Here's our fee schedule in St Louis (whew!) *Summary* - This is the short version - 38 Sunday night contra dances a year at $5 - attendance 60-80 people usually - 24 Saturday night contra dances at $7 - attendance 50-80 people usually - 12 Waltz parties and 5 Balls at $10 - attendance 40 for the Waltz Parties, 30-40 for the English Balls and 90 for the New Year's Eve Party - Bands get paid anywhere from $100 to $300 plus travel - Bands are most often paid around $200. - English callers are rarely paid. - Contra callers are paid if they call more than four dances in an evening. Then they get (or share) either $45 or $60. *Details -* This is the long version - Regular Sunday night Contra dances (3-4 per month) - $5 - (The Big Bargain!) - Band gets $200, caller $45 (plus $15 for beginner session) - Saturday Night Contra dances (1 per month) - $7 - Band gets $250, caller $60 (plus $15 for beginner session) - Saturday Night Callers Choice Dance (1 per month) - $7 - Band gets $50/person, open calling, no one is paid. - Friday English Workshop (1 per month) - $5 - Recorded music, open calling, no one is paid. - Friday regular English dance (1 per month) - $8 - Band gets $50/person, callers sometimes paid, sometimes not (this dance loses money) - Sunday night Waltz Party (1 per month) - $10 - Band gets $50/person, Workshop leader gets $25 - English Balls (4 per year) - $10 - Band gets $50/person, caller $30 - New Years Eve Contra Dance Ball -$10 - Band gets $300, open calling, no one is paid. For bands and callers from out of town, we add a $25 travel fee to the driver. In the summer, when we have generally fewer dancers, the "per person" nights often have smaller bands. Our hall costs us $125, plus the bargain rate insurance coverage we get from CDSS. We pay our sound guys $25. We have our own sound system(s) but some of the sound guys bring their own equipment if they prefer it. We lend out our sound system to sister organizations and rent it occasionally to more commercial enterprises. M E On Sun, Jun 19, 2011 at 12:18 AM, Richard Mckeever <macmck(a)ymail.com> wrote: -- For the good are always the merry, Save by an evil chance, And the merry love the fiddle And the merry love to dance. ~ William Butler Yeats

I agree with Delia! It would be very, very helpful to know what creative solutions folks have developed for this on going challenge. Thanks! Linda Leslie On Jun 19, 2011, at 8:46 AM, Delia Clark wrote:

The reason I didn't provide any details is there are so many different groups are structured and how they use their resources.  I did a survey of contra groups almost 20 years ago and published the results in CDSS newsletter.  That made it obvious how difficult comparisons can be. Some of the issues Attendance levels Who runs the dance (separate organization, non-for-profit, individual, band, etc) What is the financial goal of the program - break even, subsidize dance weekend or the dance weekend might provide support for the weekly dances. How much do you charge for admission Does the dance have funding in addition to the admission fees. Given that - here is what we do for our regular contra program in St Louis (we have other programs that I will not address here) We are a non-for-profit organization and this program receives some support from our local arts commission - so we can stand to be a little short at the end of the year. Our dances are every Sunday except the 3rd.  It is on Saturday that weekend. We charge $5 on Sunday and $7 on Saturday (Saturday attendance is smaller - but not because of the price - just more alternative events that night) Attendance varies by time of year, weather, conflicting out of town weekends (we have a lot of regulars who travel to dances on some weekends).  We find this has more effect on attendance than the band or caller (with some exceptions - the Carolina Chocolate Drops packed the place and we paid them accordingly). Over a year we average about 80 dancers on Sundays and 70 on Saturdays. We use the same pay scale without any adjustment for attendance: Saturday - Band splits $250 - any members from out of town get a little more for travel costs                  Caller gets $75 - a little more for traveling Sunday - Band splits $200 - plus travel like above                Caller gets $60   - plus travel The reason we pay more on Saturdays is we hoped it would attract out of town bands who find it easier to travel on Saturdays. It hasn't really worked out that way.  We also find bands are a little hesitant to make commitments on Saturdays because there are more opportunities for better paying gigs. Sound tech gets $25 - we have our own equipment stored at the hall Sound techs all all also dancers.  Each works about every 3rd dance.  They get in free when they are not working (but also usually end up helping each other.  They are free to dance the nights they work. All the this depends on the generosity of the bands, callers and sound techs - which we greatly appreciate and let them know it. Other costs include rent, insurance, publicity and supplies. We have access to a lot of bands - so we might only see on a couple times a year.  We stretch the fees a little if we have an out of town band or caller that requires a little more.  Sunday night dances sometimes give us access to bands  or callers returning from being featured at dance weekends.  Surprisingly, having these bands does not seem to have much impact on attendance. Hope that helps a little. Mac McKeever ________________________________ From: Rich Goss <richgoss(a)comcast.net> To: Caller's discussion list <callers(a)sharedweight.net> Sent: Sunday, June 19, 2011 7:17 PM Subject: Re: [Callers] Caller Fees Portland,Oregon guarantees bands and callers $70, with shares above breakeven evenly distributed between band members, caller and a share to PCDC.  Bands above four members split the amount that would be paid to four.  For fifth Saturdays (open band/mic) only the two lead musicians and the lead caller are paid, same formula. Sound person is paid $125. Rich Goss Sent from my iPad On Jun 19, 2011, at 5:46 AM, Delia Clark <deliaclark8(a)gmail.com> wrote: _______________________________________________ Callers mailing list Callers(a)sharedweight.net http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers

