Fees, deals and negotiation

Money always turns up too early or too late: in your first email, or at the merch table at one in the morning, when the promoter counts the door and Dee discovers the band's share is £38 and a tram ticket. In between, there's a spreadsheet, one sentence, and three countries that don't pay the same way. Callum said "150?" on the phone. This chapter is for saying your number without going red.

Priya has had three offers that look nothing alike. Dave: "door split three ways after £80 for sound." Sam: "fixed support fee, £80, we're funded." A promoter in Leeds: "shift 20 tickets." Three ways of carrying the risk.

The fixed fee. An agreed sum, whatever the door does. Funded venues, arts centres, festivals, tour supports. The risk sits with the promoter.

Fixed minimum plus percentage. A floor, plus a share of the door above a number. Promoters who trust you; when you've got a crowd, the best deal going.

The door split. A percentage of the door, usually after costs like the sound engineer come off. Pubs, promoter nights, multi-band bills. Always ask what comes off before the split, and how many bands share the artists' pot.

The ticket deal. You get a set amount on every ticket sold through your link, nothing on the others. Fair if your sales are tracked and the ticket price is sane; otherwise it's a quota in disguise.

Expenses only. Petrol money, food, a floor, no fee. Defensible for a support that's worth it; as a regular model, no.

Pay to play, or selling tickets. You turn it down, you've got the sentence. And in every case, drinks tokens or a couple of pints on the night is the custom; if nobody mentions it, ask.

The promoter in Newcastle said "fine, 150" to Callum. That night, Priya opens the spreadsheet, one column for that Friday.

Sheffield to Newcastle and back: 260 miles. Diesel and wear at 30p a mile, roughly: £78. Parking in town: £12. A night for three: £90 in a hostel, £0 on a floor. Meals not provided: £36. Posters: £10.

And what each of them wants to keep at the end, even a modest amount: £20 a head, £60. Threshold with a paid night: £286, call it £290. Threshold if put up and fed: £160, £175 with a bit of margin.

Your threshold doesn't say what you're worth. It says below what number the date costs you money.

Priya rings the promoter back the next day. "Callum said 150 and we'll stand by it. For it to work for us we'd need feeding and somewhere for three to crash, even a floor." The promoter: "Food's sorted, the pizza place next door does the bands. Crashing, my flatmate's away, there's a sofa and a floor."

Priya redoes the column: 78 + 12 + 10 + 60 = 160, minus 150 = £10 short, covered by one t-shirt. She says yes, and says it like this: "150 with food and a floor, that works with the merch. Done." She didn't renegotiate the number Callum let slip: she checked it held.

Three scenarios: your city, a city two hours away, a weekend of two dates. Fill them in with your real numbers; the threshold recalculates with every field, and the comparator shows you from how many through the door a door split beats a fixed fee.

Tuesday, half one, Priya rings Dave as promised. He picks up in the car park at work, and asks the question first.

The range first, you've got that. Then, once you know their deal, a number, saying where it comes from, in one sentence:

For the three of us to come over from Sheffield, with the van and a night away, our threshold is £290; above that, we're open to a percentage of the door.

The number holds because it's explained. And you let the answer come. Don't finish your sentence with a discount before the other person has spoken. If it's too much, they'll say so, and you'll look together: a weeknight, a multi-band bill, a floor instead of a higher fee.

Negotiate on the items, not on the principle. Food, a floor, a merch cut, slot time, promotion: each item has a value to you and a different cost to them. A sofa at the promoter's flat costs the night nothing and saves you £90.

Two things don't get negotiated: playing for free "for the exposure" in a room that charges on the door, and signing a deal whose maths you don't understand.

The landlord of a pub with a function room in Nottingham, on the phone: "We do a bucket on the door, there's no charge to get in, and we don't do paperwork."

Priya: "The bucket's fine, as long as it's announced at the door and someone takes it round, because if it's us from the stage we get half."

"For the paperwork, there isn't much: we're self-employed, we send you an invoice with our UTR on it, you pay it like any other supplier. And a setlist on the night, for PRS, which sits with your licence, not with us."

The landlord: "If you're the one sending the invoice, fair enough."

She didn't lecture. She said how it's done, in thirty seconds, and offered to carry the work.

On the way home, in the van: Dave's "three ways after £80". Priya does it out loud. "Sixty through the door at six quid, £360. Take the £80 for sound, £280. Three ways, £93 each. If the headliner had been on £150 off the top, £130 between two of us, £65. At thirty through the door, nothing." Dee: "So we bring forty."

When a venue says "we've got £80 for the support": in the UK you're self-employed, you invoice, the venue pays what's on the invoice. No employer on-costs like in France, so £80 is £80, but it's gross: it goes in your Self Assessment, and the diesel comes out of it before anyone gets paid.

Musicians' Union rates are the reference for covers, functions and funded venues, where Sam will often pay them for a support; in a grassroots venue nobody quotes them. Check the current rate on the official page. PRS is paid by the venue; the Gigs and Clubs Scheme pays out per declared gig in small venues, so a setlist every date.

Same email, same band, three different tills. In Manchester, Dave writes "door split three ways after £80 sound" and expects you to do the maths yourself. In Chemnitz, Tobias expects an invoice and asks "seid ihr über die KSK abgerechnet?". In Lorient, Fred puts you on a payslip for the night.

The tabs below give, country by country, the deals you meet, who pays the songwriting royalties, the status you'll be asked for, and the standard timings of a night. Field benchmarks, not a rate card: rates change, check the official page before you agree anything.

The door split is taken apart number by number in the UK tab: "70 % to the artists" can mean £65 for you, or nothing.

In Newcastle, the missing £10 came from one t-shirt. At tiers 1 and 2, merch is often what separates a night at a loss from a decent night.

What to make first: a one-colour tee on a dark shirt, a tote, stickers, and the vinyl when there's a record. Field prices 2026: tee £20 to £25, tote £10 to £12, vinyl £20 to £25, cassette £8. Pessimistic benchmark: one item sold for every ten through the door.

A card reader with no monthly fee, a float, someone at the table all night after the set, not "we'll see", and a shout from the stage before the last song.

Before you confirm, ask whether you can sell, where, and whether the venue takes a cut: none in small rooms, 10 to 25 % in some mid-size venues in the UK and Germany, politely refused under 300 cap.

You have a threshold per date, a range to say straight away, an explained number to say next, and the words Dave, Tobias and Fred are going to use. You've agreed on a date and on a number. It isn't a gig yet.