I passed up a high paying last minute offer for a gig because of a date I'd confirmed with someone else for this Saturday for far less money. I confirmed and re-confirmed with the "production company" and they assured me that I was good. I JUST received a text saying that the gig has been cancelled. I have a signed agreement but the money isn't even worth suing over, but I will feel the sting of the money that I lost for a long time. Professional performers, I would like to ask that you be my company in this misery. Stories?
Cannot mention names or places, but...... Played a gig at a place for a set price. Played until the place closed. When we were finished, and finished breaking down & loading gear, we went to the manager for our money, and he said that because he didn't sell enough liquor, he couldn't pay us. Noticed his keys in the lock on the door of the place. We took the keys. Called him the next day. Told him he could have his keys back as soon as he paid us what he owed us. Met him at the club later that day, got the cash, and gave him his keys back.
Can't relate. I've never had a problem with a gig because I've never been in a band. Never done standup. No plays. No musicals. I was never on any team. Never made the cut Nobody's paid to buy a ticket to see me play or do an act. Nobody got in their car to come see me. And no crowd has ever applauded for me. I have had other successes in my life, but gig stories... I have none.
One time I went to a friend's friend's daughter's baptism as a guest. My friend said "Hey, do you have your camera so you can take a photo of me and my friend's daughter?" and I said "sure... let me get my camera from my car." I took the camera out of the car, and when I came back, the father of the little girl was talking to my friend... then I snapped away with my camera, and I showed the father the photo. He liked it so much, he asked "can you take photos at the entire event the whole night?" I stayed at the event and shot the entire night... about 300 photos. I sold them all to the father that night. He said he didn't have a photographer in his budget, but I was "cheap" enough he paid me more than what I asked him.
Mom hooked up with dad a few decades ago and made me. Had my mom hooked up with a tall, well built black man, I could've been a pro athlete. But no, I'm stuck in this mediocre, short, skinny body with no real athletic abilities.
We once short changed a midget after we hired him for a midget toss. I felt a little bad, but we allowed him to get a b.j from the stripper.
There has been only one time that I have not been paid. (This is actually a reverse experience of AB) Our drummer, bassist, lead guitarist got busted in the parking lot for smoking a joint...after a well played first set. Worst gig of my life. Especially having just the two of us breaking down the gear in front of a whole lot of upset people....ugh.
Through the years I've never done contracts for gigs (piano player) because I've never really had any bad experiences on the bigger paying stuff. Every now and then we'll get notice that a wedding gets called off, but that happens if you do weddings. I did recently have a $3000 gig that was under contract with the Army at Ft. Hood and two days before the gig I contacted the lady who booked me and got a response of 'Oh, I thought that we contacted you to cancel, sorry'. So really the only time that I've been burned was under contract with what I thought a pretty reputable organization.
I have analogies, but not really to write in an instant. I never really missed a gig because of a girl...is that what happened? that f u c k i n g sucks AB. On another subject: We are all worried about your hot Spurs dancer daughter and all. So, how is she doing? Any new word or pictures?