In Austin, TX, the caller and each musician get a base of 30 dollars. We have a formula for paying travel fees, depending on how far someone comes if they're from out of town. The sound man is paid 75. After the basic monthly costs are paid, if there are any profits, the dance organization first takes 50 for themselves. Anything left over is divided equally among the band members, caller, sound person, and dance organization. Hall rent for our two monthly dances is 230 and 275. We charge 9 for admission to these. The room for our weekly Wednesday dance is given free by the park district, and the band and callers volunteer, so it's free admission... Our ECD hall costs 62.50, and we charge 6 for admission. We use recorded music, and callers aren't paid. Attendance at our big contras is around 60 on the low end, 90 on the high. Wednesday dances have 35-40 people. ECDs have around 25 people. Keith Tuxhorn Austin, TX

I forgot to mention, we also pay the band members half of any profit that particular dance brings in. This is calculated after the fact, and checks are mauled to the musicians. Marty (cdny.org) On Sat, Jul 16, 2011 at 11:01 PM, Martin Fager <martin.fager(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote:

Will Loving wrote: Bida has dealt with requests by two person bands to be paid more in two ways: 1) paying them as a three person band, or 2) paying them the fee that would normally go to a sound person, in exchange for bringing and running their own sound The second option is equivalent to the first, but the band gets only two shares of profit instead of three. We don't have a thought out policy on this; these are just the solutions we went with for the two bands who asked. We also almost never have two person bands. Jeff

It's my experience that some callers have a reputation that draws dancers - it is not only bands who do that. It is also my experience that a larger band isn't necessarily a better band, nor do they necessarily draw more dancers than a well-loved small band. And if the payment is going on shares, then when more dancers are drawn - for whatever reason and by whomever - band and callers (and, in the case of our dance, sound person, a role the band can choose to supply) get paid more and are thus financially rewarded for the draw. We don't cap the amount that the band gets. We have a different formula that kicks in when the band is larger than five. Otherwise, when we have a large band (sometimes we have as many as a dozen musicians on the stage) our caller - who works VERY hard when the band is that large - would get almost nothing. So we shift to a percentage system when the band gets larger than five (this wasn't reflected on the spreadsheet). The band always gets first dibs on bringing sound, and thus increasing their share of the take. Perhaps it's different if someone is running a big dance and hiring exclusively professional musicians and callers. But for us, as a small community dance, (with a totally volunteer organizer) I'm pleased that most of the folks who play and call at our dance do it for the joy and community and we're happy to help them defray their expenses by dividing up the take from the door. Our system attempts to do that as close to "fairly" as we can. -cynthia -----Original Message----- From: callers-bounces(a)sharedweight.net [mailto:callers-bounces@sharedweight.net] On Behalf Of Will Loving Sent: Monday, July 18, 2011 11:20 AM To: Caller's discussion list <callers(a)sharedweight.net> Subject: Re: [Callers] Caller Fees As both a dance series organizer and a caller, I'm thrilled that we are having this discussion. Performer payment was the area that I spent the most time talking with other organizers about prior to starting our Downtown Amherst (MA) series. Several posts have mentioned paying the band only a certain number of shares, usually four, even if there are more than four musicians. Though both the caller and the band are essential to the dance, this is presumably being done to protect the callers pay. Now lets consider the other side of the coin. What if your band consists of only two musicians? The assumed "normal" arrangement would be that everyone get's a 1/3 share. Now consider that the band is bringing and setting up their own top-notch sound system. Normally the person providing and working sound gets paid anywhere from $25-200, or a full share, depending on the venue, whether they are supplying equipment and their level of expertise (the high end being someone like Bob Mills). Next, let's add in the fact that this particular band will draw substantially more dancers, usually 25-50% more, than other 2-person bands. Is it appropriate to pay the band more? In this scenario would it be appropriate to pay the band 3 shares instead of 2? From the band's perspective, they are not only bringing and doing sound, but are also bringing in a lot of value/income for the dance and should be rewarded for it. Isn't this the same as limiting a band to getting 4 shares to protect the caller's pay, even if there are more than 4 musicians? Is the band correct in wanting to protect their pay as well based on the extra value they bring? My guess from reading most people's posts is that you would in fact agree with this, but some callers I've been talking with strongly disagree. I'm interested to hear people's thought on it. As an organizer, I'm feeling a bit caught between callers' feelings that 'equal shares for all performers' is a hard and fast principle and the band wanting something for the extra value they bring. From reading everyone's posts, talking with people and looking at Jeff's spreadsheet, it seems to me that while there may be an ideal of 'equal shares for all performers' (kind of like 'liberty and justice for all') the reality of how pay is divided is quite varied. I'm deeply committed to paying all performers/artists well for the efforts and energy, including minimums and profit sharing. Our dance series is only 9 months old but we committed to doing this critical piece properly. We are working hard to fund-raise for a high-quality and fully paid for sound system so we can eliminate that as a weekly expense and have more money go to the performers. We are slowly growing a reserve fund in order to be able to guarantee minimums even when weather intervenes - such as the recent tornados that came through Western Mass on our dance night. Thanks for your thoughts. Will Loving Amherst Area Contra Dances Amherst, MA USA http://amherstcontra.org on 6/18/11 10:32 PM, Sue Robishaw at sue(a)manytracks.com wrote: get are and to -- William M. Loving Dedication Technologies, Inc. 7 Coach Lane Amherst, MA 01002-3304 USA will(a)dedicationtechnologies.com Tel: +1 413 253-7223 (GMT -5) Fax: +1 206 202-0476 _______________________________________________ Callers mailing list Callers(a)sharedweight.net http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers