How to read a band quote

A band quote is one number sitting on top of six or seven decisions somebody already made for you. Read from the number upward and you learn almost nothing, because two totals a few hundred dollars apart can cover very different evenings.

This is what each decision is, and how to see it on paper. It works on our quote and it works on anyone else’s.

Most band pricing has two parts. One part covers the evening the band commits to regardless of how long they play: travel, load-in, setup, sound check, strike, load-out and production. The other part covers performance time by the hour.

Those are usually called the call-out and the hourly rate, and what live music costs for a corporate event works through what the market charges for each configuration. If a quote shows one flat figure, ask which part is which, and the rest of the conversation gets easier.

Ensemble size is the single largest driver of a band’s price, and it’s the line most often described in words rather than in a count. “Full band” isn’t a number. Four people and six people are different budgets and different footprints.

Get the head count in writing, then check it against the space. A venue that seats 120 and a venue that seats 400 want different sizes, and what a band needs from the room covers the footprint each one takes.

A quote either includes a system sized to your venue, or it assumes the venue is providing one, or it assumes you’ll hire an engineer separately. All three are legitimate arrangements and they produce very different totals.

Sound support that’s the right size for the venue is inside our numbers at every size, along with continuous audio during breaks. Stage lighting and a dedicated engineer are optional and quoted on their own line, so they’re visible before you agree to them.

When you compare two quotes, this is the first thing to level. Put both on the same sound assumption and the gap between them will often close or reverse.

Check three things: how many sets, how long each one is, and what an extra half hour costs late in the night.

Ours is the same hourly figure in 30-minute increments, with no overtime rate. Hour five costs what hour four cost. That’s worth asking about wherever you’re reading, because a night that runs long is common and the terms for it are usually decided in advance.

Distance is a real cost and it belongs on the page before you ask. Ours is itemised by corridor: a short line for the Front Range, meaning Boulder, Colorado Springs and Fort Collins. A longer one for the I-70 corridor, meaning Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge and Winter Park. For the far resorts, Aspen, Telluride, Steamboat and Crested Butte, travel plus a night’s lodging billed at cost, because a band that struck late isn’t driving that road home.

When you read any quote for a mountain date, find where the distance is accounted for, and ask if it isn’t on its own line.

Four items cost nothing on a quote and cost a week when they’re missing: a certificate of insurance, a W-9, one itemised invoice and a personal contact for the night.

All four are included in our numbers. Wherever you’re reading, confirm they exist before the deposit, because the week of the event is when your venue will ask for the first one.

Normalise before you total. Put both quotes on the same set count, the same sound arrangement and the same travel terms, and add the missing pieces to whichever one is missing them. Only then look at the two figures.

Most of the time the exercise doesn’t change which band you want. It changes what you thought you were choosing between, which is the more useful outcome for the person who has to defend the line item.

What this market charges, sourced figure by figure, is on our pricing page, so you can calibrate before you read anybody’s paper.