I recently talked to the booking agent at House of Blues in Los Angeles about booking the Feel Good Festival, which is an event I’ve been organizing for over 4 years and draws 300-500 people. I told him we wanted 60% of the door and they could keep 40% plus all the food and beverage, which by the way can be double or triple the door sales.
The guy told me that he needed to make $15,000 Net after paying his staff and the bands and our event wouldn’t cut it unless we could bring 800 to 1,000. This was after I told him we had the marketing covered and had done this for four years successfully. Not once did he mention, “oh cool idea,” or oh we’d like to get behind that because you’re really doing something that people like and changes peoples lives.” No not one comment on the the event, just .. you sell it out and we’ll take a majority of the money. What I realized was that these guys and about 90% of all music venues are basically running slave camps for bands.
When you peel back the layers of “oh the House of Blues is such an awesome venue” or more importantly that the band you saw did 95% of the work and got paid 20% of the loot you’d probably scream “WTF.” But in actuality this is standard practice in the venue business. The owners are kind of like slave drivers, they put up shop and they serve food and beverage and then make the bands do all the marketing.
Although this may be standard for live music venues, its not seen in any other industry accept for the slave trade. In the slave trade, which still exists in some countries, the slave works for free and has no choice just like the music artist who wants to play at a gig but has no choice because all venues require that they do all the marketing, bring all the people or sorry.. no gig for you. Unless you play cover gigs or weddings there are no choices in venues to play without being the marketing slave, so in essence, bands are “Marketing Slaves.” Without the bands no one would come to the venue.
If we look at any other business you’ll find none of them get their marketing done for free. Take a restaurant, they serve food, they pay for advertising of that food and people come. Now what if I was to say to the booking agent at House of Blues in Los Angeles, “Hey man this restaurant I own wants to book you guys to come in and cook some “blues” food, but I need you to bring 1,000 people and I’ll give you 20% of the overall money made that night. So you gotta cook the food, pay for marketing and bring the people and we’ll just show up and serve your food to your people. What do you think?
Of course the HOB guy would laugh, but this is what bands are faced with every day. It should be outlawed as “Slave Marketing” a new law called “Equal Pay for Music Artists,” which I’m proposing to my state senator and I invite you to join me.
Here is how it works:
1) No longer can a venue owner require a band or musician to work for unfair pay. If the band does all the marketing they should get a lions share of the profits, like 100% of the door.
2) Venue owners must pay bands at least minimum wage for hours spent marketing, setting up, performing and tearing down plus travel expenses. The hours of marketing can be agreed upon ahead of time and put into a contract.
3) All gigs must have signed contracts between both parties outlining the terms.
If you’re thinking, hey if this happens the venues will just stop hiring bands all together, then think again. This is bound to happen to a certain extent, but more often than not it will force the venue owners to rethink their marketing plans, or actually make a marketing plan in the first place. The venues will also be forced to become a true partner, no longer just a slave driver.
STAND UP FOR YOURSELF! If you would like to be a part of this AND GET PAID please make a comment below.