How Long has it Been Since You...

Played for the Gate! Do they still do that any more? Or at least the percentage of the gate...

Mine was at age 17 or so...CYO youth dance...

Never done that. I remember though the deal has evolved into 'pay to play'. Owners market. I suppose you keep the gate.

About 2 years ago. I made 15 bucks, drank 12 of it and got home at 4 in the morning with 3 bucks. As I was driving home, I was thinking, "what the {censored} am I doing?"

Almost all of the rock clubs in Columbus still do that.

I don't recieve a cent for playing. I'm playing in 2 very busy bands. I do however get expenses paid for out of town or State shows. Things have been changing though..kinda fast forward. I may, some day soon be able to quit my fulltime job and play drums for a living!

Are you married...at least for now?

REALLY? I had no idea!!! Wow! That's incredible in this day and age...

I think down in Austin. It's 80/20 split. The band gets 80% of the door. Probably the way to go, if you have a good following.

Are you married...at least for now?

It makes you wonder doesn't it. When I got home that evening/morning, I tried to get romantic with my beer breath and all and I whispered this sweet nothing into her ear. "Hey baby, you want some pecker?" Needless to say, I slept on the couch!

Don't that when I have a mouth full of coffee ever again! Now I gotta change my shirt!

Yea, but the hard portion of the deal is creating the following. I would imagine really good promoting, not a flyer on a telephone pole, will get you there. Since the guitarist in the one band I play in is well known, I'm hoping to ride on his coat tails when it's time. The amazing part is that the well known rock clubs are really dives here. I think self promoting our own shows at some venues other then clubs is the ticket. Hire a couple opening acts to play and go for it. Security would be the issue then, but I think you can get a cop for around $25.00 and hour. Hire two or three for the night, then get some bikers to bounce. It's doable, and it could be all ages.

Yea those types of advances never seem to work for me either. The little lady would tell me she's not hungry for chicken, but wouldn't mind some ice cream.

My band sometimes plays a club that does that. I don't like it, though - we either have to bring our own door guy/girl, or trust the one provided by the club. It rarely works in our favor. So we only play there a couple times a year, just to keep regular.

I got a gig in a couple weeks where we're playing for 15% of the bar receipts for the time that we're playing. I'd vastly prefer a fixed fee, and for sure, if I feel we're getting burned I'll be telling the guy we need to renegotiate.

That said, the gig is in Park City, and it's during the Sundance Film Festival... so I figure we'll do fine, but then he wants us back regularly for the same deal.

Here's the real situation with this, at least in the Salt Lake area market: 95% of the bars and clubs in town are in constant peril of going under. The members of the predominant religion won't be caught dead in the same ROOM with alcohol, so that shrinks the market considerably, right out of the gate. At the same time, there's a lot of tourism in town, particularly during ski season. Park City is a bit of an anomaly in this respect, because it has a low proportion of Mo-mos and a higher share of the well-heeled tourist crowd. Still, the bars in PC are all hot for a few months, and then the ones that haven't got a foothold on the locals go out of business over the summers.

So, no matter where you are in this area, you're dealing with clubs that are watching their bottom lines really closely. They are very reluctant to take any kind of risk. If they promise the band $500 and they only have $1200 or $1000 in the till at the end of the night they really take that personally.

Hence this "play for the door", "Play for a percentage of the house" attitude.

The angle I'm going to take if this gig starts to go south in terms of the bread is one of risk-sharing. I'm going to tell the guy that I recognize he's trying to shield himself from any and all risk, but that we, the band, are in business too, and we need some risk protection. If we burn a bunch of gas and time away from our families to play in Park City, we need to get some returns on those investments, or we're going to go OUT of business. I'll suggest that we get paid the 15% of the house OR a certain minimum (which will probably be about 1/2 - 2/3 what we would ordinarily ask), which ever is greater. This way, if there's a bad night, we SHARE the risk, instead of it all falling on the band.

Frankly, if that doesn't work for the guy, he can kiss my ass. It's a reasonable proposition that any smart business person should be able to understand, and if he doesn't, well, we'll go find somebody who does.

/w

That is the norm here in Austin, I hate it. It is a scam, you assume all the risk for the bar. In CA we just got a flat 350.00 for a 4 hour gig. that was cool for a three piece. I have actually lost money here in Austin after I pay for gas to get to the gig and pay 10.00 for parking to get handed 11.00 is just an insult.

Played a gig for an entire week at club in Weirton, WV with 2nd Coming. We found out later that the steel mill in town closed down and everyone was out of work. Every night (6) we played basically for the bartenders and waitresses and maybe 1 or 2 customers. Came time to pack up on Sunday night and the owner and manager are no where to be found. We never got paid AT ALL. Lost not only a weeks pay, but room rates for a week and meals...REALLY SUCKED the big one. Clubs are out for clubs, unless you're personal friends or a big draw. Luckily 2nd Coming and the Admirals were very big draws most of the time...except maybe in WV I guess...

Well, last time was friday, got 50% of the tickets we sold. we sold 70 tix at 8 bucks, and then 25% of the door, and that was about about 100@10 bucks, so we made about 500 buck not a bad night in a oversaturdated market with to much {censored}ty music and ass hole promoters

Played a gig for an entire week at club in Weirton, WV with 2nd Coming. We found out later that the steel mill in town closed down and everyone was out of work. Every night (6) we played basically for the bartenders and waitresses and maybe 1 or 2 customers. Came time to pack up on Sunday night and the owner and manager are no where to be found. We never got paid AT ALL. Lost not only a weeks pay, but room rates for a week and meals...REALLY SUCKED the big one. Clubs are out for clubs, unless you're personal friends or a big draw. Luckily 2nd Coming and the Admirals were very big draws most of the time...except maybe in WV I guess...

