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Dirty-South Blues Harp forum: wail on! >
OT: average pay for playing bars
OT: average pay for playing bars
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MUDHOUND
4 posts
Jan 22, 2013
11:29 AM
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This may be a bit OT, but I'm curious. What's the going pay rate in your area for gigs? We have a 4 pc. band (blues) and we get $300 'IF' we're lucky. Sometimes we get $250 or $275 w/food & drinks. Prices for festivals go up, usually $600-$800. We play quite a bit, usually 12 dates a month. You book whatever place will book you just to stay busy and keep a decent cash flow. Unfortunately not that many venues we play are real 'blues' venues.
Last Edited by on Jan 22, 2013 11:54 AM
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The Iceman
700 posts
Jan 22, 2013
12:52 PM
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In Orlando area, it was $3-400/gig bar, split usually 4 ways, so $75/man was pretty normal...bandleader would go for convention gigs whenever he could, and then it was $500 or more/gig.
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The Iceman
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Lonesome Harpman
121 posts
Jan 22, 2013
1:19 PM
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In Columbus Ohio, we get $250 to $350 for a 4 piece. We consider $350 average. Some places give free beer or a small tab with the best being $100.00. We played at a place Saturday with $1.00 domestic beer and 30% off food orders.
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garry
343 posts
Jan 22, 2013
2:12 PM
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northern nj: $300 or so. in our case, tip the bartenders 10% and split among 5 people. nobody's quitting their day job.
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Jim Rumbaugh
819 posts
Jan 22, 2013
3:01 PM
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Sad, but those sound like the same rates when I played in the 70's and 80's, and I say everything I have read above sounds about right for a "typical" band
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theharmonicaclub.com (of Huntington, WV)
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MUDHOUND
7 posts
Jan 22, 2013
3:15 PM
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>Sad, but those sound like the same rates when I played in the 70's and 80's, and I say everything I have read above sounds about right for a "typical" band<
You are CORRECT. I can remember getting $100 a man with no questions asked like 6-8 years ago.
The economy has kicked the live music biz in the ass the least few years. Hope it gets better, but I don't see it on the horizon.
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kudzurunner
3849 posts
Jan 22, 2013
4:10 PM
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In NYC back in the late 80s, the typical lowball blues trio gig (aka "shit gig") paid $150. That's 25 years ago. An inflation calculator that I've just checked tells me that $150 in 1988 is equal to $280 in 2011. About $95 a man.
Back then, a $100 gig--pay per man--was considered a really nice Saturday night gig. Now it's just a gig. And that makes sense, given inflation. A buck a man.
Those NYC gigs were three 60-minute sets in a four hour period, with two 20-minute breaks. Four hour gigs.
In Austin, I've heard, there's terrific downward pressure on wages--a result of too many musicians and not enough gigs (although still a lot of gigs). Nashville, too, I hear. Lotsa folks willing to play free or for tips in order to showcase their stuff and hopefully get "discovered."
Once you break out of the bar scene with the help of a booking agent or management, there's a world of better paying gigs, but it's an unstable world until you're seriously established. Here's a key point: IF YOU CAN CONSISTENTLY CONVINCE LOTS OF PEOPLE TO PAY LOTS OF MONEY TO SEE YOU, YOU CAN GET LOTS OF MONEY FROM WHOEVER IS HIRING YOU. If you're Alicia Keys and you're playing sizeable venues for ticket prices that top $100, you can make lots of money.
Bars and restaurants hire musicians for a range of reasons, but ultimately they need to make enough money, after they've paid all their expenses and paid the musicians, to make a profit for their owners. Some places depend more on live music than others--they've got a whole "thing" that revolves around New Orleans or blues or roots music, for example, and they've gotta feed that thing in order to keep people coming. But they've still got a range of musicians to choose from. Some places just don't care at all what kind of music they're presenting. They just want to attract a goodly number of people who will drink, eat, and not fight or break up the place, causing the police to descend. Music is strictly a commodity for those places; it's grease that keeps the wheels turning, and it doesn't much matter what brand the grease is.
Each scene is different; each scene requires its own calculation of variables. In the blues world, you sometimes find guys--Fred Daniele at Franco's in Williamsport--who love the music, are bringing in the music BECAUSE they love it and want to expose the patrons to it, and aren't stingy. He used to pay Satan & Adam $600 plus two rooms back in the early 1990s. Small place. There's no way he made his money back. But his restaurant business was very good and he could afford to do this.
Private parties are an entirely different deal. The scale there is always at least twice what a band would get in a bar or club, sometimes more. That's a special occasion and the buyer--the couple--isn't counting on trying to make a profit by selling tickets. (Can you imagine a wedding where they sold tickets? Yikes.) Same thing with any private party.
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MUDHOUND
8 posts
Jan 22, 2013
4:46 PM
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>Once you break out of the bar scene with the help of a booking agent or management, there's a world of better paying gigs, but it's an unstable world until you're seriously established.<
As far as the blues world goes, that’s a very important point. As the guys I play with, often have to tell ourselves “we’re still in the 4 hour world” just deal with it. We’re working on it, but not yet in the show and festival world where most bands play 60 or 90 minute sets and make good $. Nope, we’re still in the 3 and 4 hour bar scene, where people still ask for Van Morrison and Mustang Sally. I guess it’s called “payin your dues”. Now, let me go be envious of those artists on the current LRBC.
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Leatherlips
181 posts
Jan 22, 2013
5:14 PM
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Here in Australia things are pretty similar. I can remember our 5 piece getting $600.00 in 1998!
Nowadays, it's more like $350-$500 for 4 hours for a 4 piece.
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LSC
359 posts
Jan 22, 2013
5:33 PM
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"In Austin, I've heard, there's terrific downward pressure on wages--a result of too many musicians and not enough gigs (although still a lot of gigs). Nashville, too, I hear. Lotsa folks willing to play free or for tips in order to showcase their stuff and hopefully get "discovered." "
This is certainly true. The whole "great exposure" thing has become a sad joke. It's even spread to film and tv jobs, both actors and technical with jobs offered for no pay but, "great opportunity".
" IF YOU CAN CONSISTENTLY CONVINCE LOTS OF PEOPLE TO PAY LOTS OF MONEY TO SEE YOU, YOU CAN GET LOTS OF MONEY FROM WHOEVER IS HIRING YOU. If you're Alicia Keys and you're playing sizeable venues for ticket prices that top $100, you can make lots of money."
This is also true. I had a conversation with a bar owner once who treated musicians like crap, despite the fact that he marketed the bar as a "premier live music venue." I called him out on the contradiction to which he replied, "If your name was Paul McCartney I'd give you whatever you wanted."
In Europe there is in general a different attitude. Live music is not necessarily expected to generate profit on the night. Promotion and the image of the club is factored in. A Dutch bar owner once told me, "I get more repeat business throughout the week from the buzz around the bar that you guys create on the night you play than I do from running an ad in the paper. A newspaper ad costs about the same but you guys are hell of a lot more fun. Besides, you bring loads of free publicity with the promotion that comes with you." He was speaking of interviews, radio spots, music listings, posters, and all the places where the club is mentioned in the promotion of the gig.
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LSC
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