How to negotiate your band prices

[jazzsmugglers]

Hi, jazzers all. I thought you might be interested in this piece from our website www.jazzenthusiasts.com

It is written for UK bands, but the strategy would be the same all around the world. Have fun, play well, and make some money from this desert of a market.

How to negotiate your band price
“How much does your band cost?” she asks on the telephone. So what do you say now?

You may be strong enough and established enough in your field and have enough work to be confident of telling her firmly the two prices you charge – one for public events and one for private functions.

Two principles in negotiations are 1) to delay until you get answers to your questions, 2) also don’t present your demands up front until you know what the other side wants.
For most of us the answer we give will depend upon a number of questions

Issues to think about
Is it a private or a public gig?
Will there be repeat business?
Which night of the week? Tuesdays are blank, Fridays are busy
Will they pay for band travel expenses?
How much do they normally pay? You could ask her this while you dream up your answer.

The following issues are on your mind as well but don’t ask these questions because you’ll give away your negotiating position.

How much do you need the work?
Will you get extra publicity from the gig? Hollywood Bowl is good, lead band in the Festival is good The Rat Catchers Annual Benevolent Society Ball is not much to boast about.
Might you get better paying work for this day later?
Is it a crummy or exotic location? An Australian tour is good, a gig in Toledo is not quite so good.
How big a band can you put in? Can you get away with a trio or quartet? (Another duo?)
Are you willing to negotiate on your price? They will be for sure.

Three steps to negotiating your price
Keep at the back of your mind the top price you would like and make sure you bring this easily into the conversation_- also have a bottom price but don’t go anywhere near this without a big struggle. You can bring it in slyly by saying something like, “The last time we did a gig like this I think we got £500 for it,” and see what they say. You can always come off this figure later, by saying that you normally charge a lot less.

1
Stay with the truth and say “It depends on a number of things, can I just ask you some questions about your gig?” And just ask them the first five questions above. How much they normally pay tells you a lot about the price you can charge. If they say it is a private function and they don’t have any experience of hiring bands, you can be sure they have already done enough research to find out they they’ll be paying between £500 at the bottom end and more than £1,000 at the upper end (UK prices)

2
Tell them your top price allow a bit of room to come down. Ask them what they think. If they demur, ask them what they were hoping to pay. Ask them if the money they have suggested is negotiable; would they pay your expenses; will the band be fed, could you cut the band size to fit their budget and so on. All the while, you are listening and buying time to consider whether you want to do it or not. Ask for time to make a couple of notes, just ten seconds will do, choose the figure you want and go to stage three.
3
Tell them what you want for the gig and ask them how they feel about that. Just go firm, if you have to come down on the price, you might be able to grind out a bit more by asking them to pay for the petrol expenses in your cars. 15p a mile x 2 cars x 80 miles is £24.00. You can add in a meal as well putting on another £100 for a quintet.

Alternatively
If you don’t like any of this negotiating stuff, then that’s all right, just take what they offer. You’ll be thought of as a nice person and you’ll get gigs. No money, but lots of gigs. You’ll have trouble holding the band together as well as your marriage.

First written for www.jazzenthusiasts.com

[graypencil]

unfortunately, in the states , if it's a jazz gig ..

..they'll either make you do a door deal to get anything at all ( unless you have some sort of cachet ..like a decent selling CD ,etc )

[cookie]

Decent advice. I will negotiate to an extent, but because I'm an established player in the region and work with a lot of bands in the area, I know what the going rates for most types of gigs are. Four-hour wedding job? At LEAST $200 per person PLUS an extra $100 leader's fee (that's cheap, BTW). The leader's fee is because I a) have to hire the guys and coordinate with them b) work with the party's host/ess so that they get EXACTLY what they want WHEN they want it. This may involve transcription of new tunes. If it's a song that can't reasonably be played by my instrumentation, I'm very happy to suggest using a CD and playing it through my system c) oh yeah---the PA system. As the leader, I'm responsible for that.