Carmine, that's a rough crowd anyway. I know Weirton. So much of what goes on along the river in those towns rely strictly on the mills. There are places over there that are sadly depressed and may never come back. Sorry to hear you guys got burnt.

Oh it's been years ago...I'm well over that! And to top it off, I think the club was a mob club, so there wasn't a whole lotta bitchin goin' on afterwards either...

I know in Houston the recent rise in clubs refusing to pay bands is because of the supply of dip{censored} bands who are willing to play for free 4 nights a week on mommy and daddy's gas/food money.

Most of the bars still pay decent, but you better start out with a healthy dose of covers to get in there. All of the band showcase venues are on modified pay-to-play deal where you pay the first time, but if more than 20 people show up, you make it all back. Any future gigs at the place you just make a percentage based on the door fees. {censored}ty places wont pay out to bands until 20-50 people (per band) show up. So if you only get 19/band, they keep 100% of the $10 door fee. Its crap but there are not enough decent bands in town to organize to demand better treatment, and $100/night DJs are a damn penny per 3-dozen.

Houston may be the 4th largest city, but its the worst place Ive ever seen to try to get a band going, except perhaps Arkansas City, KS.

This doesn't make me too optimistic about moving to the area...

My band played a gig about 6 years ago in a club that we were warned about by a couple of bands we were buddies with. They said the owner often wanted to re-negotiate his deal after the night was over, always in his favour. But seeing as I am 240 pounds, our singer is a pure street fighter and is over 210, our bassist is 265 and 6'6" plus our guitarists are really strong though not overly big, I thought we wouldn't get taken too badly.

Well we had to rent a P.A. system and a van (both cost 275 bucks total)

Then gas cost 60 bucks plus beer food etc. As we were unloading to set up in the club it started snowing heavily and by 6 PM it was a full fledged blizzard . A total of 13 people showed up and most of them arrived on snowmobiles.

As we played the last song of the night, our bass player and singer went back behind the bar to get payed and "settle up for our tab". Our agreed upon price for the night was 600 bucks. We mainly did the gig just for fun as profit would have been no more than 40 bucks each. But low and behold, the owner tried his customary "I'm sorry but no one showed so heres 150 bucks for your trouble routine".

Our singer tried to argue that a contract is a contract , etc and as things were looking like they were gonna get violent, his bouncers showed up in the room with baseball bats in their hands. So our singer just said to him that it wasn't very professional to reneg on the price because we had to pay money out of our own pockets and word would soon get around about his practice of payment. Then realizing that we had to drive back in this blizzard, our singer asked if he at least had a place for us to crash for the night and he said "sure do". We loaded up the van so we could head out early in the morning. He had a "band house" under the club which was a huge apartment sparsely furnished and freezing cold. He turned on the heat and said he would be better to us the next time we played there.

Our bass player hung out in the van smoking "something" and waited for the last of them to leave the club and lock up the doors. Then he came into the apartment with revenge on his mind. He first took a beer bottle into the bathroom and threw it literally through the toilet which shattered and water proceeded to run all over the floor. Then he ripped the cupboards off the wall and took a knife to the couch and chair. He broke the kitchen table and chairs and then pulled off the oven door and threw it in the woods behind the club. Every picture on the wall was put in a pile which he then pissed on and while we watched him with equal parts laughter and horror, he crapped in a frying pan. He went outside and smeared it all over the clubs door and doorknob with a spatula. I piped up that it probably wouldn't be a good idea to wait until morning to leave. So we got in the van and started it up. Darren (the bass player) put it in reverse and kept on going backwards. We hit something and heard a big crash. (I thought we were going to be killed or arrested) our singer was in the passenger seat and jumped out to see he had knocked off the club owners 1980 corvette L-82 that was up on blocks obviously having the brakes done or something similar as the wheels were off. I began sort of freaking out saying lets get the F**k out of here NOW!!!!!!!!!

THE Boys just laughed and said relax. I said that we better not go off the road into a ditch as he must have heard the crash living next door to the club. I had visions of getting shot about 10 miles down the road by angry bouncers and one sleezy club owner. Lets just say that we haven't played in that neck of the woods since, and that isn't the way to get your money from a bad owner.

BUT I must admit, it felt good watching it, as it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy!!!!!!!!!

Playing for the door....this went bye,bye in Arizona many years ago at least for guys in my age group maybe,young bands may have to deal with it in the rock clubs but I haven't heard of this since the 1970's. In the 1970's in northern Calif.it was common though. Music in Arizona is all corporate and that is drying up here or at least it seems that way in the past two years. Bands in adult(not X rated clubs) clubs get $100 or $125 per man, per night. The DUI driving laws are so strict in Arizona people don't club hop anymore....it's all about the tourist dollar here.

I love Austin but we have the same issue, to many bands willing to play for free. I admit I have a great day job so I do not need the money from gigs to eat. But that being said I do not like being taken advantage of.

I was in a band that hosted a Band Jam every Thursday for 10% of the bar. This was an amazing deal for the bar. we supplied the entire back line and stayed all night helping bands on and off of our gear. and more often them not we made 20 bucks each. they could not have rented a drum kit for that. I have to say it is my own fault for going back but lesson learned.