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Music Business 101 — True But SadI got an email from someone last week in advance of a show I was doing this past Saturday night at the Colony in Woodstock, NY. He was expressing his disappointment that he wouldn't be able to be at the show and wished me luck. The last phrase of his email said: "Have fun and make a lot of money". "Hah", I thought to myself, "wouldn't that be something?" It wasn't the fun part I was chuckling about; it was the making lots of money part. I spent a lot of time that day thinking about the fact that most people don't know how musicians make a living, so I thought I'd take a minute and use Saturday night's show - a success, I think, both musically and attendance wise - as an example.Here goes: My concert at the Colony had a $10 ticket attached to it. 60 people paid to get in, which equals $600. Great. Off the top, the Colony pays the person who takes tickets $20, which leaves $580. Then the Colony 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 Woodstock 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. It used to be that I lost a lot of money at my shows, so at least it's getting better year after year. This is why it is so important for you to go out and support the musicians that you love. Your dollars at the door make it possible, literally, for them to keep doing what they're doing. The math that I've just described is typical for me at a local gig. The only time I do much better is when another musician hires me and I'm guaranteed a fee for showing up and singing what they've asked me to sing. In that scenario, the other artist is taking the same risk that I took Saturday night. It's a game that we all play, and I for one, am willing to do it over and over again because I love what I do and because I feel strongly that it's what I'm on this earth to do. There's another side of the story, too, which I won't go in to here, but that's the story of how much it costs to make a recording in the first place. If you're interested in that, I've written an article about it. Bar Scott, April, 2009 |
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