November 14, 2009 Pay to Play?
So I was at a record store recently and a girl came up to me and asked me if I wanted to buy a ticket to see her band at the Knitting Factory (Hollywood) for $15. I politely declined and she continued asking people around the store. She was freaking out because they needed to sell 70 tickets or they were going to get “blacklisted” from the club.
Wow.
Depending on where you’re from, you may or may not encounter these pay-to-play scenarios. It’s pretty common here in L.A. at certain venues. The promoter basically requires a guarantee from the bands that they will make a certain amount of money. The promoter gives the band a number of tickets to sell and is usually held accountable to pay off most or all of the face value of the tickets that they’re required to sell. Personally I don’t have any moral objection to this arrangement. The club is in business to make money and the promoter has to pay the club and make a profit on top of that. That’s business. If you don’t like business then that’s fine – play in your garage and don’t ask anyone to buy anything from your band. The reality is that your band is a business too. The difference is that the club probably is a little more in touch with the fact that they are in business and a little better at it than most bands are. This is why you have bands who are willing to commit to selling 70(!) tickets to play at the Knitting Factory – even though they can’t sell 70 tickets.
So the question is…what is it worth to play the Knitting Factory, the Whisky or the Viper Room? That all depends. If it’s your life’s dream to play the Whisky then maybe selling 50 tickets is a good deal for you. If you’re committing to selling the tickets because you think someone might be there from Interscope Records and sign you to a recording contract then you are WRONG.
When you are ready to be signed then you won’t have to sell tickets. The promoter will already know who you are, or at the least, you will be able to prove to them that you draw a lot more than 50 people.
The problem is that a lot of bands put way too much importance on the “prestige” of certain venues. If you’re promoting the show as if the venue itself is the star of the show then you’ve got the wrong idea. Your band IS the show. The show is wherever your band chooses to play. You bring the party. You don’t pay to play because you don’t need to.
What I suggest is that you play the venues where you will draw the highest percent of capacity. If you draw 80 people, then find a venue in your hood that holds 50. Don’t play the Roxy where the room is going to look practically empty. Play to as full of a room as you can. The energy will be MUCH better. The perception will be MUCH better. Imagine these two scenarios:
a) You commit to selling 70 tickets to a venue on the Sunset Strip that holds 500. You’re having a hard time selling the tickets and you resort to begging so you don’t have to fork over the money out of your own pocket. You end up playing with 5 other bands and the show runs behind. You go on late and have to cut your set short. Your show is decent, but the room is at less than 20% of capacity. Your fans mostly enjoy the show, but not too many of them would want to do it again anytime soon after having paid $15 for the ticket, $15 to park, and $5.50 per Bud Light.
b) You play Joe Shmoe’s down the street. It costs $5 to get in, parking is free, bud lights are $3 and it’s close to a large chunk of your fan base. The owner of the place lets you put on your own show, so you recruit two other great bands that you vibe with really well and everyone gets to play their full set. The place is packed so the energy is electric. As a result, the performance is great. People get turned away at the door because there isn’t room for them. Everyone inside has a great time and tells all their friends – especially the ones who got there too late and got turned away. Everyone is looking forward to the next show. (oh yeah – and you actually got paid too!)
Same band, same number of fans. Which band do you think has the right idea? What is the difference in people’s perception of the band after each scenario?
This is HUGE. If you bring all of your fans to come see you at a venue that’s too big and too expensive for you to play at then you’re setting yourself up for failure. As soon as people perceive that you’re failing in any way then you’re basically screwed. Things will go downhill very fast. People will not spend time and money to come see your band unless they are CONVINCED that you will rock and that your shows are the place to be. Nobody said it would be easy. That’s why there are thousands and thousands and thousands of bands out there and you probably only spend time and money on a handful of them.
So when you’ve firmly established your rep in your neighborhood and everyone knows that they need to get to your shows early and that they are going to rock – then kick it up a notch at a slightly larger venue. Always be bigger than the venue. YOU are the show – not the venue. YOU bring people. YOU have the power. You don’t have to be over-the-top about this and you certainly shouldn’t be arrogant and unprofessional – just know it in your heart and negotiate and make your decisions with that frame in mind.
