How Much Did Your First Gig Earn You?

My first gig £80 paid a night for two of us and our equipment 7 days a week which back in the 80s wasn’t bad. Thinking about it with inflation etc I probably get less now in real terms for some of my gigs

I think it was like 200 Austrian Schilling, which was not bad at the time. Now it would be like 20 Euros.

Update. My brother-in-law, as well as buying me beers all night gave me a £25.00 itunes voucher as well.

Hmmm, maybe it’s a hint and he wasn’t that happy with my song selection after all 😉

My first gig earned me a cool £200….. That’s the good news.
The bad news was that i did not get to actually play. Mildly put, i had technical issues (could’t get my controller to work).
At the end of the night, i got handed an envelope. This was cos i had invited quite a number of my mates to the club.

Didn’t know if i should’ve been happy or sad…..

My first ever paid gig was for my friends birthday party. She paid me like $50 I think. It was kinda lame, I was just playing music as opposed to a dance party or whatever, but it was still pretty fun

played a shady club, no one showed up, and made no money. Lots of lessons learned that night. Doing much better now

$175 for 4 hours. Honestly it wasn’t even 4 hours. I did four 30 minute sets, in between the band went on for 45 minutes. It’s a pretty popular bar, the whole “chicks in cowboy hats” dancing on the bar type gimmick. Definitely couldn’t rely on a jukebox environment. Bar gigs are great work if you can get them when you’re first starting out. The people are there for the express purpose of getting hammered, so I used it as my practice space.

Now I’m at a sports bar 3 nights a week, same pay but I’m on straight for 4 hours. It’s taught me about flow, about substance and about creativity. The downside to these kinds of gigs is you beholden to what the manager wants so you can’t stray too far from his status quo, but much like the Matrix some rules can still be bent. Others, can be broken.

When i finally do progress to a club gig doing what I really want to do (dnB, jungle, some house when I’m feeling squirrely) I will have had an amazing “internship”.

First gig was free, I was shit and I probably didn’t deserve any more. It was a learning experience.

I get much much much much more then that now…. I still think if people aren’t ready then they shouldn’t charge, that’s not t say they shouldn’t take the shot, but charging people when you’re no good….