Pay to Play: To Art Or Not

I’ve been struggling with being an artist. It hit me a few years ago when I was playing a gig with our band. What hit me was most people expect music for free. What do I mean by that? They expect it and don’t want to pay for it if they don’t have to. When I say most people, I mean over 75% of what I’ve encountered. So, is the juice worth the squeeze if you want to sell your music in some fashion?

Gigging Musicians

Here’s the situation, a local cover band is playing music at a bar. The bar is busy, people are drinking and trying to have a conversation even though a band is playing. What does the audience do? They talk louder. When a song ends, a few clap but most will carry on their conversations just bringing their voices down a bit until the next song starts. The band meanwhile is playing away and most likely is used to this, this happens every time they play. Unless people have specifically come to see a band, most patrons will behave this way. It stopped being fun for me when I realized this. The amount of work that is required to put on a show, even a local bar band show, is a lot.

(At minimum) Musicians need to

• load their vehicles with gear
• drive to the venue
• unload their gear
• set up their gear
• play a set
• take a break
• play a set (this can go on, depending how many sets they’re playing)
• pack up their gear
• load their vehicles
• drive home
• unload their vehicles.

Hopefully ‘get paid’ is in there somewhere and most likely practice or rehearsal is in there too on another day. Notice I didn’t mention anything about food or drink at the venue (most likely a bar or restaurant)–because that rarely happened to me unless I was buying. Bars and restaurants should be a little better when it comes to giving out discounts or comped food or drinks. We played dozens and dozens of shows with my last band and I can count on one hand the venues where we got comped. Meanwhile the bars and kitchens were swamped all night, raking it in. I was in restaurant management, so I know that food and beverage markups are pretty huge. Also something to think about: their instruments. Did they get them as gifts or did they buy them? For stringed instrument players, there are picks and strings to buy among other things. Drummers? Sticks and drumheads cost money. Plenty of other players who need things such as reeds for sax players, etc. Oh, who’s running the sound? There’s another cost.

Recording Artists

That’s just gigging musicians, how about recording musicians? I think this group has been hit especially hard in the last 15-20 years. This is why concert ticket prices are so high. Let me explain.

People can turn on a device and listen to music for free. Yes, they always could with the advent of radio and stereo systems (playing records, tapes, CDs, MP3s), but now almost every song ever is available at your fingertips. With sites like YouTube and Spotify, you can listen for free–ads are a fairly recent thing to YouTube, but for the most part it’s free. All the user needs is an internet connection and a device to watch it on, which most consumers already have. Sure there are other places to watch and listen, but these two are the ones I always hear about.

It’s no secret companies like the two I mentioned are not paying artist much. Gone are the days of huge album sales and this is reflected in RIAA certifications (You’ve heard of gold or platinum record sales, RIAA is the organization that awards artists and labels for their sales numbers). According to Google,
RIAA certification has evolved significantly from pure physical sales (500k/1M units) to a blended system incorporating digital sales and streaming (1500 streams = 1 album unit, 150 streams = 1 single unit) to reflect modern music consumption, adding streaming-heavy pop/hip-hop hits to the awards, making it a marketing tool for digital success, not just purchase success.

How much do artists get per stream?
Streaming payouts vary, but generally, Apple Music pays around $0.01/stream, Spotify 
$0.003–$0.005/stream, Amazon Music $0.004–$0.005/stream, and Tidal $0.012–$0.015/stream, with higher rates typically for premium users, though these figures are averages before labels and distributors take their cut, drastically reducing artist take-home pay. source Google For a million streams, that’s $10,000 for Apple Music, $5,000 for the high side of Spotify and Amazon Music, $15,000 for the high side of Tidal before the artist pays anyone else out, so net income will be much less.

This is exactly why concert tickets are so expensive and it seems like artists are always on tour. Not to mention Ticketmaster and the like taking their share as well. Artists aren’t making much from album sales, because there aren’t any to be had. Maybe a solution would be offering pay per view type performances. I know for me, that’s something I have done. It’s akin to being able to watch a new movie that’s only in theaters in your own home.

Last year I saw Beat, a supergroup of musicians playing King Crimson songs from the 1980s. They were fantastic and I hoped they would come around again. A couple months after I saw them, they announced they were showing their L.A. show on a streaming video network called VEEPS. I immediately subscribed. It was well worth it to see that show and VEEPS had a few others I enjoyed too.

My Album

I thought about getting vinyl pressed and priced that out. It’s not cheap, about $1000 for 100. That’s just the record; no label, no cover (jacket), no sleeve in some cases, for plain Jane black vinyl. They upcharge for everything.

There’s costs associated with creating physical media: printing, pressing, packaging, etc. I’m just a one man show, no manager or others and I’m trying to do this on the cheap. They say you have to spend money to make money, right? Not in this case. I’m not going to front all of these costs so in the end I sell 10 copies–meanwhile many CD and record production places have a minimum. I can’t just print one off when I have a customer, I have to order them in advance. Even if I could, the raw material is not free.

How about selling on Apple Music or Spotify? Sure, I can do that too. But again, that costs money. I went down that rabbit hole recently and found while it’s free to create an account with ASCAP, a performing rights organization that monitors when anyone plays your music, when you submit an album, there’s a fee. That’s fine, they’re providing a service, I get it. There’s also no cost to set up an account with The Library of Congress so I can get a copyright, but there is a fee associated with submitting your work with them. Again, I get it.

What can the listener do to help?

I think the biggest thing to do to help is pay. If that means dropping a few bucks in a tip jar or instrument case when you hear a musician you like and see them in person, or buying their merch, whether it’s a shirt, button or if they have music for sale or whatever they’re selling. Pay. They’re selling their wares to help defer their costs. It’s not free to create art. Pay.

This goes for national artists too. Pay. If you like an album or saw a great concert and want to watch it again, buy the Bluray (I know people don’t have DVD or Blu-ray players anymore–I do. Buy one and have a friend rip it for you!). Buy a shirt from the merch table or their website (not the sketchy dude selling shirts in the parking lot or on the street!). Get a turntable and buy their record! Pay. If you like what they do, and listen often, pay. Sure it’s fun to play music, it’s a good outlet or maybe you’re a show off and like the attention. Most likely the reason you’re putting yourself out there is to get paid somehow. Pay. Just pay. You used to, remember?

-Terry Goyette, December 2025