[Organizers] Paying for bands at big dance weekends

Hello organizers I've been having conversations with other organizers and talent about pay at dance weekends. Our conversation started with talking about our local contra dance weekend, and moved to a discussion about the local ECD weekend. Then the discussion expanded to several musicians who make their living as musicians, often at contra or ECD weekends. We learned that our contra weekend was paying at the low end and that several musicians were not interested in coming to play for our weekend because we were not paying enough. We are curious about what different weekends pay? Do you pay different amounts for the headlining band versus a second band? What if one of the bands is a local band? Is there interest in creating a document to share this information? I know that some places don't like sharing money information. I'll start. In 2019, the Atlanta contra dance weekend was paying $700 / musician or caller, all meals, travel expenses, and housing (generally stay with a local dancer who has many bedrooms). When we found out we were on the low end, we raised our rates to $800/per. Seth Seth Tepfer, MBA, CSM, PMP (he, him, his) Senior IT Manager, Emory Primate Center