What is the proper or best way to ask people for tips at a gig. I feel like I am begging even tho you and the band work hard for your money.do you announce your passing the tip jar and any contrabution would be appriecated . Any help will be appriecated.thansks just trying to help my band mates out.
The groups I play with in wine tasting rooms, cafes and restaurants, all use a decent looking receptacle to which a nice, printed sign is attached in some fashion, saying in large, readable, somewhat stylish print: "TIPS". This receptacle is placed usually in an obvious location, near the band.
This pretty much does it. And thank goodness, because asking for tips is kind of tough. Once, in a case where the venue owner wasn't paying us, he mustered his somewhat intoxicated and partying clients to tip us and they did. That was fun!
The sign, though, especially a nicely designed, printed and laminated one, usually works well in my experience.
I saw Adam play here in Raleigh. He wasn't shy about calling attention to the ol' tip jar. He threw in a little humor by saying it's gas money for the drum player and stuff like that. I've seen others call attention to it by just coming out and saying if you like what you hear please make a donation. OR you could do something real subtle like, like the cigoman band:
The only place I've been where they pass the hat round is a jazz band in a local pub. The landlady or one of the bar staff go round with a pint pot at some point in the evening and ask for 'something for the band' I think they get quite a reasonable amount.
it definitely helps to have a staffer take the jar around. i once resorted to giving a cd away to a gal who then took the tip jar to every table for us. some of my best tips have been unsolicited, like a truck show we played in texas where a crazy horse trader flipped a 50 in my case for something we'd already played. when i called the song to the band they were quick to point out that "we already DID that", which changed quicker yet when i flashed the 50 at them. i may get in on a tip thing with Bluesboy Jag soon. Jolene and i have played a spot downtown with pretty good success- until it was fenced off for a construction job! when the work is done that spot will be unavailable sadly. we may just move a short way up the street to a doorway of a closed shop next time we go there. audiences can be very fickle but if presented right a tip jar can be a real plus. a bit of humor goes a long way. ---------- http://www.reverbnation.com/jawboneandjolene
Asking for tips is tough. It works best in a venue where the practice of tipping the band--giving to the tip bucket--is long-established practice. It works least well in venues, such as restaurants, where people feel imposed upon.
There's a certain kind of tavern, or tavern-atmosphere, where tipping blues bands or duos works really well. My sense is that tipping is established practice to a much greater extent in Europe than it is in America. At cafes in Paris and southern France, it was understood that buskers were going to play a tune or two, then pass the hat.
It helps to have a pretty woman pass the hat for you. One way of achieving this is to have a waitress pass the hat with the promise that you'll give her a modest %. This is how they do it at Terra Blues in NYC. Next best is to have a musician who is actually playing pass the hat==a harmonica player, for example--while the band (or guitar player) continues to keep the beat going. It also REALLY helps to have the bar owner pass the hat.
Humor helps. The opposite of humor--petulantly insinuating that the non-tipping audience consists of cheapskates--does not work.
Austin lives on tips. I tend to do it when the band is playing a song. I do not trust staff or pretty girls. I have seen countless patrons waving their money only to be ignored by a spacey tip jar person. And I have seen them skate through the audience barely looking at the eyes of the customers like they're in a hurry or embarrassed.
I give a quick funny speech announcing the tip jar and I walk to EVERY table and every person sitting alone and say "Tips for the band?" If we're playing inside and there's an outside, I go outside as well. Twice a show, in the middle and at the end. The worst they can do is say no or something insulting.
However, if the audience paid a cover to come in, I will not pass it. There may be a tip jar at the stage, but that's as far as I'll go.
Seed the jar if you can. It's a little different if you play a show and then you start passing the hat around, but in a setting where the tip jar has been out a while, put some money in it (and don't take money out if you can help it). People are lousy at knowing what to tip. If all they see is change they will throw more change in. If they see a few ones, they'll throw in a one if they can afford it. If they can afford a five, ten or twenty, but you don't see tips like that in the jar you'll assume you aren't supposed to tip that much. If you have a CD, put it by the tip jar. Tell people they can have a CD for a donation (or if they write their contact info on your band sheet.)
