Thread: Rates of pay

Well the Equity website wasn't hugely helpful but I will contact them when I have a chance and see if they can give specific rates for variety performers.

However, Equity minimum salary at the moment is a laughable £375 per week. That might be for as many as eight shows, so you're looking at something like £50-60 per show. Considering that could be for playing Hamlet, it's pretty pitiful. So the burlesque scene isn't as cheap as it sometimes seems.

When we ran KUNST, the rule was simple; £50 per performer, per act, which was anything from a 5 minute burlesque routine to 10-15 minutes of singing. Everyone got the same rate, with the exception of a couple of very high-profile headliners who got the princely sum of £100. This seems to be a fairly standard rate and it was certainly all we could afford. (If you want the sums, very roughly, we had a £500 budget, of which £100 went on production, £100 on the host, £100 on the sound, £50 on the door and then £150 left to pay for the acts. Capacity was 200 but the largest audience we ever had was 135, at £5 per head. So not much margin for profit there).

If you are new to the scene, or even have been doing this a while but still in the dark about how much to ask for, I have some advice that was given to me by an agent years ago (she represented cinematographers, but that's another story).

1. Do some research. I have had legitimate reasons to phone up an act and ask their rates, which is how I know, but I can imagine pretending to be a booker just to find out how much you can expect to charge. *

2. Pick a rate you can live with and and stick to it! Make sure you have Terms and Conditions (e.g. travel and accommodation must be added on top, do you expect per diems, are you paid for travel days, etc). Always be clear about those up front. Don't assume anything.

3. Go in at a higher price (always quote at least 25% above), expect to be argued down, but know your minimum and don't ever go below it. It's actually a huge relief to a booker to be told 'the fee is £x' and simply know 'yes we can afford that' or 'no, we have to look elsewhere', rather than to have the palaver of a back-and-forth negotiation.

I have added a fourth to reflect the way this industry works:

4. You actually need two rates, possibly three. One is for Category A gigs which have an independent budget (e.g. corporates, where they have £ to spend); the second is for Category B gigs where the revenues come from ticket sales but can be expected to be solid; a third, optional category is for Category C gigs which are basically the kind of thing you get down the local pub where it's a fiver to get in. In other words, if it's basically just for the craic, what's the minimum to persuade you to turn up.

Be smart. By all means ask about capacity and ticket price. Do the sums - if the capacity is 100 and the tickets are £5, there's no point asking for £500. Go in at a competitive price (provided it's not below your rate).

However, be clear and stick to your guns. If someone says 'our total budget for acts is £200 and we need to get five acts so can you do it for £40?' you say either yes or politely decline. DON'T say 'well I normally would charge £75 but just this once....'. Do that and you're doomed.

Obviously this gets complicated when you're doing favours for friends/trying to help something get off the ground because you think it will go places/etc. But always keep in mind: flattering as it is to be asked to perform, do you really want to display your talent at a venue which can only stretch to £20 and a pint? Always be willing to say NO.

And keep in mind there will always be aberrations. I once got paid a quite hefty sum for a gig because I had the gall to ask for it (fully expecting to be turned down). But it would be madness to assume that meant I could ask it every time.

(And no, I won't tell you what my rates are. As it says in the shop, 'if you have to ask, you can't afford it'. )

* I know of one performer who used to phone up pretending to be a booker so that they could find out how much the competition charged and then undercut them. Which is hateful, but kind of clever.

I hope some of this is helpful.

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Very very helpful, as someone who is trying to make the step up from 'I do this for fun' to 'I do this for sums of money', your words and the informative articles of BvB are great.

Who says we're a bitchy lot, the help's all there you just gotta learn to not be offended by the truth!

All extremely helpful Dusty, Thanks for sharing your experience with us xx

I checked the equity rates of pay too
but i understood that £375 was for a performer as part of a company that
doesnt pay for their own rehearsal time or their own costumes props or
anything in fact ..

i did Glyndebourne touring opera 3 years 2000 / 01 /04
the equity average then was £320 / £340
you get expenses, accomodation allowance and travel paid, on top of your wage plus the same wage for 6 rehearsal weeks .. .

unfortunately variety performers like us have to shell out for all that as well and it is unrealistic to expect us to be gigging 7 nights a week at £50
a pop ..

when would we have time to make costumes rehearse have a life . .
as a variety performer you have to do all the leg work all the time
as part of a company, you just show up and do as you are told...

we have creative control of what we do, which is essentialy why we do it ...

my fee structure that i suggested some years ago seems to have disapeared from the site altogether so here is another suggested guide :


newbies - 1 year - £0 + expenses (no corporate leave it to pros )
1 year - 2 years - £20 - £50 + expenses (no corporate leave it to pros )
2 years - 3 years - £50 - £100 + expenses £100 - £150 for corporate
3 years - 4 years - £100 - £150 for clubs , £150 - £200 for corporate
4 years - 5 years - £150 - £200 for clubs, £250 - £300 for corporate
5 years plus - whatever you bloody well want !!!!

i am not saying you have to be a full time performer to do corporate but you should have at least 2 years experience of performing or at least 30 gigs behind you whichever is the greater ..

saying that however if you do have a full time job you don't need the corporate work like we proffessional full time perfomers do ..

just think..


hope this helps as well

x x x

Thanks RedSarah thats so helpful! I assume those figures are for 2 acts as thats the norm you're asked for?

