Hi there everybody, and welcome to another installment of Pop Vinyl’s: Amazing-Happy-Funtime-Educational-Blogsational-Blog! In our last installment, we discussed (to complete, and total exhaustion) the ins and outs of songs for cover bands and song selection for corporate and wedding bands and DJs. So now that we have a better idea of what song selection is all about, how do you decide on the best cover band to hire to actually play those songs? With so many cover bands in San Diego and southern California, deciding on the best cover bands ever for your corporate party, private event, gala, fundraiser, or wedding can be a daunting task. But don’t fret, Pop Vinyl is here to help!
As with any service or product, the first thing we inevitably look at is price. Thus, the first question a newly engaged couple always asks is “how much do cover bands charge?” Unfortunately, there’s no one-size-fits-all answer to this question. While brides to be, engaged couples, event coordinators, and HR directors might think every band is around the same price because they’re all doing basically the same thing, they’d be quite mistaken. There are, unsurprisingly, many factors that go into pricing for hiring cover bands for weddings and cover bands for corporate events. Let’s go through some of them, shall we!?!
Location! Location! Location! While the first question a potential client will ask us is “how much do cover bands charge?”, the first question we ask clients is where the location of the event will be. This is of course to determine if it’s a travel event, or a local event. Obviously traveling for events adds to the final quote, and the further the distance, the more it adds. An example of this is a 5 piece wedding band in San Diego gets a request to play a wedding in Palm Springs. (Bear with me here, this might read like a 6th grade math problem). Palm Springs is roughly two and a half to three hours from San Diego each way. If we were to pay all the musicians and techs according to the musicians union rate of $45/hr, you’d simply multiply $45x6x6 (5 piece band plus one tech at 6 hours) to get $1620. However, weddings, in particular, are extremely long days, many times in excess of 12 hours. This is due to having to set up and sound check BEFORE the ceremony so there isn’t a rock concert happening while you’re saying “I do!” When you add a 5-6 hour round trip commute to that destination wedding, you’re easily looking at close to a 20 hour work day with sleepy nighttime driving. Maybe not the best idea. So now we need to add hotels. Count on spending an additional $400-$600 for an out-of-town cover band for hire for hotel accommodations. With gas prices in Southern California these days, you can also expect the wedding band, along with any other out of town vendors, to include gas in the quote. Add $200 for 4-5 vehicles driving 300 miles each.
“What?!! $2000 before you even play a note?!!” I can’t tell you how many outrageously expensive travel quotes I’ve given and not even received a response. Travel costs are part of all business, but for whatever reason, musicians and cover bands are often overlooked in this regard. I think it has a lot to do with the all-too-often heard “that’s so cool, you get to do what you love for a living!” Ah, yes, but of course, “for a living” being the key phrase here. In order for us to “do what we love for a living” we have to actually make a living out of it. I mean, if I had a nickel (let’s say a quarter for inflation) for every time I heard that, we could actually play your event for free! While it’s true that playing music for a living is a rare gift, it’s also a very specific and life-long trained skill, not that different from a doctor, lawyer, teacher, or electrician (except most musicians have trained at least a decade longer than all of those, and on average make a fraction of the money, if they’re lucky).
In a perfect world, I’d love to play another half hour for free, but just as all those other professions have bills and children and healthcare and retirement plans, so do musicians, and we need to unfortunately sometimes turn our love into overtime pay! So, yes, travel matters. A. LOT. And sadly, more times than not, it is the difference between a client going with a stellar band, and a budget-friendly DJ. We get that, and many times we do ourselves and our entire industry a massive disservice by undervaluing and undercutting ourselves and other bands by knocking off half or more of the travel costs just to land the gig over an ever increasing risk of losing work to a DJ.
Speaking of DJs, when one considers that a good DJ will charge between $1000-$1500 for a wedding, it always astounds me that a potential client has it in their head that a decent band that is actually spending years to learn and perform the songs, live, will somehow only cost a few hundred more than one DJ. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve given a quote of $3000-$3500 for a five piece group with a production tech and gotten back, “Wow, I can get a DJ for only $1000”. What I want to say is, “Cool! Quick question, what’s $1000 times 6?” (I guess DJs must not love what they do for a living as much as musicians). And I’m certainly in no way trying to disparage DJs because we work with them regularly and they work very hard at their craft. But at the end of the day, to many people, a song is a song is a song, and whether it’s played live or on a turn table, you can still dance to it. If I can save $2000-$3000 to have the same song played… again, we get it, money talks. Ok, side rant over…
So now that we’ve established some travel costs for a basic 5 piece cover band (and hopefully you aren’t totally scared away), let’s add some members and up that price!!! Like any good car salesman will tell you, it’s gonna cost you to add more bells and whistles (see pun below) to the car. Cover bands are no different, and any great San Diego band (and really anywhere else in the country) will have options to add to the group. Many corporate and wedding cover bands in San Diego will have a core group of 5 members. The general make-up of the basic prototypical corporate cover band is drums, keys, guitar, bass, and a female lead. From there, many bands will give clients the option to add a two, three, or four piece (wait for it…) “bells and whistles package”: horn section, back up singers, percussionist, string section, possibly even dancers (naaaaiiiled it).