I did a church gig a couple weeks ago on a Wednesday. Usual trombone player hired a sub because he had a gig booked at the Petroleum Club. Like you, he had confirmed and re-confirmed the date with the leader. He shows up on Wednesday and nobody was there. The gig was on Thursday. The leader claimed he had sent the bone player and e-mail. So he subbed out a gig when he didn't need to. To top it off, he shows back up on Thursday in a suit and everybody else is wearing tuxes, something the leader had failed to mention to him. Speaking of which, I did a Holiday Party a few years back up in Grapevine at the Gaylord Texan for Firestone/Bridgestone. The leader said that the dress was tuxes. So I bring my tux with me and when we go to change, everybody else is wearing suits. So I have to walk around all night being the only one in a tux. The party goers weren't even wearing tuxes. I was pissed. The next time he said the dress was tuxes and made sure to ask and sure enough, but tuxes he meant suits. I did an ill advised tour a couple of summers ago. Somebody thought it would be brilliant to book San Diego on one night, Phoenix the next, and then LA the night after. The Phoenix gig was supposed to pay $750. So we leave SD and our trailer gets flat and we have to wait for somebody to come out and fix it. We're running late and we know we're not going to get to Phoenix by the time the show is supposed to start. We call our manager who calls the club. Apparently he pissed them off a lot, and told them we didn't carry cell phones with us so they couldn't talk to us directly (WTF?). We get there and the club is closed. The club manager comes out and tells us that the band manager pissed the owner off so much that the owner said to give us nothing, but the club manager offered us $100 or dinner at the restaurant next door (which they also owned). We took the $100 and a round of beers at the bar. I had just hooked up with the band before this tour. I wish I hadn't. I was miserable the whole time. The thing was so mismanaged and bungled it's not funny. After assurances on how much money I'd make out of the deal, I didn't get squat. Didn't get reimbursed for anything and missed out on local gigs I could've done. So after this Phoenix debacle, there was only one gig left and that was in LA. The money from the Phoenix gig was supposed to help finance the trip back out to CA and then back home because although it was a cool gig and the bill had some very cool bands, we were getting paid very little. There was debate as to whether to do the gig anyway or cancel and head home. I lost and we trekked back out to LA for a whopping $50. I quit as soon as we got back to Houston. I did get a Las Vegas story out of that trip but I'll save that one for another time.
Gigged an Aggie. Bro from UT refused to pay because the corpse was burnt beyond recognition. Win some, lose some.
We got ripped off once by a door man. The place was charging a cover which we were supposed to get. Now while we didn't have a big crowd we did have a crowd and the door man claimed nobody showed up which was a ridiculous bold faced lie but he was big and he got the bouncer to back him up. We didn't want any trouble and it wouldn't have been much money so we just packed up and left. I wish I would've thought of doing something like you did.
RocketMan Tex, couldn't the owner of the joint have changed the locks and be done with you all? Otro Hermano, I didn't read your OP thoroughly and thought it was about something else, but now that I read it properly, that's what we call "como el perro de las dos tortas", which roughly translates to "like the dog without the two sandwiches"... where you would come out losing TWO things after having them as opportunities. Happened to me once. My in-laws hired me for a photo gig and a friend of my wife's asked if I could do her wedding... I said: "No, I'm already booked." Well, I didn't have a deposit on my in-laws' gig (which I now regret not requesting to set aside the date and have it locked in), and then they came and said "the gig has been canceled", so when I asked my wife's friend if hers was still on, she said she had found another photo dude. I was left without any gig: like a dog without two sandwiches.
Maybe so. It was a nice place, so it would have cost him some dough. Place closed down a year later so I guess it doesn't matter any more.
The band I've been in since 2001 is very well run, so I don't have any good "didn't get paid" stories, lucky for me. Our manager says he gets paid up front 99% of the time, so in 10 years I've never been stiffed with this band. My only complaint is that we get W-2's but no taxes are withheld from our gig checks, so come tax time, it's a gigantic pain in the ass to find enough things to write off in order to avoid having to pay. It would be so much easier if it was all under the table like 99% of other gigs. We had a NYE gig get cancelled at the last minute a few years ago, but our contract stated that we get paid even if the event is cancelled, so I got paid almost 1K to sit on my ass and drink beer at home. Man, that was nice. We played at the Obama rally at Toyota Center back in 2008, but I missed that gig because I was on my honeymoon. Obama thanked us by name in his speech and posed for a picture with the band. I have the picture, but I'm not in it.... I occasionally sub in a band that uses a drum machine. Sometimes the client says "we'll hire you if you use a real drummer", so they call me up. They don't bother to mic my drums and they leave the drum machine real loud in the mix, so I'm literally just there for looks. I use the time to practice playing left-handed, practice playing traditional grip, practice twirling my sticks.....it doesn't matter because no one can hear what I'm doing anyway. I use a real small kit and get there 15 minutes before the gig starts and I'm out the door 10 minutes after it's over. Talk about easy money.