I write every detail down in the contract. I ask for half the money (non-refundable) up front.
This is to protect my sidemen who are giving up this date months in advance. They may have had the opportunity to take other work for the day and had to decline. If my gig gets canceled, I want to make sure that they get at least HALF of the money they were expecting. If it's an outdoor gig, I specify that the host needs to provide electricity and rain cover. I also specify that if it rains and the gig is washed out and we've shown up already, we expect the full payment (I also write in that it is the BAND who decides whether the conditions are safe for playing).I also write breaks into the contract. If the gig is at dinnertime, I expect the band to be offered a meal, too (again, all in the contract). Overtime is $50 per person per hour.

My experiences with this have been overwhelmingly positive. With the contract negotiated, written, and signed both parties know exactly what to expect. I *do* try to be flexible (I view myself as providing a "service" so I want to be helpful to the hosts), but I also try to make sure that the host knows what we need so there are no silly requests like having the trumpet player play three hours straight without a break.

I tell people straight out that this is my price for this sort of work. $200/man, firm. I don't want to undercut other bands in the area (though certainly, more popular bands can demand more simply because their schedules are tighter). I need to keep my prices in line with the average price for the area. For $500 you get me and a piano player(or me playing the piano and singing plus one sideman and this *is* a price I would be willing to negotiate--leaving out or diminishing the leader's fee). Add $200 for every additional player. I feel fine about being firm on this price. If they don't hire me, someone else will or I'll have a precious day-off to spend with my family!

Now with clubs, I need to be a LOT more flexible. Clubs don't necessarily have the budget to come up with $200 per. Club dates depend on a lot of things. First, is the club in town or do I have to drive 2 hours? Second, how long is the gig? There's a huge difference between a 2 hour job and a 4 hour job.

Often, when trying to get into a new place, what the folks around here will do is take short pay for the first few weeks (I consider $50/man for a two or three hour job short pay. Syracuse union minimum is $75), and let the owner see if the band brings in patrons. If you're attracting a big audience and the owner is making money, things are copasetic. But I believe that you should be honest with the owner up front---we'll do it for $50 to begin with but expect that price to increase as business does. If business does not increase, then the band will a)continue to take short pay (not a positive thing in my mind necessarily because it *is* below scale) or b) find a new venue---it may be that jazz isn't what floats the boat of the regular clientele of a place.

I think it was Phil Woods who said, "When you pay me, you aren't paying for the music, you're paying me to get TO the gig." I try to get that across to purchasers: you are not just paying for my artistry (I can do that at home), you are paying to make it worth my time to get to your place and do what you want me to do. You are purchasing my time and my service.

Anyway, I thought jazzsmuggler's post was cool. Very logical and smart. Just wanted to put in my two cents about the way things work out here in the boonies!

[claude]

Interesting stuff Cookie,

Do you often get requests for charity gigs? The reason I ask is that I recently was on a committee organizing a charity dinner and I wanted to get a local player to play but wasn't given sufficient budget to get him. Do you often donate your services or work for a relatively low fee for charities? Is there any way to sell this to a musician to make it more palateable?

[cookie]

Claude: YES. I do benefits because I believe it's good to give back to the community. If it's a charity that I'm closely involved in, I will play for free. Other charities, I have offered a reduced rate.

The issue for me with charity gigs is sidemen: I can't ask a sideman to play for free (unless, of course, s/he is supportive of the charity and *wants* to do it). Sometimes I'll play for a charity and ask them to pay for one or more sidemen, (at an affordable rate) while I donate my time in full. Since I now have a keyboard and can play solo, it's often not an issue. I just go in, do my thing, and go home.

It also makes a difference if I'm expected to play for several hours or just do a tune or two. A tune or two for a good cause comes free, but for a four-hour party, all I can offer is a reduced rate.

Since I generally have more time than money, I find that donating my time is a good way to help organizations that may need it.

If you can offer the musician you're thinking of *something*, that will go a long way toward getting him to play (especially if food is involved!! For me, I'm happy at any benefit with cake! I'm a cake freak!). You could make it clear that you can't possibly afford what he's worth, but that you'll do what you're able to. Tell him about what the charity does and how giving his time will help. Different guys are different; he may agree or not. It's worth approaching him with the situation though, IMO.

