Venues are often surprised to discover that professional children's musicians
charge a respectable fee for their work. Children's musicians are contacted weekly to volunteer their
time to perform benefit concerts for worthy causes. While children's musicians are some of the most
kind-hearted and worthy-cause-oriented people around, the volume of these calls makes it impossible
to accept them all, if any depending upon whether the musician makes his or her sole living from music.
Some musicians perform for worthy causes near and dear to their hearts, while others feel it is unfair
to choose one cause over another.
Venues should expect to pay a fee from several hundred dollars to several thousand dollars
depending upon the experience, reputation or needs of the musician. In addition to a performance
fee, musicians may also charge for travel, lodging, rental car, excess baggage fees for flights
and per diem based on travel distance.
Keeping this in mind, there is help available. If the musician's fee is more than your budget,
before asking the musician to volunteer or reduce his or her fee, consider several funding options.
Grants from city, county, state or federal agencies,
arts councils and organizations. Sponsorships from large corporations, local businesses,
individuals, hospitals and civic organizations. Usually sponsors will fund music programs in
exchange for advertisement. Parent-teacher organizations. Many schools have PTO's
that have funds to pay for special programming for children. "Friends" Organizations. Many libraries and non-profit
foundations have "Friends of the Library" or "Friends of the Museum" organizations that raise
money to fund special programming. Fund-raisers or Raffles. Many schools and venues have
fund-raisers to pay for special programs. Some venues raffle off the musician's CDs, books,
DVDs or collections to partially or fully fund the performance. Donations. One or more individuals and organizations
may make a donation to the venue or the musician to fund the performance. In-school field trips. With the cost of fuel and bus
insurance, many schools have adopted in-school field trips. Like off-site field trips, on-site
field trips are student funded through a nominal fee per student (often as little as $0.50 to
$1 per child). Patrons are individuals or groups who support arts programs and use the expense for the
program as a tax deduction. Cover charge. Many venues and musicians work together to share a percentage of the
admission fee charged at the door of the venue. Usually an agreed upon amount of money is
"guaranteed" to the musician as a base regardless of the amount collected at the
door. If the cover charge collected exceeds the guarantee, the shared percentage applies to
the excess funds. If the cover charge collected does not exceed the guarantee, only the
guarantee applies to the musician.
Bringing the joy of music to children is worth the effort of finding the right funding source for
your venue. There is ample funding available for programming. It just may take a little extra step to
find it. The key is building a musician/venue relationship and working together to brainstorm ideas
and put a plan in action to make the performance a huge success for everyone. |
