Birthday Parties and Weddings

[vmaxblues]

So, yet again our singer has booked some weddings and parties and seriously underpriced us again.


Now, normal pub fee is £200 - £250, that's fine, that is pretty much the norm I believe, but he has just taken a private party booking an hours drive away for £200 for a five piece band, and a wedding for £300, as we all know a wedding gig is an all day affair, where we will have to bring all the lights, background music etc, set up midday, pack down around 2am, you all know the drill.

My question is what do you guys charge for weddings and parties? what do you consider fair recompense?

[Chrismanbass]

birthday parties are a different deal to weddings your more likely to be playing for near pub money purely because people don't generally have the budget to spend on a band however for a band of mine the least i'd be expecting is around £70 - £100 each imo this is a fair price as its a private booking but generally it'll be in a pub or somewhere like that. Weddings however are a whole other matter i'd expect to be paid at least £100 each probably closer to £150 depending on the deal (when pricing a wedding its worth having a base price you are all happy to be paid for this and then just working out how much its going to cost you and then you have a price to work from)

only you really know how good your band is and how much your worth the prices i've talked about are for my band where everyone is a pro musician i'd have a quiet word with your singer and explain to him that you think that the band is worth more money of course times are tough and people don't have the same amount of cash to throw at weddings and birthdays as they used to however if its not paying extra and its a s**t load more hassle then is it really worth doing?

for example if your doing a wedding thats an hours drive away and your only getting £40 each then i'm working out your probably going to spend £10 - £15 each on petrol (depending on who or how many of you are driving) which then puts you down to doing the gig for £25 each in which case if your at the venue for 8 hours that works out at £3.12/ hour

edit. apologies i didnt read your post properly for the wedding that would work out at £5.62/hour which is still below minimum wage

Edited October 21, 2012 by Chrismanbass

[Doddy]

I got a phone call this morning from a friend of mine asking if I'd dep with his band at a birthday party over
in Derby tonight.He'd been told by the bandleader that the gig was worth £150,great.....He phoned me back
about 10 mins later telling me to not waste my time-turns out the £150 was for the whole band. He was
really pissed off about the situation-take away expenses and the gig is worth about £30.Not cool.

[BottomE]

[quote name='vmaxblues' timestamp='1350776314' post='1843481']
So, yet again our singer has booked some weddings and parties and seriously underpriced us again.


Now, normal pub fee is £200 - £250, that's fine, that is pretty much the norm I believe, but he has just taken a private party booking an hours drive away for £200 for a five piece band, and a wedding for £300, as we all know a wedding gig is an all day affair, where we will have to bring all the lights, background music etc, set up midday, pack down around 2am, you all know the drill.

My question is what do you guys charge for weddings and parties? what do you consider fair recompense?
[/quote]

That does seem way underpriced if you bear in mind that a typical wedding cake costs about £400 - £500!

We charge about 3 times the price of the cake

[JTUK]

Pubs are silly money (£250-450) but anything out of a pub starts at £450 for friend's parties, and others start at £600.
Weddings ..?? we don't do them unless we have a very good reason and they start at £900.

We aren't a function band so we'll do a 2 hr slot maximum and we aren't going to get stuck turning up mid afternoon etc..and playing late

[chrismuzz]

I've never done a wedding before, but I'm doing a birthday party for £200 next week, plus a couple of free drinks. I'd imagine a wedding would be considerably more because of the amount of time you're there, and the fact that you're generally supposed to be a bit more professional and presentable I guess?

[grandad]

Black Country - 6 piece cover band. We aim for £600 for a wedding.

As mentioned above, they usually involve an extended show, maybe an extra instrumental set as guests arrive. We also supply background music & a disco to finish the night off. They are usually an all day affair & we dress for the occasion.

WMC's we like £300 but for some regular smaller venues we charge a bit less maybe £240 if we like the place/people.

Pub's £180 if you can get it. We're avoiding many pub's as the facilities are poor & they don't/can't afford to pay a decent rate. There are some well run pub's where the landlord takes an interest in the music & isn't just concerned about how many extra punters you'll bring along. Having said that, times are tough & they have to be concerned about making enough sales to pay the fee.

This year has seen our bookings drop. Our lead guitarist/manager is finding it much tougher this year than last to get bookings & we are considering going with an agency who have offered us regular work.
We have recognised that gigging has now become a hobby for us that hopefully pays for itself. For those younger band players who want maybe to make a living in the business times are tough. The biggest competition seems to be Karaoke singers who can pocket £100+ a night, but I prefer to "KEEP MUSIC LIVE".

