On Ticket Prices, Fees and Paying Musicians

Like a lot of people who are invested in the Australian music industry, we watched ABC's 4 Corners this week with great interest as they investigated the effects that multinational arts corporation LiveNation has had on the music scene.

We are proud to be an independent live music business, supporting independent artists, and we want to be very clear about how your money is spent, when you buy a ticket through the Banshees website. 

Our friends at Programmable Soda designed this site for us from the ground up, including the ticketing system, so we had total control over how it was all set up.

So, to start with, the base ticket price is chosen by the band who booked the show. This sets up the maximum amount of money musicians can make on an evening, as we are only able to sell tickets up to our capacity (80, including musicians and staff). 

Then, there is a booking fee. This booking fee helps to offset the payment processing fees that our sale platforms charge, and the GST we pay on ticket funds. We keep this fee, and it is a scaling fee for tickets sold through the website. This fee starts at $1 for tickets that are $10 or less, $1.50 for tickets up to $25, $2.50 for tickets up to $50. The booking fee is non-refundable, as the charges it covers are non-refundable to us.
The bands also choose whether to pass this fee on to you (so a $10 ticket costs you $11) or to have it deducted from the ticket price (so your $10 ticket pays the bands $9 and us $1). 

Our policy is that the total ticket money is split evenly between however many acts there are on the night, however some bands choose to split this differently.

We have recently been offering door price tickets (also chosen by the band) as an option for presale purchases. If you buy these then the extra money (minus the booking fee) goes straight to the band, plus we get the security of knowing folks are coming to the shows. 

We are planning to launch a "Donation Ticket", if you have the funds to spare and you believe an act you saw was so awesome they deserve another ten bucks, or if you want to donate directly to the venue, this will be a way for you to do that. 

Banshees would love to be paying our artists more, however because capitalism requires us to try to keep our prices approachable for our target demographic we are unable to sustainably pay artists from our bar profits. We've found that if we charge more at the door, less people can afford to come out and see the bands, and everyone loses.

All of the awesome grants that allow you to pay $250 per musician require confirmation of how many musicians will be performing at your venue, and evidence of their commitment to do so more than 6 months out, and while we are booked out for generally two to three months, that is not far enough to apply for these grants.

WHAT CAN YOU DO TO HELP

Fundamentally, there are four easy ways you can help support live, independent music in Ipswich

1) Come to shows - not just at Banshees! - the Kerwick, the Civic Centre, Studio 188 and others all put on live, original music in Ipswich. Show them some support!  Reach out to Banshees if you can't afford a ticket but you want to come to a show. We might be able to help.

2) Pre-order your tickets! This gives venues and artists the confidence that their show will be a success. If you want to buy an extra ticket for someone who can't get one themselves, put "pay it forward" in the ticket name!

3) Tell your friends! Talking about local bands, local venues, local musicians and how awesome it is that they are there and available to you is free, and genuinely helpful. The way social media is going means we are all struggling to get our shows out there, and genuine face-to-face interaction is the best way of talking up a gig. 

4) Buy stuff! Merchandise, tips, tickets, these things all help musicians and the venue to continue offering awesome experiences for you. If you don't want more physical stuff, investigate donations, tipping, pay-it-forward options or go buy musician's music on Bandcamp!

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk, and for continuing to support live, original music in independent spaces.