Playing next door

Tuesday, 9.40am, Priya opens an email from Dresden. Tobias, at the Soziokulturelles Zentrum where Wet Pavement play in October, writes in careful English: "Could you send an invoice? And how do we handle the Quellensteuer, are you above 250 euros per person?" Priya reads the sentence three times. She can do a ten-point recap, a threshold, a D+7 follow-up. She doesn't know what a Quellensteuer is, or whether a self-employed guitarist from Sheffield can invoice a German arts centre. This chapter answers Tobias, and Fred, in Lorient, who has shorter questions and no English at all.

From Sheffield, Leipzig is a long way. From Folkestone, Lille is ninety minutes with the van on the train, and Ghent two hours. Next door is further for a UK band than for anyone else in this guide, and the paperwork got heavier in 2021. It's still a crowd that has never heard of you, and venues that pay differently.

In Germany, a Gage (fixed fee) plus the Tür (the door, the ticket money), Schlafplätze (beds, at someone's place) and Fahrtkosten (travel costs) discussed out loud. In France, a cachet (a declared fee) in a proper venue, a chapeau (a hat passed round) in a bar, and a programmateur rather than a promoter.

What changes fits in five points: the words, the timings (a German club often finishes before 11 on a weeknight; a French bar gig starts at 9 and runs to midnight), the money, the language of the email, and three or four papers you sort weeks ahead.

What doesn't change: the right person, the six-line email, the recap, the forty seconds of reading.

The shortest door isn't a local agent, it's a band over there at your level. You swap two dates, each opens their city to the other, and their crowd comes to see who they've invited.

Priya rings Jonas before replying. He explains it in five minutes: in Germany, an organiser paying a foreign band holds back a share of the fee for the tax office (the Quellensteuer), unless each musician gets 250 € or less per show. Wet Pavement are three, the Gage is 600 €: 200 € each, under the line. Tobias knows that. He just wants to read it, in writing, with an invoice.

She replies the same evening, in English, with a first line in German that Jonas checked:

Hallo Tobias, danke für die Nachricht. Yes, I can invoice you as a self-employed musician: 600 € for the show on 17 October, three musicians, so 200 € per person, below the 250 € threshold. The invoice will carry the three names, my address and my UTR. If you need a short signed statement for your files, tell me what it should say. Setlist for GEMA on the night. Best, Priya

Tobias replies next morning: "Perfekt." Two emails, no panic, and a date that exists on paper on both sides of the North Sea.

Three countries, three withholdings, one reflex: ask in writing before you confirm, and check the current rate on the official page the day you quote it.

• Germany: 15 per cent withheld from a foreign band's fee, unless each musician gets 250 € or less per show; check the current rate on the official page. Invoice in your name, musicians' names on it.
• France: 15 per cent after a 10 per cent allowance on the artistic share paid to a non-resident band; check the current rate on the official page. The venue declares it.
• UK: 20 per cent above the personal allowance, payer by payer; check the current rate on the official page. A small band never gets there.

Papers next. A UK passport gets you 90 days in any 180 across Schengen, counted across countries. Short paid gigs usually need no visa in Germany or France, but it's country by country: check the official page for each before you confirm.

The A1 certificate EU bands carry isn't the route for a UK self-employed musician; if someone asks, check gov.uk.

The gear crosses on an ATA carnet, issued by a chamber of commerce; three weeks. The merch you bring is an export: commercial invoice, declared on the way in. Coming the other way, an EU band needs an ETA each and a Permitted Paid Engagement letter from the promoter.

Last, the setlist: GEMA, SACEM or PRS are paid by the organiser, who needs the setlist, every date.

Your country, the country you're playing, your set-up. Opposite, the short list of what applies and the questions to ask the organiser before you confirm. It copies into your recap, at points 4 and 10.

Priya also wrote to Lorient, because Marée Basse, a trio from Brittany she met through Kaltfront, gave her Fred's email. Fred books a bar-concert: he reads his email at 2pm, replies short, and only in French. Priya wrote in English with a first line in French that Inès checked. He replied in nine minutes and four lines.

What Fred just said, in English: a one-off date for a band with no local crowd is worth a hat passed round and a meal; the same date with Marée Basse opening and their sixty people is worth 150 to 200 € in the hat and beds at his place. He adds the thing bands forget: no declared fee, so no withholding to argue about, and he'll write a receipt.

If a French bar offers you a chapeau, the line to accept it, keeping the door open to more:

Merci Fred. Yes to the hat and the beds. If Marée Basse open and share the event with their Lorient lot, we're in on 21 October, and we'll pair it with Rennes the night after. Who passes the hat, and does anything come off it first?

A date abroad gets prepared like a date at home, with three extra weeks in front, because the papers have their own timings and nobody speeds them up.

The recap goes out in the venue's language, or in short English. The EPK doesn't change: one web page, the video, the true numbers, and for Germany a ten-line Pressetext in German with two print-quality photos, which Tobias will paste into his programme without asking you.

The recap timings are theirs: Einlass and Beginn, balance and portes. Du or Sie gets decided by reading their website: if it calls you du, you call them du.

The timeline below is Wet Pavement's for Dresden. The exercise has adapted it to your country and your set-up.

Tobias has his invoice, Fred has his honest number, and you have the list of what applies to you. Next door takes three weeks of paperwork up front, and it gives back something your own city can't any more: a crowd that's discovering you. All that's left is to play, over there as here. Last chapter.