How to negotiate your band price
“How much does your band cost?” she asks on the telephone. So what do you say now?
You may be strong enough and established enough in your field and have enough work to be confident of telling her firmly the two prices you charge – one for public events and one for private functions.
Two principles in negotiations are 1) to delay until you get answers to your questions, 2) also not to present your demands up front until you know what the other side wants.
For most of us the answer we give will depend upon a number of questions
Issues to think about
Is it a private or a public gig?
Will there be repeat business?
Which night of the week? Tuesdays are blank, Fridays are busy
Will they pay for band travel expenses?
How much do they normally pay? You could ask her this while you dream up your answer.
The following issues are on your mind as well but don’t ask these questions because you’ll give away your negotiating position.
How much do you need the work?
Will you get extra publicity from the gig? Jazz Café is good, lead band in the Festival is good The Rat Catchers Annual Benevolent Society Ball is not much cop.
Might you get better paying work for this day later?
Is it a crummy or exotic location? An Australian tour is good, a gig in Wigan is poor.
How big a band can you put in? Can you get away with a trio or quartet? (Another duo?)
Are you willing to negotiate on your price? They will be for sure.
Three steps to negotiating your price
Keep at the back of your mind the top price you would like and make sure you bring this easily into the conversation_- also have a bottom price but don’t go anywhere near this without a big struggle. You can bring it in slyly by saying something like, “The last time we did a gig like this I think we got £500 for it,” and see what they say. You can always come off this figure later, by saying that you normally charge a lot less.
1
Stay with the truth and say “It depends on a number of things, can I just ask you some questions about your gig?” And just ask them the first five questions above. How much they normally pay tells you a lot about the price you can charge. If they say it is a private function and they don’t have any experience of hiring bands, you can be sure they have already done enough research to find out they they’ll be paying between £500 at the bottom end and more than £1,000 at the upper end. Not the top end – that’s a £5,000 figure.