I like your formulas, RS, but I would be inclined to ask for a little more on the corporate side. Though at the moment corporate budgets are very tight - but certainly go in high and make it clear you're willing to negotiate.

And while I take your point about the fact that we don't get 7 gigs a week, if you're doing a 5-10 minute routine it's possible to do more than one a night. The way to build a decent income stream from performing is to mix the £50-100 gigs with more lucrative ones. If possible, establish a few regular gigs which make up your main income stream. (I have known one ukulele-playing scamp to cycle from one gig to another and actually cram three into a single night.)

I would suggest for those starting out that £50 per act is a good basic rate. If you have a substantial amount of experience or a really killer act, £75-100 is fair - and triple that for corporates. But at the moment, around £50 per act seems to be the going rate. By all means ask for more and negotiate. But have a minimum rate that you don't go below.

At one venue I know, the budget per performer works out to about £75-100, but that's for an entire show which usually includes two acts, so again, you're looking at about £50 per act.

Expenses and travel should always be on top - I stress that you make sure that's clear at the time of booking. There is no point doing a gig for £50 if you end up spending half of it getting home again. If the gig is going to happen very late, you should ask for cab fare.

£50 per act seems miserly, I know, but if you're doing a club gig, there's no point charging more than the club can afford - assuming you want the gig. I have 10 years experience and then some, but I still happily do shows for mate's rates if it's fun/good exposure. At KUNST we did sometimes pay £100 (for one set) but only for very established performers.

The best way to get a sense of how this all works is to produce a night yourself. When you're standing at the door of a pub theatre, waiting for all the people who said they were coming on Facebook to arrive, and realising that you've got £300 of fees to pay but only £150 of ticket sales - that's when you start to get a sense of what to charge.

Keep in mind, as well, that variety performers can make their own work in a way most actors, for example, cannot. No actor can put on a night of Pinter monologues down their local on a weekly basis. For most of my career in London, about 20% of my income has come from gigs I produced myself. So while it's stressful being a variety professional , we do have a lot more power and opportunity than perhaps we always realise.

One other thing: charity gigs. Most charities are businesses and run as such. My rule is that I'll do a charity gig for free if it's a charity I personally support. But there are thousands of charities in the UK. You can't possibly do them all for free. They know this, so don't let yourself be guilt-tripped into doing freebies. Treat it as a corporate gig.

Originally Posted by DustyLimits

I like your formulas, RS, but I would be inclined to ask for a little more on the corporate side. Though at the moment corporate budgets are very tight - but certainly go in high and make it clear you're willing to negotiate.

And while I take your point about the fact that we don't get 7 gigs a week, if you're doing a 5-10 minute routine it's possible to do more than one a night. The way to build a decent income stream from performing is to mix the £50-100 gigs with more lucrative ones. If possible, establish a few regular gigs which make up your main income stream. (I have known one ukulele-playing scamp to cycle from one gig to another and actually cram three into a single night.)
.

aye corporate fees are extremely tight at the moment
and as far as my formula goes . . i am a 10 years plus so should really double my formula but sadly most of the time i can't ..

that scamp who runs around on a bike with his ukele sometimes doesn't make it in time !! and he is a rare comodity . . every one wants a piece.
he doesn't have stupid large props and 1 hour costume changes ..

for some reason gigs in london town seem even tighter with their budgets than out of towns.. hmm ?

x x x

for some reason gigs in london town seem even tighter with their budgets than out of towns.. hmm ?

yes, i have noticed that as well. it's very strange, because ticket prices outside London tend to be lower. although perhaps it's because regional venues don't have as much cabaret and burlesque year-round, so when they do produce an event, they are more sure of an audience. the problem with london is that there is so much competition that pulling a crowd can be quite hard. people don't tend to go out of their way in this city, because there is so much happening on their doorstep.

the corporate situation is dire. most of the pros i know really rely on the november-december corporates to survive the dead months of january-february. but i have almost no corporate bookings for the rest of the year and it's already october! i'm sure there'll be a last-minute flurry but the fees will be low. bugger those bankers, ruining the economy!

x

Very helpful guys, thanks! RS, were those figures per act of for two acts in one event? x

On a similar subject, I'd be grateful if people could give their opinions about the thread below:

Performer/Promoter ESCROW - Would It Work?
http://www.ministryofburlesque.com/b...ost134982.html