Re: Re: Easter Gig


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Posted by Aubrey Foard on April 07, 2001 at 21:59:46:

In Reply to: Re: Easter Gig posted by Joe Baker on April 06, 2001 at 10:26:03:

I'm not going to get into the whole religion thing, since I have my own beliefs. Fixing your own sink certainly doesn't damage a plumber's business. However, hiring someone you barely know from a few miles down the road to do it is another story and much more closer to the case of ties between agencies and clientele. If you hired this hypothetical little-known person to fix your sink, you probably know little about his or her plumbing skills, whether he or she will show up on time, or what the quality of his or her work will be. However, if you hired a plumber with a good reputation, respectively low fees, and an excellent person-to-person record, you can be absolutely certain that he or she will get the job done right and if not, you can refuse to pay.

In the case of music booking agencies, the risk you take is even more secure. So much, in fact, that it is foolproof. A good agency, like the plumber, has an excellent customer reputation, good fees, and good people skills. In addition, a good agency meets with the client to have them listen to samples before being hired, has a full roster of freelance and full-time professional musicians, writes a contract describing all details of the musicians' involvement, has an agent show up to complicated gigs to ensure smoothness in the job, and takes half the payment down before the gig and accepts the other half after the clients are satisfied with the gig. If you were a church minister who wanted to hire someone for a massive service, the direct person to person contact with the hiree may work, but there's also a good chance it won't. If you hired musicians through an agency, you can be damn sure that the job will be done on time and correctly.

And by the way, hiring musicians for lower costs directly not only damages agencies because they lose business, but, if the musician doesn't show up to the gig on time (or at all), plays badly, or has a less than professional attitude, it damages the reputation of the music industry IN GENERAL because the hirer may decide to go with an alternative option next time. Think about it.


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