Free Gigs – Are They Worth It?

In the interest of keeping everyone happy, I will not name any specific names within this blog post. I will talk from my personal experiences, both good and bad, as well as what I have learned from my peers and idols. 

This blog post is not aimed towards any specific skill level, as any one person technically has the right to get paid for their hard work, but instead towards someone that has been performing for a short time and has inevitably come across that one particular word that disgusts me more than any other – exposure!

There have been so many occasions where people have compared being a musician to a plumber or an electrician, and that you would not ask anyone in that trade to make repairs in your house for no remuneration. Whilst it is understandable that electricity and other utilities are both a basic human right and necessary for everyday life, think about how empty and pointless life would be without music. The point that I am trying to make before we start this blog post properly is that you should never undersell yourself, always know your worth and market yourself appropriately. 

Free Gigs

This is not about your first ever show with a band when you are 12 years old, or playing at your grandmother’s care home for a special event once every three months. This is when you have had a taste of what it is like to actually be paid for your performance, as well as all of the preceding work that goes into it.

If you are part way through your career and starting an original band with some friends, no one knows who you are. You cannot realistically charge high entrance fees for a show of a band that no one has ever heard of. On a slight tangent, I cannot stand it when you are invited to like a band page of social media and there are no pictures, songs or materials to check out, just a poorly designed logo and a post that says “keep an eye out! More coming soon!”.  

One pathway that you could consider is that of a professional working band that does not play originals. Above the level of a simple pub cover band, a tribute show is a popular and viable product. An idea for a brand-new band would be to charge a nominal fee for entrance to cover some costs such as venue hire, production etc. A friend of mine recently started an early 2000s emo/pop punk tribute show with some colleagues – in order to create a good show reel, get the word out and cover venue hire they charged £10 per ticket. Yes, they lost money on the event but there was a clear vision and pathway, with the media creation behind the main focus point of the event. £10 is less than the cost of two beers in most bars in the United Kingdom so was the perfect amount, but if they had charged triple or quadruple that price as would be expected normally, the event would have flopped – they simply did not have the presence otherwise. It does obviously help that the material they would be performing is already established and well known, hitting all of the nostalgic notes for a specific demographic.

From the perspective of an individual musician, you must make the decision whether or not performing for free is outweighed by the benefits that you receive. Many years ago, I sat down with a well-known guitar player, a person I now consider a friend, a person who has played with huge names in the industry for over 45 years. His advice to me was much the same as I just imparted to you, with the addition that you are never too big to take advantage of a situation for a free show. As a result of our meeting, I decided to stop performing with an artist that was not only not paying a fee for the show, but was putting up a fight when it came to reimbursing for travel expenses. 

Up until that point, I had played at some cool festivals and played some live radio shows that I saw as a bonus to my career. Everything was great until it was not the same anymore; you should always remain aware, understand that the situation is fluid and know when it just is not worth it any longer. 

What Can I Do Then?

You should always be prepared to negotiate within reason, but have strict limits for your work including preparation time, performance. Doing a free show for charity, a special event or even as a favour is not a bad thing, but you should never be paying out for it. Transportation, accommodation and other ancillary fees should be taken care of (this would be things like parking, food and other similar things you might have to pay for). 

Some people like to advertise prices deliberately high, and then have some space for negotiating down to give clients the impression that they are getting a better deal. How you choose to market yourself is entirely your choice, but you also should not place yourself in such a way to immediately scare away any work. 

What Would Be A Good Example Of A Free Gig Worth Doing?

Charity shows are usually the most common show that you are asked to perform for free in support of a specific cause. I have done this in the past, and I will probably do it again. The only caution I would give you here is to make sure that you are supporting a cause that you believe in.

Another example would be a friend’s wedding where your service is your gift, but as long as the fee for any other musicians is paid fairly. On the Isle of Wight in the United Kingdom, where I was raised, there is a local competition for young bands with the grand prize being a performance opportunity on the mainstage – this looks great on paper and is something I would definitely do, I just would not share the fact that the slot is at 11am so there are not that many people there watching!

Final Thoughts

If you can easily write a list of reasons how your career would benefit from doing a performance for free, and it outweighs the cons of doing said show, then go for it. If you sense any kind of trepidation, someone uses the word ‘exposure’ or promises to spread the word to all of their friends, then you should run away. 

It is a sad state of affairs where sometimes grassroots venues cannot afford to pay acts a proper fee, or that a band with purely original music cannot earn a living from their art. In these situations, things are more of a passion project and you might consider investing more of yourself in a project than you would otherwise.  My recommendation is to go and make the mistakes, learn for yourself the best way to approach different scenarios and maybe even ask friends or colleagues that have been through something similar.