This debate is always ongoing how an artist should get paid. Especially with live events. Sure you should get paid since you are doing a job. You are rehearsing and buying your instruments and put a lot of time into it.

On the other hand, how much are you really worth. Of course, if someone wants you to play on their birthday, and do all that work it’s one price. If you are playing in a pub and you draw people there so they can sell beer it’s another price. On festival, your name should sell tickets, same on a concert where they don’t serve alcohol.

Of course, will Metallica get more paid then you on the festival since they sell more tickets? In fact, sometimes even the artist can gain on a slot just because the arranger get a bigger act that many people would see. So would that act play for free then?

Hard to say, you probably have to take the decision form case to case.

The thing I see though is that most artist that takes good decisions usually could get more paid. When I book a headliner they are usually very easy to go with and understanding. The ones that are usually argue around the money is acts that you do a favor and just put in the last slot to be nice. They won’t sell any tickets or draw anything special to the event, in reality, you could choose any good band for the slot.

The worst ones are the one that really is not good enough. People that do strange experimental music that very few people would listen to. Still, they want to get paid almost the same price as the headliner, just because they had done some work. It’s like the post I did about building a house in the way you like it and then I should pay for it without taking any decisions.

If I would build bicycles without wheels and in cardboard I guess no one really wants them. I can’t really expect to get the same payment for my thing like a racing bicycle. Yes, I can go for a very small target group. But I can’t go to tour the France demanding that they should use my creation.

I’m really surprised that it is the ones with a questionable product that always screams the most about these things. I guess if you have a good product you can go on with it. But when you are just in one negotiation a year you seem to fall into the trap and lose the whole thing.