22 Jun
2011
22 Jun
'11
3:09 p.m.
Martha Edwards wrote:
But I am curious - in your groups, are callers paid more, or less,
than musicians (on average)? How about the sound guys?
We (bida) pay all of them the same, though we don't include the sound
person in profit sharing.
And on what do you base the amounts?
What we can afford. As our dance has grown, we've raised our
guarantees some. If we found we were building up too much in our bank
account we would raise them more.
the dancers. I just looked at our list of bands, and there's only
one person - okay, two - listed in our local contra dance bands that
regularly dance with us any more. Is that normal in your
communities?
The model in my head is a turnover based one. There's relatively high
turnover for dancers. If I go to the scout house now, maybe 1/3 were
dancing when I used to go there regularly in 2006. So lots of people
come for a while, then stop. Some of the people who stay around are
just people who really like dancing. Many others, though, are ones
who have broadened into other community roles: calling, playing,
organizing, running sound.
Maybe some musicians lose interest in dancing, like other people who
lose interest in dancing, but instead of disappearing they remain
somewhat connected, playing for dances?
Jeff