Festival Rips Off Musicians.
Fancy playing at Brighton Jazz Festival? If so, I hope you’ve been saving up, because it’s going to cost you. Here’s the deal. First of all, according to their web page you’re likely to be charged £100-£150 upfront to play.
Each act will pay a small sum to register (probably £100 Early Bird, up to £150 for late registrations) with no extra marketing costs. This money will be used entirely for marketing the Festival; graphic design / printing of the brochure, PR, flyers etc. and any other similar costs.
The bit about ‘no extra marketing costs’ is particularly hilarious, because, as it turns out, the festival also requires the musicians to submit a marketing plan detailing exactly how they’re going to help with the marketing and promotion of their gigs. …you will need to submit an outline of a marketing plan too – how will you help us, the Festival AND the venue to fill your date?
First of all you have to pay your fee which pays for marketing, then submit a marketing plan of all the additional free work you’ll be doing to promote the gigs – sound good so far? So how much are you going to get paid for your gig? Well that depends. First of all, despite the ‘registration fee’, the festival itself will also be taking a percentage of the door from your gig:
We will also take a small % of the ticket sales, which will be processed via our shopping cart and payment gateway. Still, at least after the registration fee and the percentage that the festival takes, what’s left is yours, right? Er..no. Unfortunately, it looks like you’ll be splitting the remainder with the venue: We are hoping to talk each venue into participating with the acts on a “split of the door” basis
So there’s a £100+ registration fee, a percentage of ticket sales going the festival AND a percentage going to the venue. Surely it can’t get any worse? Of course it can’t – oh unless the venue has a PA, in which case you’ll need to bring your own sound engineer (at your own expense) or stump up an additional £60: Other costs: If a sound engineer is required you will have to provide your own or pay the venue for theirs (usually around £60).
This has got to be the worst deal in the history of jazz festivals. If you are a ‘late’ registration and need a sound engineer, the gig could cost you £210 in advance with the tickets sales being split between you, the festival and the venue.
Let’s guesstimate some numbers. Let’s say you do pull a decent crowd for a jazz gig and sell 60 tickets at £5 a time – that’s £300 in total. If the festival takes 10% (guessing at what a ‘small percentage’ might be) that leaves £270. I’m going to be charitable here and assume that the split with the venue is worked out on sales figures AFTER the festival’s percentage has been taken and not before.
Let’s also say you’re on a 60-40 split with the venue (which again is being charitable!) 60% of £300 is £162. After the £210 you’ve paid in registration and sound engineer fees, the gig has left you £48 out of pocket. And this is before factoring in your expenses. If you’re on a 50/50 split with the venue then your gig costs you £75 to play. Before expenses. And If the door split with the venue is worked out purely on total ticket sales (i.e. before the festival has had its share) then it’s going to be even worse. How would you feel about attracting 60 people to a gig and still ending up losing £75?
This is the worst case of attempted exploitation of musicians I’ve ever seen. Obviously most experienced musicians wouldn’t touch this kind of deal with a 10-foot bargepole, but I’m concerned that young or inexperienced musicians are going to get ripped off. Badly.
Here’s the reality; any remotely established musician with an established audience is not going to pay to play at a festival. Period. This means that the festival is going to have to draw on young musicians or acts who are just starting out. These guys are desperate to be heard – perhaps desperate enough to ignore just how shitty a deal this is. But these guys also won’t have an audience yet, and they’re unlikely to draw anywhere near the 60 people I quoted in the example costings above. If they agree to play this festival, they’re going to be seriously out of pocket.
So how does the festival justify treating musicians like this. Well, to quote the website again: What’s In It For You? Apart from the fun of supporting something that can only raise the profile of all the jazz musicians in Brighton you mean?
You see – it’s FUN. After all, that’s why you’re a musician right? You dont’ care about all that corporate stuff, like paying bills and eating and stuff – all that’s for drones with day-jobs who are slaves to the MAN. And look, you’ll raise the profile of ALL the jazz musicians in Brighton, so you’re doing your fellow musicians a service. It’s an act of altruism and you’re not selfish are you?
The only way the promoters could have made it ANY worse was to use the magic phrase ‘it will be good exposure’.
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N.B In some ways, this wasn’t an easy post to write as I came across this website whilst searching for festivals to play next year. Like many musicians, I don’t want to make enemies of any potential bookers or promoters, but if we’re not prepared to stand up for ourselves then we deserve everything we get. If Brighton Jazz Festival goes ahead with these charges and door splits, it will be %100 guilty of exploiting musicians. That is not acceptable so I had to speak out.
And if you’re a musician, and you agree that this is disgraceful, but are too afraid to kick up a fuss and risk harming your career by speaking out against it in public, then you’re a coward who will have no cause to complain if this kind of arrangement becomes the norm in the future.
I urge you all to get on your blogs and twitter and facebook and start shouting from the rooftops that this kind of stuff is happening in our industry – and that it needs to stop.
Posted on Barry Dallmans blog at barrydallman.com.