Bar Band Venues The Good vs The Bad

[stuckinthepod]

My Saturday night gig was a case in point of everything going right. The venue advertised the hell out of our first appearance on their website, Facebook and posters in the pub. We tailored our set with a few heavier songs than usual (Sabbath/Maiden) and it went down an absolute storm with the punters. Full house, everyone singing, head banging, dancing and into it. We did about 2.5 hours with multiple encores till we had nothing left to play. Landlords, staff, crowd congratulated us, gave us free drinks and asked to book us for New Years Eve! I'm sure I will come back down to earth with a crashing thump at some point soon but imagine....If every gig was like this from now on.

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[quote name='peteb' timestamp='1422261712' post='2670309']
Occasionally landlords will give the band a bit of a bonus if they get a better night saleswise than expected. Happened with us on Saturday night. The issue with tip jars, which tends to be a bucket being taken round the room depends on the venue. Some do but most don't. You can get quite a big boost to your money from the bucket, but pubs that tend to have a lower base fee if they know that they can rely on a decent tip collection.

It's not so much that Brits are not so bothered about the money, more that there is a recognition that you're not going to make much from playing pubs! You will find that we're a lot hotter on how much we get paid when you start getting into function bands, eg where there is potentially money to be made...
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Regarding tips, we don't pass anything around the bar. The tip jar ( in our case a pitcher ) is stationed in the front of the band off to the side. No pressure.

Blue