datamusicata

“My concert at the venue had a $10 ticket attached to it. 60 people paid to get in, which equals $600. Great. Off the top, the venue pays the person who takes tickets $20, which leaves $580. Then the venue and I split the rest: $290 for them (to cover the mortgage, heat, staff etc) $290 for me. My $290 covered $75 for my pianist (underpaid in my opinion, but the best I could do) $50 for my assistant (who sells CDs, does sound, helps me load and unload my gear and drives two hours each way to do so – also underpaid) and, finally, $175 for the ad that I put in The Times. My pay? A loss of $30.
We musicians call it “paying to play”. I did sell a lot of CDs - $260 worth, so that’s good, but here’s the catch: investors own my records, so for everyone that I sell I send them $10. I sold 22 CDs, so I’ll send the five people who gave me the money to make those CDs $220. That means that I made $40 on CD sales. But I lost $30 on the income from the door, so in the end, I made $10 at my show on Saturday night.”

Got this post today and looking over it, I couldn’t help but think about my own experience and my own response to the vagaries described above.

What occurred to mind initially was how to cut a lot of those expenses out of the date. I’ll take each point of the post in order...

First of all, splitting the door with the venue and still having to give someone money off the top to collect the money is a bad deal. The ticket taker is part of the expense of having a venue, as is the mortgage, the help, the supplies, the insurance, the utilities, the sound system, food for the artist and the advertising. That is the responsibility of having a venue. And the venue can and should offset this by charging at the door and taking a percentage, but they also offset it by selling food and beverages and t shirts, mugs, etc.

The artist rarely if ever, participates in the sale of food, beverages, or paraphanalia, so a 50/50 split on the door after expenses seems like total b.s. to me. The artist is bringing the people into the venue. The artist is the lure.

Don’t sell yourself short.   I charge $15 at the door and I make certain I give them their monies worth.  If you are the reason people are coming in there, then take your fair share. I always do a 70/30 split. I like the venue to make money on me. I would like the venue to continue to be there and to continue to bring me back there. So I give them a fair share—and 30% is a fair share. So the cut there would have been $420, not $290, an increase in the gross of $130 for this gig.

Secondly, learn to accompany yourself. If you can practice three hours a day for six months, you will be able to do yourself proud. Not being able to play an instrument well enough to accompany yourself may be all right in classical music, where one spends eight hours a day on their voice, but it contemporary music, there is no excuse.

Just as an aside, I am doing a date next month with another person, who in almost forty years in pop music, still can’t play a guitar or piano well enough to accompany themselves on a professional gig. We agreed to split the door 50/50 but when the contracts showed up, it was 54/46. The explanation being that they had to pay an accompaniest and I accompanied myself. So I get to be penalized for being able to play my instrument,while at the same time having my four hundred dollar airfare disregarded while it’s a local gig for her? The upside is that I don’t have to ever perform with this dilletante again. The point being that not being able to play your instrument will impact you negatively for your whole career.

Do the work, practice, take lessons or commit yourself to not being able to play professionally and take the responsibility for your accompaniest yourself. Don’t burden the rest of us with it. That would have saved this person an additional $75, taking the gross up to $495.

I have been touring for forty years. I have never had an assistant. I drive myself to the gigs. And on the break and after the concert, I like going out into the crowd and interacting with people and I like signing the CD’s. If the venue wants to provide someone for me, I always give the venue a buck a CD and I give the person who helped me a CD. But I don’t ask for help and I don’t expect it. And if they want to charge me for the service I usually opt out unless the charge is commensurate with what I’m willing to pay anyway. This person who at the nascency of their career requires an assistant is not looking at the bottom line.

If you carry your own sound, then you get to charge extra for the cartage and the use of it. Put that in your contract. With sound is a bigger price than without sound. (And if you are smart, you’ll bring a workable sound system anyway, just in case. At least bring a mic cable, a vocal mic, a direct box, a power strip and a boom stand. If you are flying to the gigs, than disregard the boom stand). Not bringing an assistant would have saved this person an additional $50, bringing the gross up to $545.

I always own my CD’s and Friday, I’ll tell you how to do that instead of taking money from folks to pay for the recording and manufacturing and then paying them forever after. So 22 CD’s that were sold at the gig would have grossed $330, bringing the total gross up to $875. Subtract the $175 for the ad in the paper (and please note that a single ad is not worth the paper that it’s printed on. That’s why venues buy a strip ad and leave it in the same place in the paper. They get a deal by buying bulk and they get more bang for their buck because the ad stays there and keeps hammering away—never buy a single ad), and you end up with $700 minus gas and tolls.

You can have an assistant and an accompaniest and a driver and investors and lots of ads when you are making so much money that these extravagances don’t impact your bottom line.

So Friday, we’ll talk about how to make an album and not owe anyone by the time you sell it at a gig.