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Band Pay: How much should it be for this gig?


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Leave my house at 4:45 and drive an hour to the gig. Set up personal equipment, PA w/subs and 1 light tree. Gig is an outdoor street dance/party/concert. We play 2 approx. 1:15 sets with one break. Tear down equipment, drive home, get home around 11:45. Trailer rental, getting it and taking it back, plus loading and unloading the trailer, not included in times above.

 

5 piece band...What should a gig like that be worth? What should it pay?

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On the "what should it pay?" I look at it like this... and I'll oversimplify it a bit, but it shouldn't skew it much.

 

5 people spend 6.5 hours on the gig (travel + gig) = 32.5

5 people load/unload/get and return the trailer (an hour and a half?) = 7.5

 

Time is a nice even 40 hours

 

Misc expenses (again, I'll oversimplify a tad)

Food on the cheap for 5 = $50

Gas to/from (if you all ride together) = $20

Trailer rental = $25

Total expenses = $95

 

If the gig paid $500, you each made $10.13 per hour

at $1000, you each made $22.63 per hour

 

What would you do it for?

 

I didn't go into other time and expense items like how much time was spent negotiating, or planning, or printing set lists, or getting gear ready, or making and posting flyers, or sending emails, or putting the date on your website, getting merch together, etc, etc, etc, etc.

 

For "what will they pay?". For a city event, it's all over the map. I've seen several that want bands, and get them, for free. We've only done a few of them and we've been paid $300 and $600 for playing. We're an average dad band. YMMV

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The city doesn't care if you've got to rent equipment to make it happen; their budget is more likely considering that they want you to do two sets with "great exposure", if it's anything like our local city festivals. Heh. "Exposure." Stab me.

 

Anyway, our personal breakdown of the gig based on the equipment you listed would be:

 

Travel: 1 hour each way = ~30 miles each way? * $1/mile = $60 * 5 members = $300

Gear: Tops + Subs + Light tree = $75

Setup: 1 hour @ $15/hr * 5 members = $75

Teardown: 1 hour @ $15/hr * 5 members = $75

Gig Time: 2.5 hours @ $15/hr * 5 members = $187.50

Break Time: $0 (we only consider break time charges if they exceed an hour, at which point you're sitting around bored)

Total: $712.50

 

We'd round that down to $700 (we charge in $50 increments, rounded either way) and put in a quote at that price. If you need to factor in the cost of a trailer, you can feel free to add that, but you may be pricing yourself out of the game at that point. Do you seriously rent a trailer every time you play a show? At that point I'd likely consider selling my PA and just hiring out sound each show and not worrying about that crap.

 

If you're playing original music, multiply by 0.5.

 

From an internal standpoint, in our band, whoever booked the show would make $182, the member who provides sound would make $147, lighting provider would make $147, and the remaining two members would make $112.

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what is your average price? I'd go with that. If you guys are pulling down on an average $1500 per gig that's what I would ask. if you guys are pulling down $600 per gig I'd go with that. It all depends on the band.

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Right. I don't know how popular or not the original poster's band is; I have to think if they were pulling in $1500/night they wouldn't be asking here. The adjustable value in my formula is the band member's pay per hour for setup, teardown, and playing. If you're an entry-level band, $15 seems right on the mark. If you can command a crowd, it's easy to get 5-10 times that amount.

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Right. I don't know how popular or not the original poster's band is; I have to think if they were pulling in $1500/night they wouldn't be asking here. The adjustable value in my formula is the band member's pay per hour for setup, teardown, and playing. If you're an entry-level band, $15 seems right on the mark. If you can command a crowd, it's easy to get 5-10 times that amount.

 

 

the way you broke it down does look good. (I actually didn't look at it until after I posted) It probably is right around the price they would be able to get IMO if they were playing in my area and were a decent but not hugely popular band.

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If we had to provide sound and lights, we would charge our normal rate and then some. We often play community events and those bookings usually take away an opportunity for a nightclub gig so we normall charge $2000-2200. We provide lights, sound. Again... we're in the position where we have to 'make room' for these bookings.

 

 

We just turned down a Thursday night city street gig where they were providing stage, sound, lights (all pro equipment) for $1000. The problem was it's an 1-45 min drive. We'd leave at 4pm and get home at 2am. We've played this gig for a few summers now and it's always well attended. However we don't notice much of a 'spike' in new faces or attendence at a nearby club we play afterward. So this year we passed.

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Leave my house at 4:45 and drive an hour to the gig. Set up personal equipment, PA w/subs and 1 light tree. Gig is an outdoor street dance/party/concert. We play 2 approx. 1:15 sets with one break. Tear down equipment, drive home, get home around 11:45. Trailer rental, getting it and taking it back, plus loading and unloading the trailer, not included in times above.


5 piece band...What should a gig like that be worth? What should it pay?

we usually get $1K for a gig like that. But is usually involves 6-8 large subs and 4 or 6 large top cabs. This is for a 3-piece band.

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Last city gig we did (about 3 weeks ago), we got $1600 after the booking agent cut. That was $200 each for two singers and guitar, bass, and keys, all who sing too, plus a drummer and a sax player. And $100 each to two backup singers. It was a small city of about 20,000, but a college (read: party) town.

They did the stage/sound system, refreshments, etc. We were the headliner one night of a four night thing, multiple bands.

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It seems to me that the BIG differentiator in terms of pay at "city" gigs is whether or not beer is being served. City gig where there's beer being sold translates to a $1,600 - $2,400 gig. Same city - but no beer (think mid-week concert in the park sort of setting) - $600 - $800.

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we usually get $1K for a gig like that. But is usually involves 6-8 large subs and 4 or 6 large top cabs. This is for a 3-piece band.

 

 

Oh, no, we only took two subs, two mains, and two monitors. We got $800 for the gig. Pretty fair I guess. We always want more, don't we?

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I'd start at a grand, but I would settle for 800.

 

 

we usually get $1K for a gig like that. But is usually involves 6-8 large subs and 4 or 6 large top cabs. This is for a 3-piece band.

 

 

6-8 subs? seriously?

 

Reminds me of the 4th July gig we did... it was pretty much a band every two blocks downtown. The bands with FAR TOO MUCH bass were quickly left behind for our moderate 2 sub rig, and *gasp* audible mids/treble.

 

STOP killing it with bass please.

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I'd start at a grand, but I would settle for 800.




6-8 subs? seriously?


Reminds me of the 4th July gig we did... it was pretty much a band every two blocks downtown. The bands with FAR TOO MUCH bass were quickly left behind for our moderate 2 sub rig, and *gasp* audible mids/treble.


STOP killing it with bass please.

 

Did you read the part about bringing 4-6 tops to go along with it. If the event is big enough it sounds about right to me. You can never have too much PA outside.:)

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I'd start at a grand, but I would settle for 800.




6-8 subs? seriously?


Reminds me of the 4th July gig we did... it was pretty much a band every two blocks downtown. The bands with FAR TOO MUCH bass were quickly left behind for our moderate 2 sub rig, and *gasp* audible mids/treble.


STOP killing it with bass please.

well, that's just poor use of your stuff.

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