[jazzsmugglers]

Thanks cookie for your very enlightening post. It should be very helpful to professionals. You need to be a bit brave when negotiating your price with functions and just go for it. Clubs are a real pain - very interesting the way you build up the price as you get success.

The problem occurs when the band or the player is not established, or as someone has pointed out the band gets offered only door money. This ain't fair - the band is taking all the risk, and the club will not promote the gig. Why should they?

With door money there are a couple of ways to play it. You could go for a minimum overall rate and then charge a rate per head above 20/50 whatever. That way the club shares in the risk and might promote the gig. Or you could agree to the door rate but get them to agree a certain level of promotion for the gig - its in their interest after all. You might have an argument about whether they did their bit properly. I've known of bands going for a door rate but then putting up a couple of cds in a raffle, and the raffle funds then get shared out.

If it is free entry at the door, then don't you find that you sell more of the band cds and at a good price? If the entrance fee is high, you sell fewer cds, don't you?
Raffling a CD or two at the gig is a good idea for getting everyone's attention. Telling them that the normal price of the cd is xxx but there is a 5% discount (only a few cents after all) if they buy them now. Offering an extra cd free if they buy two is a good idea as well. Just work out the revenues and costs against what you normally get and you'll find that it works in your favour.

My view as a specialist in pricing (see www.john-winkler.com) is that it is best to deal with honest people with a good reputation. Trial and error is needed a bit. But remember that they've got to get what they need out of the deal. Its no good sticking a venue with a high price if the audience does not come in. You don't get hired again. Look at a venue over time - six gigs or twelve gigs or one off. There is a big difference for you.

What do you guys think? It is really important to get this right, and to feel confident about it. This is a hard hard market to make a living.

Jazzsmugglers

[VIBEr]

Regarding charity events: when I lived in L.A in the '80's, all the union members got a letter that requested all charity gigs be submitted to the union for approval. The situation was arising that the musicians were the only people NOT being paid for doing benefits - the sound guys got paid, the caterer got paid, the accountant got paid, the facility got paid, but the band was asked to play for free in exchange for exposure or because "it was going to be a lot of fun." If I recall correctly, it got so bad that Local 47 was considering fining members who got busted playing non-approved gigs in an effort to protect their members from unscrupulous individuals.

[claude]

Originally Posted by cookie

Claude: YES. I do benefits because I believe it's good to give back to the community. If it's a charity that I'm closely involved in, I will play for free. Other charities, I have offered a reduced rate.

The issue for me with charity gigs is sidemen: I can't ask a sideman to play for free (unless, of course, s/he is supportive of the charity and *wants* to do it). Sometimes I'll play for a charity and ask them to pay for one or more sidemen, (at an affordable rate) while I donate my time in full. Since I now have a keyboard and can play solo, it's often not an issue. I just go in, do my thing, and go home.

That seems very fair and I understand the sidemen issue. In my case we were looking at booking just the one person. What I think I ran into is that this guy is well known in the area and doesn't need any more exposure and he already does a fair bit of free gigs for other charities and felt that he had made his charitable contribution to the community.

Originally Posted by cookie

If you can offer the musician you're thinking of *something*, that will go a long way toward getting him to play (especially if food is involved!! For me, I'm happy at any benefit with cake! I'm a cake freak!). You could make it clear that you can't possibly afford what he's worth, but that you'll do what you're able to. Tell him about what the charity does and how giving his time will help. Different guys are different; he may agree or not. It's worth approaching him with the situation though, IMO.

Since the event is a dinner, I had offered a meal for him and a guest. Without him saying so, I think it was a case of the charity having the image of being a rich man's club that doesn't need the help (while we have wealthy participants in these events the proceeds go towards people who are in dire need of assistance). We ended up getting a younger musician who is looking for some exposure, I think it will work out just fine.

Thanks for your advice.