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Fancy a month's worth of prestige gigs? (for no money.. not even expenses?)


wateroftyne

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It makes you want to send an email to the provided address. Art and musicianship is no longer valued at all.... great. A footballer makes several 100k a week, but a musician should beg. What an interesting world we live in.

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6 hours a night for a month for nowt? When they're selling tourist packages for £500 and up? And they're also selling backstage passes? I think not.

And even better, there's a £6.50 booking fee for booking tickets online.

Aw, bless; they must be so skint if they can't afford to pay musicians...

Edited by Muzz
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5 minutes ago, cheddatom said:

I guess if you're just starting out, 18 and about to go to uni or whatever, it'd be a great experience. It's just a shame it's made out to be aimed at pros but not offering any pay

Nah, they should just pay people for their labour, out of the big pile of cash they’re sitting on.

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2 minutes ago, SubsonicSimpleton said:

Reading through the details they say they are going to provide accomodation and food for the duration, but it doesn't explicitly state that the gig is unpaid or paid.

Has anyone actually applied and raised the remuneration question?

The MU are on to it, so I assume(!) they're aware of the detail.

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2 minutes ago, Cuzzie said:

Is it much different from other acts at the festival?

Took an act there for a 1 week run, had to fundraise and pay for venue hire, travel, accommodation etc. All ourselves, people had to buy tickets to see us

Was the festival you played at a British Armed Forces' flagship event, sponsored by Arnold Clark, Sheraton Grand and Interserve amongst others? With guaranteed full houses every night with tickets costing £££?

If so, then no - it's not much different.

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22 minutes ago, wateroftyne said:

Nah, they should just pay people for their labour, out of the big pile of cash they’re sitting on.

As someone who's struggling to make a living in music part time, it's quite frustrating to read ads like these, but obviously there's more than one way to look at things. If this was marketed as an "experience" for youths coming out of college/6th form, looking to start a career in music, I personally think it'd look great. I'd have persuaded my parents to buy me a train ticket to Edinburgh and give me a bit of spending money, and gone for a month of fun and experience (if I could sight read)

 

EDIT: Anyway, ignore me, the POV of myself at 18 years old is irrelevant because I was stupid and naive and stoned back then

 

Edited by cheddatom
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I see the same with Artists on my fb feed, or friends who have friends who craft things (jumpers, cards, all sorts) - 'oh, I'll only pay you for the materials,' or 'I will share your work with all my twitter followers' (1,200 other skint losers?) etc.

Pretty feeble attitude this is - it's up there with unpaid internships.

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Just now, cheddatom said:

As someone who's struggling to make a living in music part time, it's quite frustrating to read ads like these, but obviously there's more than one way to look at things. If this was marketed as an "experience" for youths coming out of college/6th form, looking to start a career in music, I personally think it'd look great. I'd have persuaded my parents to buy me a train ticket to Edinburgh and give me a bit of spending money, and gone for a month of fun and experience (if I could sight read)

 

Had I been that age, with the right qualifications, I'd have been up there myself. It's still wrong, though.

They're only paying nothing 'cos they know they can get away with it.

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It was the Fringe

wasnt that event Evidently as this is the first time it has happened.

Sport, football in particular, was mentioned - until you close things like gender pay gap for sports stars for example the women’s football World Cup for all intensive purposes was equally as skilful and far more entertaining than the blokes version, but there is a discrepancy, and thank goodness tennis is getting there, there will be a labour pay gap as such.

If the Edinburgh based musicians are getting a day rate equivocal to the outsiders getting food and accommodation, that’s pretty fair - at least it’s up front

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This is the MU take on it, sent to members yesterday.

It has recently been brought to the MU’s attention that the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo (REMT) has advertised for experienced musicians of what would appear to be a professional standard to apply to form a new stage band for a 25 show run throughout August. Including worldwide television coverage.

The MU have contacted the REMT for further detail and have received confirmation that despite imposing stringent demands and requirements for applicants, there is no fee available to musicians for this month-long engagement where only food and accommodation will be provided.

These requirements include being available for an intense period of rehearsals and a run of 25 shows, being at least grade eight standard, possessing an ability to sight read, an ability to perform to an excellent standard in front of over 8000 people, have experience of performing in a showband, pit-orchestra and/or musical theatre band and a demand that although participants “may” take on other work, they must prioritise the REMT.

Furthermore, the engagement expects the rights to be granted for worldwide TV coverage – for which there are of course union agreements in place.

This issue falls clearly under our Work Not Play campaign and as such we now seek responses from any MU members who have engaged in this work so that we might ascertain the impact on our members.

This kind of call for work is gravely concerning for the Union and our members.

If you have been engaged for these shows, we would very much appreciate your response to this. Please let us know by emailing [email protected] as soon as possible.

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2 minutes ago, Cuzzie said:

I applaud the statement.

This is not meant to be derogatory in any way, but......

How much teeth do the MU have?

Can it affect a change for something like this?

+1, that's been worded extremely well. 

Re. Their teeth, I note it says "work not play" campaign, so I'm doubtful if there is any legal backing to their position. I assume all the MU can do is shame REMT into paying? 

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I think this would be an excellent experience for a budding young musician - but yes, they would be getting ripped off, no doubt about it.

Reminds of my local summer music festival. Hundreds of bands on in all the village pubs (about 6) all day Friday through to bank holiday Monday. The village centre is absolutely rammed with hundreds of punters. I've played it a couple of times and its a fun event - but no one gets paid. It's just an excuse for the bar owners to make a killing and pray on enthusiastic musicians joy of playing live.  

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