Pay to play? Not your band. Your band knows what’s important and knows how to leverage it’s power. Your band IS the show. Your band isn’t cool because of the venue you play at – the venue is cool because your band is playing there.
For more, check out my blog at IndpendentRockstar.com.
Reader Comments (7)
Great article! It took us a while to understand that pay-to-play is useless in most cases for a band like us.
"The reality is that your band is a business too."
Suddenly, this sentence makes me more serious about my music career.
Thanks for the wake up call, Scott!
Cheers,
Endy
I think the real lesson here is that you need to upgrade your fanbase if the cost of Bud Light is an issue for them.
(50% kidding.)
This was a surprise gem -- you did a really good run down of the "Pay to Play" phenomenon and closed it with some rock solid advice. My apologies if I slept on your earlier articles, you're a good writer.
Thanks y'all. I appreciate you taking the time to read and give feedback. Cheerz.
I am writing from London where some promoters are beginning to show a similar trend i.e bands have to sell tickets before hand. Pay to Play is morally wrong in my opinion and god knows I have ranted on this already enough times on my blog lol.
It is wrong because the promoter puts the financial risk in the band's hands. Emergenza festival are the biggest culprites for this in London.
You are dead on with your comparision of scenario a) Vs scenario b). Put simply it is just way way way better to pack a tiny venue then have a large known venue empty.
Luckily my band found a type b) venue when I was walking home one day and walked into a little restaurant with a basement lounge playing Jazz music. The owner was happy to try out a rock band and we were in! Our gigs there are almost always packed as it only takes about 20 people to make it full lol. But I much prefer that.!
A small venue allows for a nicer level of intimacy and we always have a good time there. We've also played bigger venues that were empty and that was plain depressing man (despite the awesome sound engineering).
Win, win..even in a city like London!
Excellent piece on pay to play and it's inherent pitfalls. I work on a Fair Trade Music campaign in Portland, OR which is aimed at addressing this very topic. Many Venues here place the risk and responsibility of having live music on the performers through a fee structure designed to eliminate the overhead of having live music while still benefiting through food and drink sales. One of the worst in this regard, a nationally renowned venue, keeps up to $1000 from the door sales before paying anything to musicians. Many charge advertising fees regardless of whether they included you in their promotions and many take the form of percentages, meaning that the rate paid by each band is different from night to night.
Portland has a very high number of musicians which means that if you're not willing to take responsibility for their overhead than they will find someone else who will. It also means that there is a large portion of the population struggling to make a living at their craft. The problem lies in an overall lack of perception of music as a skill and live entertainment as a skilled profession. The fact remains that it takes more than just creativity to incite a crowd of hundreds to dance, it takes team work, proficiency and endurance. When you hire a band to draw their fans and admirers to your business (since many seemingly don't have their own clientele) you are engaging in a business to business relationship, just as if you were to hire an independent chef to prepare and cater food nightly in lieu of placing one on your payroll. Good luck charging them to use your stove when you invited them down in the first place.
I agree with lots of stuff in the article...im in a rock band in the Uk. Pay- to- play, in my view is destroying the industry. I think that promoters should do their job, which is to have the talent himself to actually audition bands and choose the best music for his veune.....that's his job...then advertise and (yes..it means a bit of investment for a while to build the good will up)...folks will get to know that his venue alwasy has quality stuff on...instead of whcih in the UK you get anything from 5 bands upwards sometimes even 10...the only people in the audience are the next band on and their little gaggle of friends...thats not fame...thas not making it...anyone can play the Barfly if they can bring 70 people or pay the bill...pathetic.....nobody will leave the warmth of their home to go watch bands with 15 year old high school kids. with rich paretns who bought them a gibson they cant play but they know how to jig around with thier arses hanging over the top of their trousers, posing to their girfriends...until this stops and folks think they can drop into a music venue, have a beer and hear a great band...pay to play will continue and the 'take' of promoters will remain stagnant and the music will get steadily worse......and open mic nights...dont even get me started lol.....in the UK there is now a movement away from pay to play...why dont you folks in the US stand up and join us real musos and refuse to play without pay and get the promoters to do their jobs for a change....