Hiring a wedding band? Beware agencies

Wedding_band_2

PAY TO PLAY
As manager of a function band performing at wedding receptions UK wide, I want to make prospective brides and grooms looking for live entertainment aware of a cynical and potentially damaging new practice being adopted by a growing number of entertainment agencies.

When searching online for live entertainment - eg. a band or DJ - for your wedding reception, there are basically two options available to you:

1.) Booking an act direct via their own website
2.) Booking an act through an entertainment agency

Typically, an entertainment agency website will provide you with a greater choice of entertainment options than a website created by a single act.


COMMISSION
Booking an act through an entertainment agency means that you will be paying the agency a commission which ranges from 15% to 20% of the total fee, which means that you will usually be paying more money than if you book the act direct through their website.

This is an accepted standard practice - nothing wrong there, as this is how entertainment agencies have traditionally made their money.


MONEY GRABBING
However - some agencies are now asking their acts to bid for enquiries. This means that not only is the agency taking their commission from you the client, but they are also taking a commission from the band or DJ.

Now you may think that as a bride or groom, this doesn't have any impact on you. Wrong! For example, let's say you see a band you really like on an agency website and enquire about their availability and price.

The agency will then ask several bands - including the band you are interested in - to bid for the enquiry. If the band you are interested doesn't make the winning bid, the agency will make some excuse as to why you can't book the band you like - possibly they will tell you that they are unavailable. They will then try to get you to book an alternative band through their agency.

The end result is - you don't get the act you wanted but get sold an alternative who may not be entirely what you were looking for, and the act you wanted lose a booking.

But the agency is in a win-win situation as they have made money out of both you through their commission AND the band through the bid they had to enter.

Also, when the act you book turn up, what sort of show are they going to put on knowing that they have had to go through the ignominy of having to pay in order to play?

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As a bride or groom, does this bother you?
As a band, how do you feel about this?
Would any agencies like to comment?

katerinasol

What the hell? This doesn't bother me as a bride but it bothers me as a person. It's really sneaky and underhanded. To be honest I'm having a bit of a hard time believing it but if it's true then people who do that are really in the business for the wrong reasons.

Maysie

i would have guessed its cheaper to book direct but the underhand stuff sounds quite vile but believable when you get consider some of the things i have heard job agencies get up to.

ellay864

My OH has been in various bands and they avoided agencies like the plague. As well as paying the agency they didnt come away with better fees and so ended up going out for less than a direct booking (although the customer would pay less for the direct booking). The sad thing is that some venues are also taking advantage of the fact there's lots of bands competing for less and less venues and several times we found the venues were working on a basis that they got paid according to how many people turned up to watch, so they didnt have to make an effort to get customers, they just got a very cheap band if hardly anyone showed up.
Obviously that doesn't apply to weddings and other private functions but there is a feeling that people are safer and will get a better band by going through an agency which simply isn't true. There's some great local bands who will do a brilliant performance, and if the customer goes direct they can talk to the band about exactly what they want; any decent band will accommodate the person paying the fee (within their area - maybe a country band wouldnt play Judas Priest lol). Check out places like MySpace music, or local band listings. In many cases you'll get bands who do public gigs so you can go and get an idea of how they sound first without relying on the pages of a glossy agency site to sell it to you