[TimR]

[quote name='Doddy' timestamp='1350778293' post='1843501']
I got a phone call this morning from a friend of mine asking if I'd dep with his band at a birthday party over
in Derby tonight.He'd been told by the bandleader that the gig was worth £150,great.....He phoned me back
about 10 mins later telling me to not waste my time-turns out the £150 was for the whole band. He was
really pissed off about the situation-take away expenses and the gig is worth about £30.Not cool.
[/quote]

This is a valuable lesson.

If one of you is ill at the last minute you cannot cancel a wedding. You either have to get a dep in or another band. You (your singer) will end up seriously out of pocket.

[tonyclaret]

[quote name='Chrismanbass' timestamp='1350777642' post='1843497']
birthday parties are a different deal to weddings your more likely to be playing for near pub money purely because people don't generally have the budget to spend on a band however for a band of mine the least i'd be expecting is around £70 - £100 each imo this is a fair price as its a private booking but generally it'll be in a pub or somewhere like that. Weddings however are a whole other matter i'd expect to be paid at least £100 each probably closer to £150 depending on the deal (when pricing a wedding its worth having a base price you are all happy to be paid for this and then just working out how much its going to cost you and then you have a price to work from)

only you really know how good your band is and how much your worth the prices i've talked about are for my band where everyone is a pro musician i'd have a quiet word with your singer and explain to him that you think that the band is worth more money of course times are tough and people don't have the same amount of cash to throw at weddings and birthdays as they used to however if its not paying extra and its a s**t load more hassle then is it really worth doing?

for example if your doing a wedding thats an hours drive away and your only getting £40 each then i'm working out your probably going to spend £10 - £15 each on petrol (depending on who or how many of you are driving) which then puts you down to doing the gig for £25 each in which case if your at the venue for 8 hours that works out at £3.12/ hour

edit. apologies i didnt read your post properly for the wedding that would work out at £5.62/hour which is still below minimum wage
[/quote]

Agree £100-£150 each for weddings.

[gapiro]

Seriously would have thought higher prices for weddings on here. Maybe it's just that I live in an area not really hit by the recession(Cambridge) but we are talking £1k almost minimum for weddings round here. Obviously with background music etc thrown in

[vmaxblues]

I agree with all of that, and again to put some perspective to it, this band has been around nearly 30 years, well respected, great following, always packs out a venue, and has the place jumping. Now if we were starting out or were a bit of a scratch band, then fair enough, but we have all paid our dues, spent a fortune on kit, I also have to bring the lights and background music too, so am getting very peed off with this, and am considering telling him he needs a dep for those gigs.

[Benplaysbass]

We charge between €1000 to €1500 for weddings and Parties start at €400.

[crez5150]

Depends on what sorta package you offer and if you have a reputation on the wedding scene..... The function band I play with are fairly well known on the wedding scene and starting price for the basic package is £1950. That's up to 6 hours entertainment including DJ. There are add ons from there.

My personal band we normally charge £1500 min for weddings. There will always be other bands that will play for less money and I would not consider doing any form of function work below a grand.

[lojo]

Last wedding I did I got £150

I play for much less, depending on what its for and who's involved

[okusman]

Few observations.....The expression 'pay peanuts get monkeys' works the other way round..."you play for peanuts and they treat you like a chimp".
You'll know whether you can cut it as a wedding band...and people expect to pay four figures for a decent band. Indeed when we increased our fee deeper into four figure territory, we actually got more work.
I think it also depends on you motivation to play and your level of service. If you offer a disco, a super light show and are willing to pitch up before the reception starts, then it's gotta be because you are doing it for the pennies. We will arrive at 7...spend and hour on set-up....have a few sherbets, eat the obligatory pig roast, do a couple of sets and get our arses to the nearest kebab shop. They always dance, we have a bloody good laugh and get the gig for the best man's wedding next year.

[bobpalt]

Weddings are very disciplined affairs, where you generally have to get set up early and leave, so there are two journeys to and from the venue, you have to dress well and put on a very professional, well rehearsed show, probably play stuff you dont really like/want to, but is the stuff the guests respond to and enjoy, and you have to stay sober and play to strict time parameters. Nothing like a pub gig, so the pay has to reflect that. How can your guy be taking wedding bookings for the same charge that a local dj would make to set up his cd player and ancient Peavey rig for a few hours of almost doing nothing and mubling into a £10mike? I think a serious band meeting is called for Stu. FWIW, we charge £1250 for weddings, plus travel costs and hotels if we have to stay away for the night, and £850 for parties. I would guess from speaking to local wedding bands that £1250 is possibly even below average?

