04/04/2021
I ran a music venue for 3-4 years and not many people realise how much money is involved, why tickets cost what they do and yet bands still don't get what they deserve to be paid.
So here is what they were at my venue.
I usually had artwork done for free, Michael Cuneo volunteered his services after I started out paying him, otherwise I paid roughly $100 for the poster and header design and would pay someone else when Michael was too busy. He would also come do photos for free if he was available, again he didn't want payment after I was initially paying him. He's a super nice guy and helped so much. Check out his photos.
Printing was usually $50-$100, a few A1's for the venue and 30 or so A3's to put up around town in the few poster places you can still do. Notably TAFE and uni are the best ones, and there's like 2 spots left in Hamilton. I used to do more but I found it not worth the money and effort compared to online ads. Bands almost never pick up posters to put out. Probably less than 5 times this happened. One band actually made an alternate poster and put them up. That gig had a good turnout, surprise!
Facebook advertising was usually $150 minimum. This was the best return on investment you could do for your money.
I paid to feature one event in a local online mag/website, it wasn't worth it. It was better to spend that money directly on ads and instead send out media releases and hope they published them.
Door person was usually $100-$150, my now Wife would do it but when she couldn't I would pay someone, so budgeted for this all the time.
Sound/lighting operator $250, I did this myself in addition to running the show, if I couldn't be there, I paid someone else to do it, so again budgeted what I would need to pay someone else to do the job. I used to pay Greg Oroth to operate lighting until I bought his lights from him but he would often come anyway and operate to have a little fun for free. What a nice dude.
The venue provided the main speakers, I provided the rest, including a pro level drumkit, AMPEG 8x10 and two Marshall 1960a's, microphones, wedges, lights, consoles, stands, hazer, cables, power distro etc etc, Roughly $70k worth to make it happen. I got $500 from the venue for this. It normally hires for anywhere from $1,400-$7k from a normal production company. So a pretty good deal for the venue.
The venue needed to take enough over the bar etc to cover this, plus security, staff, rent, bills etc. Security was mandatory in Newcastle. And had lockout laws. So we finished by midnight so our payers could go to the Hamilton Station before lockout.We didn't charge for entry downstairs, so people often came to hang out without watching the bands upstairs.
I took no further cut, up to $850 was enough for me to provide $70k worth of equipment, organise the show, advertising, do poster runs, write a media release, organise online ticket sales, physical tickets, book the bands, do the runsheet, printing, Facebook event, liaise with all the bands, do social media stuff, mix the show, Ellee do door and we do anything else as needed, and pay for wristbands etc.
So the event would need to cover;
$250 sound
$100-$150 door
$100 design
$150-$300 ads
$50-$100 printing
$50 physical tickets
$500-$1000 best case to worst case to put on the show. That's without a venue hire fee or promoter/booking fees which could add another $500.
The remainder after this $500 was split between the bands, I didn't take a % cut.
I usually ran $20 tickets so the break even was 25 payers. We sometimes didn't hit this number. The venue would need at least 50. So you could cover costs and each band get a hundred dollars or so and the venue would lose money. Wonder why venues like DJ's and pokies? This is why.
You get punters, and sometimes bands, who complain the door price is too high. Then bands wonder why they get paid what they get. Even with our costs for the show being as small as possible, its often impossible to pay bands what we ourselves believe they are worth when the numbers through the door are low. Then you get guarantees. So the risk goes up for no increase in reward. And those shows often result in the headliner getting all the door money and the supports got nothing. One saving grace was bands that sold merchandise often said the merch sales alone could make a s**t paying show worthwhile.
Any questions? I'll try and answer anything I can.
