how much does your band make?

  • Thread starter Thread starter ralf
  • Start date Start date

how much does your band get paid per gig

  • 0

    Votes: 6 15.4%

  • 5-20 dollars

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • 20-50 dollars

    Votes: 4 10.3%

  • 50-75 dollars

    Votes: 2 5.1%

  • 75 dollars or more

    Votes: 27 69.2%
  • Total voters
    39
We play for about 100 Euro at clubs, bars etc... We can get alot of concerts if we want since we are 'older' (20-25) and more experienced players. Even though we are just starting out as a band. (band is old, completely new lineup, new music...) But they know us from previous bands. We rock...

Most of the bands over here play either lame unoriginal guitarrock or punkrock/hardcore/nu-metal thing. Whatever is in. The bands that have a more original sound/genre like surf occasionally a rock'nroll band with the looks, they get more succes. Since they rock too... It's important to rock. :cool:

If you ask more over here, you'll have a hard time finding concerts... Kindof a trade-off. We rather do more concerts for less. Build up an audience.

Also, the jazzbands I know off can get more money. People seem to realize that you need better musicians for that...
 
I used to be a Production Manager for a new age composer/keyboard player. He was sorta like Yanni on crank. He did amazing live shows. We would mainly play art festivals and some smaller theatre shows.

Our income was 100% CD sales and in a weekend long art festival we could usually pull in around $3000. Our best weekend was probably around $6000 but some weekends we were lucky to make $500.

We also had to cover travel expenses, CD costs, and space rental at the festivals. If he wasnt so flaky we probably could have taken it to the next level, but oh well.
 
I didn't miss it

I mentioned right off the bat that I wasn't talking about an original act, but thought that my experience might be of some use.

Carl
 
Our thing is festivals in Western Canada..
We are hardly headliners, but as a 6 pce. retro\folk\rock original
band we would pick up 50.00 per set per player (30-45 min.)
and 3 to 4 sets a weekend.This basically covers gas and food..
We sell CDs off stage @ 10.00 per.
I also do gigs-all original-with my wife as a duo and make about
twice as much but I love the big sound!!!!

Graham.
 
Hey man, you think THAT is bad? I live in the Fort Myers/Cape Coral area. Bum-fuck Egypt when it comes to any culture or class. Gee, can't wait for my 75 bucks a gig. LOL


Buffalo Bob said:
"I think many of you missed a key word in ralf's original question. He asked about bands that play only original music."


Good point. Here in Miami, there is very little call for original music.
It's all Tiki bars and Dance DJ's. Sucks.
When we do play original music, it's usually at some folk club - lucky to get $75-$100.

Bob
Click to expand...
 
SOUND DIAGNOSIS said:
Hey man, you think THAT is bad? I live in the Fort Myers/Cape Coral area. Bum-fuck Egypt when it comes to any culture or class. Gee, can't wait for my 75 bucks a gig.
Click to expand...

One thing I loved when I livend in BFE was that we were big fish in a small pond. Thus, we could pull in $1.5k a weekend for mostly covers while still being able to spatter in some originals. We felt like rock stars.

I kinda miss those days. :)
 
"Hey man, you think THAT is bad? I live in the Fort Myers/Cape Coral area. Bum-fuck Egypt when it comes to any culture or class. Gee, can't wait for my 75 bucks a gig. LOL"

I hear ya, man. The Florida music scene sucks! It's mostly due to the damned club/bar owners who started hiring DJ's instead of live bands. Bastards.
If it wasn't for the fishing, and the recession, I'd be gone tomorrow!

Bob
 
Hell Bob, we got fishing and recession up here in Virginia too! Come on up! Oh.......we got a little snow too.....you probably haven't seen a lot of that down your way. Something I could do without.



bd
 
our band gets $400 (4 of us) for a one nighter....we could make more if we updated our show and played more hip hop. right now im not booking any gigs because im concentrating on a recording project. i may lose 1/2 the band by doing this but so be it....im focused on original tunes right now.
 
Really it kinda depends on the economy of the town you're playing in. Small towns will pay a lot less than a good Border Town like Windsor/Detroit.

Back in 1988 when I used to play the local circuit we got $800 total ($200/member) out of the gross we'd pay for the equipment rental(s) etc...

Though the further West we went (when we went on tour) the less we got... till we hit Vancouver & Victoria where we got booked alot and made around $1200/show (By then we owned all the equipment we needed so my take was $300)

As for people arguing about who gets a bigger cut, it's all BS... cause anyone (And I mean ANYONE) can be replaced. So if you get some greedy basterd who wants more $ don't even hesitate to point to the door. Don't quit, just boot 'em and start auditioning a replacement right away.

As for how to handle "song ownership" in that event, well I posted something on here about that that outlined how we used to do it.

To read it click here - it's in this thread.


- Tanlith -

Future WebMaster of Collaboration Nation
 
we never made any money. we would just go and play. but then this one time this guy bought me a can of pepsi. does that count?

VIVA LA ME
 
500

500 dlls for 1 hour,
its a reggae band in mexico playing our own songs, i tought we where underpaid and that they paid better in the US...
anyway we dont get to much gigs, only about 5 each month and we are 7, and we dont pay the equipment, its paid by the person who invites us, i´ve seen bands in mexico to charge 900 dlls for a gig, and they dont have any released material
 
i used to play in a 3 piece ..two guitars (one guy played bass too)...and me on drums..we played alot of jazzy guitar pieces written by the guitar player.....anyway i usually made 150 period for whatever we did...so if it was 4 hrs ...i got the same as for 1 hr...but it was easy ..:)

j
 
My 4 piece makes a grand playing the same freakin' club in Houston about once a month, lol. (covers...ewwww).

I recently started doing some solo acoustic stuff, 90% original... Last 3 gigs have been $300.00. There's more pressure doing the solo thing, but there's a helluva' lot less gear to load out. Don't tell my band...but...

:D :D :D




































Mostly, I'd play just about anywhere for free if it was mostly my music and somebody listened. BTW - the CD sales can help make it totally worthwhile.
 
Bulgaria

Hi, guys!

Average bands here in Bulgaria receive 50$ per 3 or 4 sets of 30 minutes.I never suppose that in US people like that old stuff,but when I'm reading what you talk about it's so surprising!Cover bands -a lot of cover bands playng all the night the same old stuff-Alice,la Bamba,have you ever seen the rain...Yes there are bands here who play covers for 1000$ per night,but again the same.Only their radio hits are different!

Nelly

www.popcorn.dir.bg
 
Sonic Misfit said:
There has been a trend developing in that some clubs will host bands who are selling their CDs. In that case, the club does not pay the band. The band is expected to make their cash from selling merchandise at the performance.
Click to expand...

rrrrgggg -- this is an evil trend
(ps - a friend of mine from France told me that in Paris - the band has to pay the club (!!) in order to play ...)
 
oh yeah this other time when we played at a party we had free beer, but so did all the guests hmm

Viva La Me
 
Pay to Play?

I don't load my drums for less than $75 a nite. And if I'm working with certain people who don't help set up, I charge $125. Why should I set up the Pa and drums when I don't sing OR mike them. And this is for 2 Original bands I play with. I don't know what the other's work out, but that is my rate.
 
I won't play anywhere for less than $450-500 per night, it just isn't worth it when you consider all the work involved with setup and teardown and the whole nine yards. And I definitely won't play any club for free on the rationale that I'm making my money via merchandising...the merchandising income is a separate matter. If I put on a show and help draw in more people at an establishment, they are going to pay me a performance fee. Any place that doesn't want to do so can ask someone a lot more desperate for gigs than I am to bend over and take it.
 
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