[vmaxblues]

Cheers Bob, and I think you are spot on, I think we should have an absolute minimum charge for both categories, which cannot be broken without full band consent.

[dave_bass5]

Our starting price for functions with one agent is £850, although we have been known to drop it a bit if asked to get the gig. I'd rather have £150+ in my pocket that stay in on a sat night.
We do much prefer weddings and parties to other gigs but they can be long days so don't always look forward to them.
With our other agent it's all WMC's and he knows not to bother us for less than £400 gross, which means we each earn around £82. They aren't taxing or pressure gigs so we don't mind them, although Sony Lays enjoy them. Again, we'd rather earn than sit on our asses.

We have done a coupe of weddings for free, plus my GF's 40th but these are for mates and not high pressure gigs, as we have also been guests.

I like to gig so would do almost any gig as long as I broke even and it was fun, thats just me though , not the whole band, but so far we haven't been asked to do anything as low as £200.

[LukeFRC]

having been looking for wedding bands I would have thought (depending how good you are ) that your singer has majorly underpriced you there.

For example, we've got a mates ceiligh band for my wedding and at mates rate thats about £500, and thats for a wedding within walking distance of where they live and we've got backline/drumkit/lights/sound tech allready provided for them.

[mike257]

We're averaging about £800 after the agents cut for a fairly new 5 piece wedding band, and expecting to push that up with all the new promo material we're assembling and the extra investment we're making in sound/lighting.

I'd be having tough words with the singer as you're very much selling yourselves short if the function market is what you're aiming for.

[JTUK]

I doubt we can know how much of an undersell it is..... going rates are all relative....bla bla..

But you should all have..or all SHOULD, sit down and discuss what you will go out for under certain parameters and conditions.
I wouldn't blame the guy who goes out and gets the gigs so much..I blame the rest of the guys not setting understood and agreed guidelines.

Some guys are very active and others not so,...for all sorts of reasons, but the guy getting gigs needs support not a bollocking.
Accept that you didn't have a decent system in place..and therefore fulfil it/them thru gritted teeth..and then get an agreed price structure for future dates.

We do this with a online calender..where everyone updates it and then I send out confirmation e-mails with price and any detail for a quick check by all.
I expect them to come back to me within 24 hrs latest...and they do..if they have any probs as I am telling the venue/booker we will confirm within that time

Edited October 23, 2012 by JTUK

[mrtcat]

[quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1350988515' post='1845831']
I doubt we can know how much of an undersell it is..... going rates are all relative....bla bla..

But you should all have..or all SHOULD, sit down and discuss what you will go out for under certain parameters and conditions.
I wouldn't blame the guy who goes out and gets the gigs so much..I blame the rest of the guys not setting understood and agreed guidelines.

Some guys are very active and others not so,...for all sorts of reasons, but the guy getting gigs needs support not a bollocking.
Accept that you didn't have a decent system in place..and therefore fulfil it/them thru gritted teeth..and then get an agreed price structure for future dates.

We do this with a online calender..where everyone updates it and then I send out confirmation e-mails with price and any detail for a quick check by all.
I expect them to come back to me within 24 hrs latest...and they do..if they have any probs as I am telling the venue/booker we will confirm within that time
[/quote]

This. In our early days I went out and found us gigs only to be blasted by other members who couldn't be arsed to go looking but wanted more cash. i know the op isnt issuing a bollocking or being unreasonable (quite the opposite as he's seeking some objective advice) but anyone actually booking stuff needs a pat on the back and he'd probably really benefit from having some guidelines. FWIW we do pubs for £200-£300, parties for £300-£500 (plus travel) and weddings for £600-£900. We're essentially a pop rock covers band (4pce) and although we're pretty entertaining we're realistic that we're not as slick as a big 6+pce function outfit and 60% of our gigs are pubs.

[Jambo10]

Pubs up here, normally £200-250
Birthday parties etc normally in the £300-350 area
And weddings start at £600.

For pub gigs we dont mind haggling a bit, but if somebody wants to book a party/wedding then more effort, longer hours, smarter dress code etc all come in to play a wee bit.

[TimR]

[quote name='mrtcat' timestamp='1351023241' post='1846410']


This. In our early days I went out and found us gigs only to be blasted by other members who couldn't be arsed to go looking but wanted more cash.
...
[/quote]

Indeed, getting gigs is a thankless task. You're always too cheap, too far away, on when the footy is on, too a bunch of old people, to a bunch of kids....

Then you get people who want to pick and chose which gigs they can do and leave you to get a dep for the ones they can't be bothered to do.

Getting a band to agree on price is only half of it. Getting them to be open and honest with themselves about why they're in a band first helps.