Free gigs for charity and exposure - would you?

mrkb

merlin said:

Exposure?? People die of exposure. 

They mostly get arrested for it though.

BahHumbug

Another issue with playing for free in a ‘charity’ do, is that you basically value yourself at zero.  This means that the ‘promoter’ will happily reward you with piss-poor organisation and probably a shit pa too.
Yes, I’ve been there.

ESBlonde

I feel musicians are taken advantage of far too often. In most ‘charridy’ events everyone else gets paid except the poor artist.
so the deal is this is our fee for an event. If they respect you they will pay, if they don’t then nothing lost. We generally give most or all of the fee back to the charity as a gesture once the night is concluded but some members of the band might be struggling and are under no obligation to take part in my opinion.
by charging you will treated with a whole lot more respect and often catering etc with a dressing room rather than sweet FA.
there have been a couple of local charities I personally support and I supply sound and generator to the local raft race who support air ambulance etc. and a bunch of us raise money at musicians jam days for the local cancer cause since we’ve lost friends that way but that’s voluntary by all.

p90fool

We've done charity gigs for things which mean something to us, like the local hospice where a dear friend recently died, but that involves us taking the money and handing it over.

Wetherspoons? Not a chance, you're just lining their pockets. 

AntonHunter

The exposure thing can work, but it's hard to quantify. For example, mates of mine have done really well from playing at wedding fairs, they pay for a stall, have it decked out with their branding, and either do small acoustic performances there, or play a showcase slot in the bigger stage. It's been a few years now, but they tended to more than make their money back on the day with deposits for future gigs, because everyone there is there because they're actively planning a wedding and looking for a band etc.

A gig for exposure can work if you're guaranteed some bookers/press/managers/whatever in the audience. Not so much if it's just the public, the odds are much smaller of it leading to anything.

That being said, if you're in need of some new promo material with videos and photos of you playing to a packed out crowd, it might be worth it. But it sounds like that's not the case here.

RocknRollDave

Will the bar staff be working for free?

relic245

Just sent this message to the promoter - after that we'll make a judgement

"I hadn't realised this is a Wetherspoons venue. It's a little disappointing that small, independent, and often struggling local pubs can create budget to pay bands yet large nationals can't seem to.

Can you give us a bit more of an idea about how the whole charity side of it works please?

On the night, who gets paid and who is working for nothing? Bar staff, security, the band promoter, sound guy etc.

How is the money for charity raised? Is it pass the bucket round, pay on the door, is the venue donating a portion of sales etc.

We have done quite a few gigs for charity. It's not actually play for free as we incur costs in doing it so it's actually pay to play. At the same time we'd be providing kit for others to use. It's not a no, but we would like to have transparency on how everything works."

RocknRollDave

Can’t say fairer than that.

CountryDave

I saw something once that was along the lines of ‘if a pub asks you to play for exposure, go in at a different time and ask them for free beer and food ‘for exposure’.’
See what response you get.

fretmeister

From my years of performing magic I have adopted a rule that my mentor has used for decades.

It's either full price or free. No discounts ever.

This is the starting point.

Then it comes down to the charity itself. Is it a charity I want to support personally - would I have donated something to them? If not - then it's full price. If it is something I actively want to support then I might do the gig.

The nature of the Venue doesn't really come into it for me - everything needs a venue and every venue needs staffing.

I had a similar thing when Tesco asked me if I would do Balloon model making for a charity event at one of their shops. Tesco's are obviously a multi-billion pound company, but the charity was once I would support - Cancer Research so I did it. TBF to Tesco I asked them for a contribution to the costs of the balloons (proper modelling ones aren't cheap) and they did give me IIRC £75 towards it.

As it happens they contacted me again to do the same sort of thing but for a new store opening. Stand outside make balloons for the kids on opening day. That one I refused because Tesco was the beneficiary and they should have paid everyone booked.


One important thing to note: Over the years I've got hundreds of enquiries from genuine potential clients when I performed at actual shows / parties etc - but ABSOLUTELY NONE from any "Exposure" type event. Zero, unless you count grifters wanting more for free.

I think the difference is the punters emotional involvement in the show. If I do a kids magic show and the kids are happy and controlled the parents want that for their own event. They don't give a crap if their kid gets a free whatever when just passing the entrance to a shop.

So - base your decision on the charity alone. If you want to support it - great. If you wouldn't have put 5 pence in a bucket, then don't. That is the only factor because you will NOT get any paid enquiries off the back of it.

fretmeister

relic245 said:

Just sent this message to the promoter - after that we'll make a judgement

"I hadn't realised this is a Wetherspoons venue. It's a little disappointing that small, independent, and often struggling local pubs can create budget to pay bands yet large nationals can't seem to.

Can you give us a bit more of an idea about how the whole charity side of it works please?

On the night, who gets paid and who is working for nothing? Bar staff, security, the band promoter, sound guy etc.

How is the money for charity raised? Is it pass the bucket round, pay on the door, is the venue donating a portion of sales etc.

We have done quite a few gigs for charity. It's not actually play for free as we incur costs in doing it so it's actually pay to play. At the same time we'd be providing kit for others to use. It's not a no, but we would like to have transparency on how everything works."

I don't think the bar staff getting paid comes into it. They will be working whether a show is on or not. There is no change to them, and as they are probably on minimum wage I would not want them doing it for nothing. I certainly don't want them turning up for their regular shift and not getting paid just because an event is on.

There's a difference between the average employees just working to pay their rent and the corporate body as a whole.

However - it would be reasonable to consider whether 'Spoons are say, giving the beer profits for the night to the charity.

relic245

In the end we politely declined.

RocknRollDave

relic245 said:

In the end we politely declined.

Good.

Sporky

fretmeister said:

It's either full price or free. No discounts ever.

Same as sex then. 

digitalkettle

Sporky said:

fretmeister said:

It's either full price or free. No discounts ever.

Same as sex then. 

That leaves refunds still an option then

Blueingreen

Slightly off topic but one band I played in had a “we will do one charity gig a year” policy. We wouldn’t have cut off our nose to spite our face by turning down an extra one if there were good enough reasons to do it. But it made us feel we were doing our bit but were entitled to say no to most requests. I think it worked well.

Trude

Worth noting that you also get just as much exposure doing paid gigs...

kennedydream1980

My ex band did many charity gigs over the years. Some were done at full price, some reduced and some free. We always saw them as good exposure and getting us in front of folk that wouldn’t normally get themselves down to the local working Mens club or pub to watch a local band. So we probably picked up a dozen or so gigs (Mainly weddings and corporates) from doing the charity gigs. So for us it was well worth it.

Jalapeno

Exposure - never.

Charity - depends - not for free if a club or pub as argued out above, marquee/village hall, yes.

fretmeister

digitalkettle said:

Sporky said:

fretmeister said:

It's either full price or free. No discounts ever.

Same as sex then. 

That leaves refunds still an option then

No madam, that was efficiency, not too fast.