Live Performing (Page 1 of 2)

I play for money. I play for free. I play for food. I play for sex. I play to play. I enjoy playing live be it chip music or not. Average set is 45 min. Don't worry about it.

A lot of people play for free, because its so fun to do.
Hell, people go out of their way to find places that aren't actual venues to play for free(like the Stre3tz). It's to get people interested, and for the fun/lolz.

Never got paid for the occasional chip performance.

For the non-chip shows, my cut was usually only around 100-200 bucks.

Last edited by an0va (Feb 9, 2011 4:41 pm)

Most of the gigs I play are for free. There's one venue I'm a regular at so I get a cut of ticket sales, but not a lot. Enough for a few drinks. To me it's all about fun and getting your name around. You'll usually have to play quite a few shit gigs before getting anywhere.

This isn't always the case :\

Last edited by an0va (Feb 9, 2011 5:11 pm)

Yeah, whoops, forgot about that. So, it is entirely possible that you will pay for free at a show with a cover charge.

Yes. One of the nice things about the chiptune community is that you can start out playing open mics and eventually get gigs (as long as there are chiptune events in your area). It's also a very small community so you can easily get in touch with people who are organizing gigs and can get you on lineups. The more typical music "scenes" are much more difficult. Unless you know the right people, or somehow manage to be some kind of indie blog darling with thousands of fans before your first show, you will most likely struggle to get that first show. Mine was a pay-to-play... I had to sell 10 tickets in advance just to get the spot. I ended up making a little money when all was said and done, but the venue wasn't willing to let me play without that $100 deposit up-front, and I had my work cut out for me trying to convince my friends to buy tickets from me in advance. Not fun.

"how much do you usually get paid for a show?"

every show is different. sometimes you "should" get paid and sometimes you "shouldn't". if you're the local band with the biggest draw on a show with no touring bands, then you should get something. if you're a local band on a show with smaller touring bands that don't have very big draws, then you should NOT get paid anything and all the money should go to the touring band. if you're a local band on a show with a really big touring band that has a really big draw, then you should get something.

"Do you take shows for free just to get publicity?"

i don't really like terms like "publicity" but essentially, yeah. if no one's ever heard of you, then you shouldn't expect someone would want to pay you to play a show for them. but also, don't just take whatever show you can. show some discretion and just play the good shows, where the other bands are good and where there will be a good crowd. if you play awful shows, i think the people there will just associate the awful feelings with you. play shows with good bands and if you don't get asked to play shows with good bands, then it's really easy to just book your own shows. i was playing all sorts of awful shows until i decided to start setting up shows for myself. the last three shows i've played have been with anamanaguchi, starscream, george and jonathan, zen albatross, and j. arthur keenes. inifinitely more fun and relatively easy to set up!

"How long is an average set? Thanks."

a lot of the time, the venue will let you know how long they want you to play. but i'd say that if you're not the main attraction, 30-40 minutes is about right. even if you've got decent songs but you play too long, people will get tired of it. you have to really like something to be able to listen to an hour of it in one sitting. i think 35 minutes feels like a nice full set but also doesn't feel annoyingly long.