Indie Artist Stopped Getting Pimped By Promoters
Music in general is a business like any other, you exchange your services for money and that someone that you exchange your services to tries to make money off your service that is the general rule. But needless to say that the rules change when it comes to music, the music industry is oversaturated with various Graphic Artists that differ in quality, and when you have an over-saturated industry like the music industry there is a lot of room when it comes to foul play. It is a fact that a lot of people want to become Professional Musicians, and why would they? You get a lot of money for doing things you generally like. So the general interest in becoming a musician is fairly high, which is absolutely understandable because of the previously mentioned factors. Dishonest people take advantage of this, promising that they will promote your band at various events, for only a portion of the profit. The people I’m talking about are of course the so called promoters, but their name is a false representation of their interests in general.
What’s really going on?
If you have a good band that has a chance of making it in the big world of Musicians, odds are you already tried to promote your music in many ways. Some bands upload their songs to YouTube or Myspace, in any case your music is out there. These are the common places that the so called promoters look for bands that are trying to make a name for themselves. And like any good promoter they will offer you their services. Now it’s important to say that there are a lot of legit promoters out there, but keep in mind what you are signing up for when you are in the process of discussing the agreement. The general idea behind false promoters is that they will offer you a percent of the ticket sales, but only if you as a band sell twenty or so tickets. Good deal isn’t it? Well it isn’t. The twenty tickets you as a band purchase will roughly cost you 15 $ per ticket. So after and if you manage to sell them you will get about 3 $ per ticket sold. So where is the logic in that? It’s totally non profitable, well not for your band in any case.
Should you do it?
No way, no how, that should be your immediate answer. Its isn’t an unknown fact that promoters all around the world take advantage of naïve bands that don’t really know what they are doing when it comes to finances. And the sad part in all of this is the fact that the so called promoters actually get away with it all. After they do so, they simply move on to the next band they find. An interesting story of mine is that my friend actually had a band that has been promised a time-frame at a local revenue. The only thing they needed to do was sell thirty tickets. Which is what they did. It’s important to state that the show was a total success with over one hundred tickets sold. And after a good night of fun, the bottom line was they invested about 300 $ and their return money that they actually earned was 250 $. And the total amount of the money that the sold tickets accumulated was above 1500 $. Needless to say that is exactly what the promoter did. And he got away with the money. The next thing that we will be discussing is how things are done the right way and what you should be looking for.
How is it done professionally?
There are normally two methods of conducting this type of business professionally. Let’s say you are a rapper and you want a small performance in your local revenue. The organizers of the revenue set the prices and if they accept you as a performer they should negotiate your price and the ticket price. The promoters are only there to keep you and the organizer in contact and according to this they should be paid a small fee. When the money that you will be paid come to question the two most popular business models come in to question. A ticket sale percentage or a split price. The first is needless to say the most common, and best one if you feel that you will put up a good show. You get a small fee that is negotiated with the organizer and is directly correlated to the numbers of tickets sold. The split price is something that people do when they are not selling tickets, and it is most commonly referred as a fixed price contract where all the terms of payment are discussed before the show actually takes place so you know exactly how much money you will be making in the end.
How to do it in the right way?
You need to keep a sharp mind and eye, look for people that know what they are talking about, if you even as sense that foul play is at hand adjust your actions correspondently. For example, don’t be ashamed to ask some money in advance or ask the promoter or the organizer to cover your travel expenses before you start making the journey to the destination where you will put up a performance. Another thing that you should be aware is the fact that people quite often deceive and lie when it comes to payment, what we are trying to say is that people or promoters will quite often tell you that you will receive your money tomorrow or the day after, if you encounter this type of conduct ask for your money immediately because most of the time these people are stalling and don’t plan to give you money at all, so keep this in mind, it will help you a lot on your way to success in the music industry in general.
