CORPORATE
What live music costs for a corporate event
A band's price has two parts. Here is what each one covers, what moves it, and what the total comes to for the shapes a corporate night actually takes.
- A band's fee splits into a call-out, which covers the evening, and an hourly rate, which covers the music.
- Our published totals run from $1,500 for a two-hour duo to $18,000 for a thirteen-piece over four hours.
- Most corporate parties land between $6,000 and $12,500, which is a seven-piece for two hours at the bottom and a ten-piece for four at the top.
- Travel, holiday weekends and New Year's Eve are separate lines. Nothing about them is folded into the headline number.
The question usually arrives without much warning. Someone decides the holiday party should have a band this year, and by the end of that meeting you are the person who has to find out what a band costs and report back with a figure somebody upstairs can approve.
Then you start looking, and almost every band site answers with a form. You fill it in, you wait two days, and a number comes back that you cannot compare against the next number, because the two quotes cover different things. One includes sound. One does not. One mentions travel. One will mention it later. Three weeks go by and you still cannot put a line in a budget.
Our rates sit on the pricing page, in full, with no form in front of them. This is the explanation that belongs beside them.
Why the price has two parts #
A call-out covers the evening we commit to, whatever its length. Travel, load-in, setup, sound check, strike, load-out, and the production that rides along with all of it. An hourly rate then covers performance time.
The split exists because of the short booking. A duo playing one hour of cocktails costs us the same evening a four-hour reception costs: the same drive, the same load-in, the same sound check, the same strike after the room empties. Price it purely by the hour and the one-hour booking has to carry a rate nobody would agree to, or the four-hour booking has to subsidise it. Splitting the fee lets both come out honest, and it means the arithmetic on your quote is something you can check yourself.
What the totals actually are #
| Ensemble | Call-out | Per hour | 2 hours | 3 hours | 4 hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Duo | $600 | $450 | $1,500 | $1,950 | $2,400 |
| Trio | $1,000 | $600 | $2,200 | $2,800 | $3,400 |
| Quartet | $1,600 | $800 | $3,200 | $4,000 | $4,800 |
| Quintet | $2,200 | $1,000 | $4,200 | $5,200 | $6,200 |
| Seven-piece | $3,500 | $1,250 | $6,000 | $7,250 | $8,500 |
| Ten-piece | $5,300 | $1,800 | $8,900 | $10,700 | $12,500 |
| Thirteen-piece | $8,000 | $2,500 | $13,000 | $15,500 | $18,000 |
| DJ | $800 | $350 | $1,500 | $1,850 | $2,200 |
Every cell in that table is the call-out plus the hourly rate times the hours. There is no cell doing anything else.
A duo, trio or DJ can be booked for a single hour. From a quartet up the minimum is two, which is why the table starts there.
Three shapes a corporate night takes #
Rate cards are abstract until somebody puts an evening against them. These are the three that come up most.
An awards dinner. A quintet, three hours, playing dinner at conversation volume and then holding the room through the presentation. Call-out $2,200, three hours at $1,000. $5,200.
A holiday party with a real dance floor. A ten-piece, four hours. Call-out $5,300, four hours at $1,800. $12,500.
A gala that runs across the whole night. A seven-piece for three hours, a cocktail duo for the hour before it, and a DJ for the hour after. Once we are in the building the setup is already paid for, so the added slots bill at the hourly rate with no second call-out, and booking three parts of the night together takes 10% off.
| Line | Amount |
|---|---|
| Seven-piece call-out | $3,500 |
| Performance, 3 hours at $1,250 an hour | $3,750 |
| Cocktail duo, 1 hour, no second call-out | $450 |
| DJ after the band, 1 hour, no second call-out | $350 |
| Three parts booked together, 10% off | -$805 |
| Total | $7,245 |
That is a five-hour evening with three different musical settings for less than a ten-piece playing four. The arithmetic is what makes it cheaper, and you can do the arithmetic yourself before you call anybody.
What moves the number #
Five things, each of which arrives as its own line on the quote and its own line on the contract.
- Travel. The Front Range adds $300. The I-70 corridor, which covers Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge and Winter Park, adds $600. Aspen, Telluride, Steamboat and Crested Butte add $600 plus lodging at cost, billed as what it actually cost.
- Holiday and peak weekends. Add 25% to the fees, before travel.
- New Year’s Eve. Adds 50%, and books earlier than anything else on the calendar.
- Live-band karaoke. $1,500, if the program wants a chapter where your people sing and the band plays behind them.
- Learned songs beyond the first. $250 each.
One thing that does not move it: overtime. There is no overtime rate. Added time bills at the same hourly figure in 30-minute increments, so hour five costs what hour four cost. At eleven o’clock the only question on the table is whether the room wants another half hour.
What is inside every one of those numbers #
Comparing two band quotes is only possible once you know what each of them covers, and this is the part where quotes diverge most. At every size, ours includes:
- Sound and lighting sized to the room, with an engineer
- Load-in, setup, strike and load-out
- A certificate of insurance naming your venue as additional insured
- A W-9 and one itemised invoice
- Timeline coordination before the event
- Continuous audio during breaks
- A named contact for the night, given to you before the event
Sound is the line worth checking hardest against another quote. A band that does not carry production will either add it later or expect the venue to have it, and the venue’s house system was probably specified for speeches.
How far ahead should this be booked? #
Corporate holiday parties tend to get decided between August and October for November and December dates. New Year’s Eve goes earliest of all. Galas and mountain-venue bookings run longer, closer to ten or twelve months, and a fall Saturday in the corridor is the hardest date in the Colorado calendar to hold.
If your date is already fixed, the useful thing to know is that a date can be checked without a conversation about budget first.
