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This information is taken from a handout from the advanced contracts negotiation seminar at PAE 2008.
I believe the samples were prepared by Jeff Laramie of SRO Artists, Inc.
Assumption=
2000 seat hall and tickets are scaled (1000 seats at $21.00, 500 seats at $19.00, and 500 seats at $14.00) for a potential take of $37,500, less 6% tax. Expenses are $11,100 before artist’s fee. Artists wants $13,500. At full fee, the presenter needs to sell 69.5% of seats to break even.
Types of deals:
1. Straight Guarantee - Artist makes $13,500, presenter makes $11,377 on sell-out.
2. Straight Percentage – Deal = 60% over $11,100 in gross revenue. Presenter makes $9710.80 at sell-out, breaks even at 31% of capacity, settles on revenue. Artist makes $14,566.20 on sell-out, risks making nothing until 31% of the tickets are sold.
3. First Monies – i.e. guarantee, then expenses, then additional guarantee.
Deal=$9000 guarantee, plus next $4500 over $20,100.00. Presenter makes $11,377.00 on sell-out, breaks even at 56.8% of capacity, settles on revenue. Artists gets 37% of fee, needs 76% of capacity to get full fee, gets $17,688.50 on sell-out.
4. Guarantee plus percentage over split point (most common deal).
Deal- Artist gets $9500 plus 70% over split point, defined as $23,690 or actual expenses plus 15% promoter fee, whichever is less. Presenter breaks even at 58% of capacity, makes $6596.21 on sell-out, settle on revenue and expenses. Artist gets 70% of fee, graduated income to $17,681.15 on sell-out.
5. Bonus Structure. Deal = $8500 fee plus additional $3500 at 80% of tickets sold, plus additional $3500 on sellout. Presenter breaks even at 55.4%, makes $5301 at 80% of seats sold, makes $8777.36 at sell-out, settle on # of tix. Artist gets 63% of fee, 88.8% of fee at 80% of tix sold, and a bonus of $2000 over its fee of $13,500 at sell-out.
Split point = the total expenses, plus artist fee, plus presenter profit margin. The split point will vary with the actual expenses at time of settlement. Divide this amount by the average ticket price to determine the number of tix needed to sell to break even and generate your required profit margin.
Split point deals and current trends:
On average, most artists get 70% of house over split point. In the rock market, it’s common for artists to make as much as 85% of the house over the split point.
Nancy Rigby presented this seminar for presenters and arts organizations at the Atlanta Performing Arts Exchange. The clip is her summary of disscussion points.
M-PACT wows the audience with a cappella goodness
A short clip from Illusionist Jason Bishop’s show at PAE Atlanta:
Barrage brings strings, dancing and vocals to the stage Friday.
Enjoy!
The Performing Arts Exchange show had a few issues; the venue for the opening showcase and reception was small and not suited for listening. When you have a couple of hundred presenters and agents trying to say “hello” or “do you still represent so-and-so”, it makes for a noisy room.
The sound engineers hired for this gig were obviously not ready to handle the quantity and variety of acts. Watch the tenor banjo player as he dances to the rap music playing in the background…
The Panel included Laura Colby (Elsie Management), Bobby Rossi (Director, Ruth Eckerd Hall), Jeff Laramie (SRO Artists), and Andrew Nielsen (Production Manager, Fox Theatre of Atlanta). If you have any interest in hearing stories and insights into “big-league” contracts and riders, then these videos are for you. The audio level is low in all of these clips due to phase issues and my location.
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This morning’s session on outdoor festivals and concerts was interesting. I should just say that we covered a lot of topics and have a lot of directions for future discussions. The high points for me were:
The Mortimer Levitt Foundation has a history of helping restore amphitheaters. If your town has an aging amphitheater (or old art deco band shell), they want to help you!
Foundations are recognizing that festivals are a long-term advertising/marketing investment that can pay back huge dividends..
Next year, the PAE will focus on festivals.
You can festival lists online at festivals dot com and events 2000 dot com
Rising costs increase the need for networking and routing of artists to minimize expenses. Use facebook, sonicbids groups, etc… to build relationships between presenters.
