1. Bar
2. Outdoor event
3. Opening act for National Band
4. Concert in the park series

There doesn't seem to be anything online that talks about how much bands get paid for situations like this..

let me know what you think.

Eric

djm · Post by **djm** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 11:46 am

I think this would be almost entirely dependent on your locality. What country are you in? What city are you in?

How many bands in your area play your type of music (competition)? How much do your competition charge?

How many venues are there in your locality? If there are lots of places with few bands, you can charge more. If there are few venues with lots of competition you may have to charge less. Are you and your bandmates members of the musicians' union (some venues only accept union players)?

I think you may find better answers closer to home than on an international forum like this, but that's just my opinion.

djm

tommykleen · Post by **tommykleen** » Thu Oct 02, 2008 7:34 am

Make sure you charge plenty. Uilleann pipers have $pecial need$

Tommykleen,
uilleann piper

SteveShaw · Post by **SteveShaw** » Thu Oct 02, 2008 9:23 am

We have a band round here that plays just for donations to charities. Laudable though this may be, they make it very hard for any other bands in the area to charge reasonable fees. As it's a rural area there's a lot of petrol expenditure involved. Ask for plenty and make the point that a DJ just playing loud rubbish with a sh1te sound system would charge more!

And always negotiate free beer on top of the fee!

Richard Katz · Post by **Richard Katz** » Thu Oct 02, 2008 10:09 am

Have a set fee that you charge and stick to it. If you are good at what you do, then you are definitely worth being paid for it. Make it worth your efforts.

Add fees if you have to travel more than 20 miles outside your locale. This pays for the extra gas, mileage on your vehicle, and the inconvenience of extra travel.

I have found that most people don't have a problem paying my fee for a wedding or funeral. In fact, I am probably one of the lesser costs when all is considered.

If they hesitate, I always ask if my fee is a hardship for them. If, honestly it is, then I negotiate with them what they can afford.

I also play for much less, or free, for non-profits, schools, or charity events. Sometimes the free advertising and exposure at an important event outweighs the lesser fee.

Most people will appreciate the fact that you are well worth the fee and, in fact, usually rave that you were the highlight of their event.

Don't undercut, or devalue, your services. Remember, you have practiced and trained many years to be able to do what you do.

The worst thing is other musicians in my area that undercut fees and make everyone else suffer because they are so cheap (and usually not very good musicians anyways).

As a side note: be honest, professional, and accessible to your patrons. They really appreciate that you run your business as a business.

Make sure that you are available by phone and email and always check in with them the week proceeding the event to make sure that everything is in order. They really appreciate that.

Also, always be punctual. No one likes someone who is late to a gig.

Cheers! Richard

eskin · Post by **eskin** » Fri Oct 03, 2008 10:27 am

Here's my rate sheet:

http://members.cox.net/eskin/ratesheet.html

Ro3b · Post by **Ro3b** » Mon Oct 06, 2008 7:49 am

My rates are similar to eskin's. Generally for parties and weddings and suchlike, I ask $100 per person/hour (minimum 2 hours), plus travel and PA charges if applicable.

Bar gigs are a whole other bag of halibut. What you gain in exposure, you lose in income. My friend Philippe and I get $100 each for leading our session, which works out to $20-25 per person/hour, and we're at the high end of the scale. If you can put out a tip jar and sell your cds, you can make it worthwhile. In fact, I think it's a good idea to make a sellable recording as soon as possible so you can have more flexibility in the kinds of gigs you can take.

piperhahn · Post by **piperhahn** » Mon Oct 06, 2008 9:38 am

Thank you to all who replied, however especially thank you to Michael Eskin and Ro3b who gave specific dollar ammounts. I was looking for some sort of benchmark. anyone can come up with statements of understanding how hard you worked to be able to perform yadda yadda yadda, but it's another thing entirely to have a dollar ammount to put next to that conversation, because my thought and value of my time was such that I wouldn't have had a problem asking $100 per head per hour which looks like that wouldn't be a bad thing except working in a bar setting which would probably require a 50% cut in charge? You hit a point where a certian venue is not giving you a return on that investment because you're not pulling new gigs out of it. but we'll see.

Thanks again for the replies and input.

LadyDi · Post by **LadyDi** » Tue Oct 07, 2008 9:09 am

By the way Eric, you played with Ro3b and Philippe (and I) when you guys were in DC earlier this year... so you get the feel for what service they are providing to the pub and the rate they are charging.

Good luck out there. And BTW, I didn't know you sing!

Diana

johnkerr · Post by **johnkerr** » Tue Oct 07, 2008 11:58 am

LadyDi wrote:By the way Eric, you played with Ro3b and Philippe (and I) when you guys were in DC earlier this year... so you get the feel for what service they are providing to the pub and the rate they are charging.

Di, you are definitely underpaid for what you bring to that session. But it's downright shameful the way you use that as an excuse for leaving early every time!

Ro3b · Post by **Ro3b** » Wed Oct 08, 2008 9:37 am

LadyDi wrote:so you get the feel for what service they are providing to the pub and the rate they are charging.

Yeah, we play music, but we charge extra for the drinking, lecturing, and sarcasm.

CHasR · Post by **CHasR** » Wed Oct 08, 2008 2:53 pm

easy. $200 each

boomerang · Post by **boomerang** » Tue Oct 14, 2008 1:50 am

Keep this in perspective,
While there are a few exceptions , if the function is a privately funded affair, try to take the approach of what it would be like to hire a facillity / hall ...whatever. buy food drinks and catering. then pay for the band. if an attendance fee is being charged at the door its not such a big deal.
Corporate functions are not usually so fussy, but they do insist on professionalism

For the band i play with, we charge $100 (AU) per person plus a reasonable amount of feul money (or equipment fee) dependant on the circumstances, and how far to travel.

we play for 4-5 hours, and while some may argue, i reckon $100 take home is a fair fee do do something i love, its not an income as such but a hobby that pays for itself..
If your band is good enough to charge more well and good , but always ask yourself if i was paying for my playing how much would be fair..
sometimes less is more if you end up picking up more gigs due to a reasonable fee.
Our band is flat out, and i am having the time of my life
Just a thought.
Regards
David

pkev · Post by **pkev** » Tue Oct 14, 2008 5:05 pm

Hi

A few things to consider here for me anyway.......

If your free from responsibilities ie family, then I suppose you can spend as much time as you like participating in your hobby and charging whatever you like

When you or your band is hired to provide a service for a fee, it becomes a business transaction and therefore a different approach is required I think.

If an organiser queries the cost of hiring my band and intimates to me his other costs ie venue, catering etc with the hope of getting a discount, I usually intimate to them that their other costs ain't my problem so take it or leave it.

I ran a 5 piece show band for 15 years and the majority of our work was in weddings and corporate events so anything really from about £800 to £1,000 for a normal 4 hour gig around the central belt in Scotland.

It wasn't a straight 5 way split however, we paid our female singers a fee
and the 3 other partners incurred the expense of PA's, lights & maintenance etc

A point to note also is that individual members of the band declared their earnings as self employed musicians.

I also ran a Ceilidh band for about 15 years as well but the income wasn't as lucrative ie for a 3 piece about £300 - £400 for a normal gig.

The other thing I suppose is that I couldn't really justify earning £50 a gig to my wife and being away from the house all that time, leaving her with the kids etc. It's a different story bringing home £160 - £200 a gig.
I used to wake up the morning after a gig, and de money was gone!

I'm now in the fortunate position of not having to rely so much on gigs as a source of income so I can perhaps pick and choose a bit more as to what gigs I do

Just my 2 cents

pkev