Wedding Forum - How much do you expect to pay for a wedding...

Just out of interest wondering what you guys would expect to pay for a wedding band, I am in a band and we were having a fight about it last night. Just wondered what you guys are paying? We dont want to overcharge people and put them off.

Any help muchly appreciated :-)

We play a selection of stuff, rock n roll, soul, pop. Just a bit of everything really. Elvis to Lady Gaga. I said to the guys we should charge 600/700 for local gigs and maybe a bit extra for petrol if its far to go. But one of the guys said bands should be going out for like 1500! I was like people cannot afford that at the moment. Everyone is skint, I believe our bookings are suffering because we are asking for too much. Of course it depends on expenses too, we were offered a gig in York so we need to think of the petrol and a place to stay. We are a 5 piece band and we play for 3 hours straight so really by the time you split the cash it has to be worth your while too. Its a hard one because I want more gigs but dont want to look cheap if you know what I mean lol

Our guitarist is on another planet sometimes lol

xxxxxx

we are paying £1100 for a 3 piece band that do modern stuff and ceilidh. Although we booked them through an agent who took at £200 deposit, and the remainder we have to pay to the band on the evening. So i guess the bands actual charge is £900

we just wish that we could afford a live band as we know it would give a better atmosphere than a DJ but we have decided than having a videographer is more important as we can watch that over and over again rather than have it for a couple of hours on the day.

x

We are paying £750 I think this was a reasonable price for a swing band xx

we have booked a brill band who come highly recommended and are very sought after. After doing a bit of a deal with them, they are playing for 2 hours though are staying the whole night to get guests on the dance floor etc and make the atmosphere lively. There are 4 of them and they are now charging us a discounted rate of 1200 but they are a top notch band. I think if you are just getting yourselves going, I think 600-700 is realistic, build up your reputation and go from there. Most bands we were looking at were charging up to about 800 but we paid the extra for these knowing who they were and based on the recommendations we received and the fact that they were well established. We had to go through their agent too. Most of these prices we received were for 2 hours play time so if you are playing for 3 hours then you will want to increase the price.

Our band has cost us £1000 and whilst I know it is expensive me and h2b love live music x

we are paying £1750 but that is for an acoustic duo for the ceremony and drinks and a 3 piece band for the evening - they are really good though and came v highly recommended - we both love music and they play all our favourite songs - they have loads of stuff on youtube so we could see what they were like

From what you have said, you seem to be quite versatile in what you play (i.e most genres.folk, rock soul etc), so that in itself would be a strong selling point. Also, if you're a five piece, that means you have to lug all sorts around with you (amps, speakers etc), which eats into your fuel costs, so i don't think £700-£750 is unreasonable.

I don't know where you're based, but you could suggest a fixed rate for anywhere within a certain radius, and anywhere outside of that radius, there would be an extra charge for fuel costs, and maybe base it on a pro-rata basis.

So you're not that far out IMO.:o)

Ours is £550 for a two piece band which seems to be the norm in this area....they tend to charge per band member, so the bigger the band, the higher the cost. x

We're paying £1000 for a band. It's a lot of money and one of our biggest expenses so I hope they're good!!

Their references were excellent and their demo songs are good.

As they're a wedding band we can't go and hear them play (not into wedding crashing! lol lol) but we're going to visit one of the guys at his house to discuss plans.

We're not having a DJ and will use the bands PA system to play an ipod inbetween sets.

HTH.

Lou x

a friend of mine got a band in from a local pub, her dad approached him and asked if they'd play - this could be an idea as you'd potentially cut out agency fees etc but an event manager I know told me that for each wedding, most band members would expect to take home 150-200 each - so it really depends on your band :-)

My friend had a 4 piece band at her wedding (last month), they were excellent and play all 60's/70's type rock (even dressed up with flares, platforms, wigs etc.), but after enquiring they cost about £1,300 and that's more than the entire wedding is costing so we'll stick to our free DJ me thinks!
But they have a brilliant rep, so probably finding out what the wedding couple could afford and cutting down the play time until people know the name! lol xx

My H2B is lead guitarist and his band often play for free as they enjoy it so much and would just settle for beer money and petrol costs! However, for an event they have been paid around £500... which they were ecstatic with as that was £100 each for 2 hour set doing what they love. I'd start low to be honest, as you know already... the music business is VERY competitive. And if your band is new and relatively unheard of without reviews from other weddings then you're in a hard place. People are just so skint these days and maybe starting with a low price (say £500??) will be more appealing and as you get more well known you can up the price as you will be reputable if you know what I am trying to say? lol

We are having a wedding band do rock covers for us... but we're getting them for free as we know them and it's a wedding gift :) but I would have been happy to pay up to £1000 for a decent band xx

I play for a wedding band based in Glasgow Scotland called empire. We're a 5 piece band and cost £995 to hire for an evening. In my experience, a lot of people don't appreciate what they get for their money, our equipment costs about £20,000, we have rehearsal costs, travel costs etc. There's also the amount of time spent at home learning songs. After a gig, we'd take home about £120 each. We have to pay our agency fees, travel costs and any additional gear hire we may need. I've seen me being at a gig from 6pm and not getting home till 5am. 11 hours.

I recently ran a survey on our facebook page and most people said they'd expect to pay between £800 and £1000 for a band. Personally, I think that's right on the money for everyone involved.

The last few weddings/parties we've done we've been charging £650 - 1000. My previous concerns about bookings were to do with our price being too high but to be honest I there has been enquiries that are not being answered quickly enough because the person who runs the band is beyond useless :-/ grrrrrrr. Time for a change methinks.

xxxxxxx