Hot festival booking tip of the morning = “Book “Barrage”; –the audience demanded that I get them back next year” –unknown presenter.
Some world music/dance performances at the 2008 Performing Arts Exchange Georgia Applause Showcase in Atlanta.
Throatsinging:
Mystical Arts of Tibet:
Mask Theatre and Music:
Kuchipudi Dance:
Enjoy!
Mario Garcia Durham is the Director of Presenting for the National Endowment for the Arts. Think of him as a cultural prime minister. His job is helping communities and arts service organizations provide cultural arts experiences for Americans in about 14 distinct disciplines.
From Wikipedia:
In 1996, Congress cut the NEA funding to US$99.5 million as a result of pressure from conservative groups, including the American Family Association, who criticized the agency for using tax dollars to fund highly controversial artists such as Robert Clark Young, Barbara Degenevieve, Andres Serrano, Robert Mapplethorpe, and the so-called “NEA Four.” Since 1996, the NEA has partially rebounded with a 2004 budget of US$121 million.[1] For FY 2008, the budget is US$144.7 million.[1]
From the NEA website, the agency awards grants in the these specific areas:
Media Arts: Film/Radio/Television
And now, a few words with Mr. Durham:
Highlights I gleaned from our keynote speaker:
What people need from us:
1. a connection
2. an alternate reality/escape.
She talked about the power of rehearsal. Normal people doing everyday things don’t get a rehearsal. When artists deal with issues like love, loss, anger, fear, etc… the audience is transformed through the power of rehearsal. This is the art experience.
3. New Roles. Presenters have to find common ground, look for diverse appeal and focus on the connecting quality of an artist (something everyone does, makes, feels).
Presenters also must identify quality and share those artists without promoting a sense of “aloofness”.
4. Art is an arc. Write the word idea on one side of the page and performance on the other side. Connect these with an arc. Most artists involve the audience at the end of the cycle. What we should share is more of the middle process in creation. Share the decision-making. Teach the audience!
This reminds me of the on-the-spot songwriting improv that Paul and Storm did on the Bob and Tom show. They asked Chick a bunch of questions and then “created a song”.
Our speaker was Liz Lerman, founder of the Lerman Dance Exchange. Her recent collaborations mix the art of dance with science, faith and business issues (imagine creating a dance piece based on the input of geneticists, bioethicists and religious leaders).
If you want more Liz Lerman insight, read this.
One of the things we’re working on in our state is the formulation of an Alabama Arts Consortium. We have 3 main objectives in mind;
1. Information Clearinghouse; we’ll train our own presenters and talent and network together to fight the evil forces in other states.
2. Block Booking. We can pool our booking power and help artists smoothly tour throughout our state. If I book the Funk Brothers (who demand an extensive backline) then 3 of my colleagues book them, we can simply share the backline rental, get a better rate, and because the same equipment (and board settings) follow the band from town to town, they have an easier load-in.
3. Artists showcase. Identify and develop our own artists and promote them at regional showcases.
It was a nice first meeting here and we’re getting together on Saturday to try to do some block booking discussion.
The attendees at today’s meeting were:
Alabama Dance Council
Alabama Ballet Company/School
Legacy 166- youth initiative
Oxford Arts Council
Alabama State Council on Arts
Tuscumbia Arts Council
Covington Arts Council
Univ. of Alabama Ferguson Center, Student Union, and Creative Campus divisions
Troy Arts Council
Alys Stevens Performing Arts Center (350 performances per year!)
B’ham Music Club
Energy (Dance company in Mobile)
Emerald Coast Concert Association (technically from Florida, but we’ve adopted them)
The October meeting will be in Bham on Oct. 20-21st and we’re bringing in an arts consultant.
Here are some things I liked that I heard in our discussion:
Every artist must have a “hook” with a community. There must be a connection.
Ask the group/agent how to best market the act. They probably have some better insights.
Everybody is an expert after the event is over.
Stick with the familiar in troubled economic times. It’s probably not a good idea to bring in the Dancing Sufis if your community is more “roots” based. I’m not sure I like this last one, but I understand where they’re coming from.
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