Doing Gigs for Free

The subject of this article is not dealing with working with charities. It examines the issue of working with chambers of commerce, museums, organizers of street fairs and other groups that you know make money off their event in admission fees, vendor fees, sponsorships, etc.

It’s the minefield of the reenactment world. The chairperson of some festival calls you and wants your group to preform and claims to have no budget. Do you turn it down? Before you do here are some things to consider:

Other Compensation: Cash is always good, but so is gas money, free food, and other freebies.

Free Publicity. Is the event large enough and important enough that there’s a chance your group will get its name in the newspaper or be interviewed on TV or radio?

Networking Opportunities. It might be worth the time invested if some members of your group can walk around the festival to network with other participants who may know about other fairs or maybe considering producing their own fairs. Also consider will preforming for free this time, get you a paid job with the same organization later on?

Time Invested. Showing up for two hours might not be a big deal, especially if you were not booked that day, but a full day or weekend is another matter.

The most important consideration is will doing the gig for free do more harm than good to your group? There’s a chance that once you do this festival for free, the organizer will expect you to do other festivals they sponsor for free. If word gets out that you’re willing to work for free, it will make it much harder for your group to negotiate a reasonable fee for other events sponsored by other organizations.