The same tip jar trick applies to waiters behind the counter who have a tip jar. I used to go door to door for a charity. We'd leave the bigger donation checks on our clipboard for neighbors to see (probably a huge privacy breach, but just in terms of collecting, it really helped. We'd keep the last sheet from the previous day for petitions to put on top of a new days', for basically the same reason. People don't want to do more than they are expected to, but they don't want to do less either. I had one guy paw through the checks to see how much his neighbor gave ($60) and call him a cheap bastard. He then wrote me a check for $120.
Another trick, if there are a lot of kids around, is to get the kids involved. My friend and I worked a charity auction at a big outdoors even. The parents were mostly ignoring us. We were raffling off a fiberglass canoe (retail $2k). While the parents were looking at the next booth over I'd call the kids over and have them pick up one end of the canoe with their pinky. That got the parents interested. We sold a few thousand dollars worth of tickets that weekend.
You could work the crowd too. I sold candy bars as a cub scout. I'd walk up to a table with a guy and a girl. They guy always bought a candy bar for the girl. You could sing songs or sell CD's that way. If one of the band members has a kid at a cute age and you are shameless, you could send the kid around with the tip jar or to sell CDs. :)
Violent threats and brandishing of firearms sometimes help move things in a forward direction. If that doesn't work, just grab a high G harmonica and incessantly blow the 10 hole as long/hard as possible through the house PA with treble on full throttle.
If you do receive tips using these methods, you will unfortunately be counting them in a county jail and using your tip money for a cochlear implant
Last Edited by on Oct 23, 2012 11:24 AM
I used to have a regular gig at a place in Venice Beach, California, one of the best places I ever played. There were always people from all over the map there and it seemed like they were always in a party mood. A dream audience! The owner would usually pass the tip jar near the end of the night (or afternoon) and he wasn't shy about it. It wasn't unusual to see the occasional ten or twenty in there. Of course I'm sure it was a bit of alcohol fueled generosity. That's the kind of crowd that always makes you play better so we did our best to earn our tips.
Careful.....we did a gig the other night with a tip hat on the counter..a little too close to the CAFE OWNER, and as it turned out, he had his hands IN THE HAT! Screwing us out of a fair percentage of tips that came from friends and family we'd brought in!!!! Then he tried to charge us for drinks other people had bought for us! What a hide eh!? ---------- One of Rubes's bands, DadsinSpace-MySpace Old Man Rubes at Reverbnation
For me it depends on how bad I need $. When I was playing full time it was a top priority. I never have liked asking for $ but I forced myself to do so with humor, pretty women passing the hat, a dog going round with a bucket round its neck, a young kid passing it, etc. Nowadays I don't need the $ and just sit a bucket out with tips written on it. I never felt good about begging for money and had to change my mindset to I am not begging but informing the audience that the tip $ is a big part of our pay. Here was one of the many wild set ups the owner of the black cat lounge in austin had set up. Look over my head. The clothesline went from the front of the club to the back. People would get into putting money into it and then sending it up to the stage. It would stop right in front of the singers face. You would stop playing, take the money out, say something like thanks and how about somebody matching it and send it back out into the crowd. I am glad I don't have to deal with tips anymore! Walter
---------- walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year. " life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
YOU be happy and do your best for your mates and the rest is up to Someone Else. dig? and btw i do have a day job still! ---------- http://www.reverbnation.com/jawboneandjolene
A TIP o' the hat -- and maybe a 3-hole bend (kinda like a bow)
To whoever first explains what is wrong in the really funny cartoon of 'night of the living tip jars' posted by Frank.
Last Edited by on Oct 25, 2012 8:28 AM
