Use the Live Performance Award to your advantage

An e-mail drops in.

“We’d love to have you add some burlesque flair to our event. What would you charge for this anyway?”

I would love it if, when these requests float in, I just had the balls to ask for a couple of grand, cash, upfront.

I joke.

But the back and forward – particularly when you might be talking to people that are outside your industry – about fees can feel REALLY tricky.

Of course, if you are an absolute boss, you probably have a great pricing structure in place, and you fire off a quote – no justification needed.

But sometimes that’s tricky, right?

You don’t want to seem hard ball or like you are asking for too much (….I can chime in here and say with my old arts administration hat on, you aren’t asking a lot!).

You want to show that what you have quoted is reasonable and fair.

In these scenarios I use the Live Performance Award (aka something closest to an award that burlesque can be classified under) to justify my fee.

I wish that we could get our acts together and do a Musicians Australia and have a couple of really clear, take-home messages about the bare bones, minimum call out fee.  I love that they have made this so simple.  Because to be honest, deciphering the legislation if you aren’t an expert can be painful. 

I’ve lost the thread there….

But returning to the awards. It’s a great way to show that you aren’t being greedy or to show a rationale for your quote – should you feel so inclined.

You get a response back like “Oh, that’s a lot more than I was expecting”.

You can easily link to the award fees and just clearly, and factually show that the minimum fees are “X,Y, Z” .  You can also use the award to outline any additional costs like reasonable travel, per diems or allowances.

While often when someone questions my rates, I really want to just jump up and down.

But when I sit in my wise brain, I can see that sometimes questions come from ignorance – not necessarily from being a tight ass. And in these cases having a discussion and showing that there are some clear fee structures in place EVEN for burlesque

And look, as a contractor you can genuinely quote and charge whatever you damn please. But if you don’t know where to start or don’t know how to explain how you might have arrived at your fee structure the award is a pretty good springboard for action.

Do you reference the Live Performance Award? Or are you a boss who just throws the price out there and lets it sit?  (I love that if you do!).