we are getting paid okay, but t-shirt sales are always double what the radio station is paying us. This year I'm starting to play weddings as well. it's triple the $ and you don't have to do as much work. The song selection, ah, not so good haha...
The shitty thing about weddings is that you don't really get paid well per hour. You know if you show up at 3pm, set up and wait around for whatever, go back to your room or sit tight backstage, then you play and have to play what the bride and groom want because it's their wedding etc...then go home around 11 or 12. I never liked to figure out my hourly wage for any gigs I did like that since I knew I'd be depressed.
Another thing; I once played "Sundance" (Paul Newmans place) and it was quite the swank gig. I was asking the father of the bride about how he came to rent it and such. He ended up divulging that the brides dress was 10k, the place for a matter of hours was 20k to rent, the limos and flying everyone in from around the country was another 15-20k and he continues to rattle off these enormous sums of money. I have no idea what we got paid for this gig (I was only the guitarist, didn't manage money at all in this band...I got a weekly and that was it), but the one thing I do know is that the band was treated poorly and after the huge sums of money I listed previously- what did we eat? A fuckin' deli tray!!!!
God I do not miss that part about the business at all....
