Artist

by Dan
(Cleveland)

In the day and age of the dollar the question I hear most often is "how many people will you bring?"
Sure this is a business we are in but, what happened to being good?
Pay to play allows every basement band a chance to play the four songs they know for Mom and Dad but, tarnishes the reputation of the bands and venues that use it.
If you are a good band playing on a bad ticket well, it is a bad ticket and, your name is on it. Word gets out that you are a bad band.
If you are a venue then you are greedy bottom feeders that exploit Cleveland talent and talentless. Hey everybody loves a train wreck and, you make the victums pay to be in it.
The bottom line is the bands are doing it. If they stop, so will pay to play.
I personally have never done it but, I have played for free.
We as musicians need to understand that on this day the venues just say "Show me the money."