JPF Home Page Forums General Messages Musician Message Forum Open Mic's, Jam's and Exploitation - A Reality Check

Johnny,

I am not sure why you're upset? You warned the person, they still wanted to pay you. You've earned your way up to the point that people hire you to play. Congrats! That's the way it's supposed to work. And if it really bothered you, you could have turned down the gig and someone else like Mike Dunbar might have gotten paid instead. (In fact, I am sure he'd be happy to take any future paying gigs you want to turn down).

There's something called Musical Tourism you must be aware of. It sounds like these ladies were exactly that... and people pay money all the time to have fun in another town or have some amazing experience. Imagine how cool it is to say I went to Nashville and performed my music at a venue with 2 seasoned backing musicians? Sounds like a lot of fun from a tourist point of view. There are so few paid gigs in most towns that these ladies aren't really even in that world. So they had a wonderful life experience they couldn't get for free nor could they have gotten paid to do it. Audiences aren't coming to hear weak music. They aren't even coming out much anymore to hear great music. It's a sad truth.

These artists are essentially hiring a venue and audience. They didn't bring in the audience (or much of it) so the venue provided it as well as the lighting/sound/staff/food/drink etc. These ladies hired you to play and a venue to play in and got an audience and the bragging rights to their friends back home that they played that venue in Nashville, likely leaving out the details that they paid to play. But that's okay, they paid for the priveledge and the tourist experience. That's how it works. If they could really bring in an audience in another city, they'd be paid to be there. But they couldn't. Instead, the venue brought in most of the audience for them so they paid for it in return.

Brian