Negotiations as a Small Artist
You’re a small indie artist, getting started playing your first shows, or maybe a more experienced artist who’s been doing this for a while. What do you do if a performance venue offers you an unfair rate (or no rate) for a show?
If you’re a new artist, or really any artist who draws less than about 150 people to a show, it’s common to be asked to play for free, or for a small pittance of the door rate, or for $100 bucks to split amongst your whole band if you’re lucky.
Did you know, you don’t have to accept this type of unfair offer?
The power of leverage
As a small independent artist, you have no leverage in the venue system. You’re simply one of thousands of other artists, all trying to do the same thing. And, venues have become addicted to relying on a constant stream of small bands who are willing to play for free, so why should they bother negotiating with you or anyone else?
Hint: this is also why labor unions work better for fair treatment than individual artists trying to work out individual deals for themselves. But, labor unions require consistent buy-in from everyone in the system to be functional. Don’t undercut your fellow artists-the sooner we all insist upon fair pay with a unified voice, the sooner artistic careers become viable for everyone!
The very best venues and promoters will pay every artist on their stage a living wage, but this is sadly quite rare. If you don’t advocate for yourself when booking shows, you will likely get taken advantage of quite often.
So, as a small artist, what can you do about all this?
How to generate your own leverage
Walk away from that crappy offer! Then, go searching for some cooler local businesses to work with, ones that will negotiate fairly with you in good faith, and set up your own shows. There are a lot more of these kinds of businesses in your local area than you might think.
Then, it’s on you to sell your show out, and do an amazing job performing. Once you’ve repeated this process a few times, sit back and watch how fast the venues come running, once they see that you can consistently draw people.
This is how you make your own leverage.
Using house shows to bypass the venue system
House shows are also a win-win for smaller artists.
Fans love the intimacy of the smaller performances, and it’s often more fun for the artists too.
It’s amazing what you can do with 20 people who really care about your work, versus playing for 300 people where it’s just another Friday night with some band they won’t remember the next day.
Because your overhead costs on house shows are way less, it’s easy for bands to make more money at a well-run house show then at a lot of venue shows, even while playing for a much smaller crowd.
A well-run house show with amazing performances can win you a fan for life, because you’re creating lasting and intimate memories with an audience who’s already passionate about music in general, and who is open to caring about your work specifically.
Think about it: what is a venue actually offering you in terms of value in exchange for their cut? For most of the small/midsize venues, the answer might be “not very much”, especially if the venue is poorly run.
Sure, you’re getting access to an audience of some kind, but an audience who is only there to see whatever band just happens to be playing on a weekend is much less valuable to you than you might think.
You’re also getting access to some live sound gear, but the cost of that gear is getting cheaper every year. And, we’ve all got stories of playing at poorly run music venues that don’t actually have super great sound at all. It’s very possible that you could run quality live sound yourself, depending on if you’ve got the training and skill set to do so.
The connection between streaming music and your true fans (or lack thereof)
It’s similar to your Spotify monthly listener counts. In a lot of ways, this kind of metric is pretty meaningless. That’s because most of the people listening to music on X streaming platform probably won’t remember your band, specifically. It doesn’t really matter how many people stream your music each month, if none of them ever come to a show or choose to go a little deeper with your group.
A large majority of people listening to streaming music services are listening in that space for the cheap convenience that the platform brings them. So, they often won’t remember your bands work nearly as much as they’ll remember platform generated playlists they like, or the many other convenient items the platform is giving them.
While it’s important to get your music in front of some of these people at least some of the time in order to grow your fanbase, it’s not wise to depend on fans that are this transient and fickle. Especially if you’re trying to pay rent or fund your next album.
As an artist, you want to focus on and get your music in front of the people who might just care about your work specifically, just as much as the platform on which they found your work in the first place. Focus on finding and developing your true fans, in other words.
Beware of promoters who don’t promote well!
If you’re working with a “promoter” or venue owner whose sole promotional activity is 1-2 generic social media posts a day before your show, that’s a big red flag. This is called “doing a bad job at promotion”, and is sadly quite common in most small to midsize venues.
How to fix this? Same rule as above. Don’t try to convince someone who’s used to doing a bad job to do a better one, simply take your business elsewhere and work with someone who is more clearly in your court.
Sometimes the only leverage you have is to walk away, and that’s ok to do! Obviously, while being polite and professional about it.
Your career is made on the quality and consistency of your released work, and the relationships you build with your true fans. It’s not built by playing in X venue or at Y festival, looking for a lucky break. Remember, venues and promoters need you more than you need them!
