Expert: Terrance Copley - 7/23/2008

Question
i just read something you said about never play a pay to play gig.. if you are a band in Hollywood all the main venues are pay to play if you want to open for any nationals it is pay to play so help me to understand where do we play if we turn these down.. and these are the major venues on Sunset strip and where would we build a draw if we avoid these thanks in advance for your answer

Answer
******WARNING..THIS MAY BE HARSH AT TIMES****** LOL

The only time a performer should play for free is when it somehow benefits them in the long run, such as opening for ZZ Top at any kind of venue or a Benefit. These 4 to 5 band a night things around the U.S. has got to stop.
The only reason people are not going to these bars is because they do not have a reliable schedule of good and tight entertainment. Playing your life away doing 45 min. sets all over town does not develop what a band is about (mutual vision, letting people know what your about like they would if you played for 4hrs.)

Up until 7 years ago in my area  common pay was $300 to $400 per 4 hr. night with high attendance and it was common to book 4 to 10 nights a month. Now many of the same bars have 4 to 5 bands a night and slim turnouts at best. The better bands have gone to less nights in wider areas, and $400 being tops.
I even met a band we hired to open for us that couldn’t believe we play 4 hrs. routinely, they only had 10 tunes they knew.
If you play for free you are shooting yourself and the rest of us in the foot. They will never hire you for money once it’s known you’ll play for nothing.

The first and most obvious problem with P2P is that the bands that perform in the clubs become the ones that can fork out $1000 instead of the best bands in the area. The fact is that club owners simply got lazy and “clever”, realizing that they can cash in on the reputation of the club - a “prestige venue” - to squeeze thousands of dollars out of the musicians instead of making sure they had the best bands around and promoted the hell out of them. So instead the bands pay them, whoever shows up pays them as well, and the reputation of the club suffers because the overall quality of the acts goes down as well, since there is no longer any quality control - only who pays out to the club. So the club scene deteriorates and the club owners blame the economy and tell the bands they can’t afford to pay them and they continue with P2P.
When I left LA in 1990 they had just started doing P2P with acoustic artists that they were booking to perform while the bands were tearing down and setting up!

There are times when performing for free is valid - for a benefit or charity or fundraising concerrt or as community service - I think playing for free in any for-profit venture is taking unfair advantage of the musicians, no matter what anyone says about “exposure” - it’s just a ruse to get something for nothing, but plenty of people will go ahead and do it anyway and it’s only personal opinion on whether they should. But to Pay to Play is outrageous and hurtfull to the music scene as a whole and should be shunned.
I have not seen this  where I now live.

As for P2P, well i already gave my opinion about that in the post. I strongly believe it has to be business move and not just another random concert. If its a business move then everything has to be perfect for your band, meaning if the other bands dont fit your style or image or whatever dont hop on the band wagon jsut for the experience or exposure etc.
My advice is to try and get a paying gig ASAP then you can judge for yourself how sucsessful the P2P was.

Goog luck,
Terry