It’s also popular for smaller events to go with a smaller unit. These usually look like a trio including drums, bass, guitar (or keys), or a duo of acoustic music with just a piano or guitar and singer. The smaller units are reserved more for cocktail hours at weddings or corporate events and are meant more for background ambience where the event planner or coordinator understands the client knows the group won’t be likely to engage in the more high energy uptempo performance of a full dance band such as Pop Vinyl. Alright, so, what’s it gonna take to get you into this beautiful brand new, fully loaded, 2020 Touring Pop Vinyl Band?!!
Now that we have a location and “bells and whistles package” nailed down, the next question we ask potential clients is, “how big is your guest list and size of the venue?” The more guests, the more production, right? Well, not always. Sometimes the group might be in the thousands, but they only expect you to cover an area for a few hundred, such as the lobby area of a convention location, where most of the action takes place in a massive ballroom and the band is more of a side attraction. Conversely, you may be hired for an outdoor festival that only expects a few hundred guests in the crowd, but it’s set in a park with a large area to cover, in which case, you could expect to pay more for the extra production necessary to cover the area.
Most reputable cover bands will have their own in-house production, but it’s usually fairly limited to cater to smaller to mid level events of no more than 200-300 guests in a medium sized ballroom. For larger corporate events in San Diego, the client will many times opt to use one of the many audio visual companies in San Diego for their event production needs. These companies employ several workers, and clients can expect to pay a premium for every single little bell and whistle, down to the smallest up-light for $40 a piece (think 20-60 up-lights around a ballroom!) Production alone for larger events can run well into the tens of thousands and well beyond.
If you’re event is small enough, you can save BIG money on a “one-stop-shop” corporate band that comes prepared. My advice to event planners, wedding planners, and corporate event coordinators is to inquire with the band about what kind of production they can provide, and if they have enough fire power to cover the event. In some cases, the band might be able to cover the entire event, including staging, light trussing, video projectors and screens, up-lighting, and more. Pop Vinyl just happens to be one of these “one-stop-shop” bands (wink-wink!) and can provide full production for many of your mid-level events.
Speaking of reputable bands, our next category is Reputation! Reputation! Reputation! As with any other product or service industry out there, reputation is at the top of the list of most important factors we look at. Think about it; whenever you’re looking for a new TV or new car or an amazing Thai restaurant, or heck, even toilet paper, we’re constantly sizing up products and services against one another. “Well, this one is ‘extra soft’, but it’s made out of cotton and I’m of course allergic to cotton… ah, this one is made from 72% recycled milk cartons, I like being enviro… huh, I wonder if my lactose intolerance will act up though… well I guess it doesn’t really matter cuz I’m already on the toilet!”. Ok, you get the point. Reputation matters.
Easily the second thing we look at after price is stars. Anything less than 4 stars and we’re swiping up. Event entertainment and wedding entertainment is absolutely no different. While cover bands are not necessarily yelp-able, most reputable bands will have some sort of reviews on google, theknot.com, gigmasters.com, thumbtack.com, and other sources. Some will also provide their own reviews in the form of testimonials via their website. These are, of course, not going to be as rock solid a source as your Amazon “verified purchaser”, but can be mostly trusted and verified if a client really wanted to take the time to reach out to the former client to confirm the testimony.
Things to look for in a reputable cover band are reliability, flexibility, responsibility, professionalism, how they work with other vendors and event coordinators (i.e. NO DIVAS!). While 5 star reviews are nearly a must these days, don’t necessarily count a band out because of one less-than-stellar review. For many events, the stakes are enormously high, especially for weddings, where sometimes the smallest technical difficulty can be seen as catastrophic, even if the band is not to blame. An example of this might be where the band spells out in the contract very specifically that they require 2 dedicated 20 amp circuits to ensure no power outages. On the day of the event, the site manager informs them the venue only has one 15 amp circuit available and that “we have bands here all the time”. Some band requirements are different than others, and if a band leader says they need 2 dedicated 20 amp circuits, if you want the power to stay on, you should probably listen to them.
Now, a thorough and prepared band will tell you that if it’s not possible to get 2 dedicated circuits, you’ll need to bring in a generator, which some bands will provide for an extra fee. But the point is, details are very important, and when you’re searching for the best cover band in san diego, IF there is a blemish on one review, give them the benefit of the doubt and ask about it. If it was indeed a technical issue, chances are it could have been easily avoidable, and entirely someone else’s fault. (NOTE: this is NOT a true story! Just an example of a very possible true story!) Bottom line, you’re looking for someone who worked with your requests, went above and beyond, kept people dancing all night, did it with a smile, and had your guests raving for weeks and months after.
Aaaaaaaand finally, let’s talk about MUSIC! What do you want to hear?!! In our last installment, we discussed “the perfect song”. There are many things to consider when choosing the right band for the right event. Musical taste is obviously high on that list. While you, the bride or groom-to-be, may be absurdly into Neil Young, your guest list may be from The South and could just as well hope ol’ Neil Young can remember a southern man don’t need him around. Or maybe the engaged couple is really into 90s grunge, but a large number of their relatives and guests are a bit older and are more into 70s and 80s. It’s vitally important for event planners and engaged couples to understand their guests ages, tastes, and in today’s global society, even nationality comes into play when considering what kind of band to hire.
Of course, no band is going to be able to do it all, but if that’s what you’re looking for, a good variety band is the closest you’ll get to “all”. A good variety band will be able to cover everything from Sinatra to Taylor Swift to Pearl Jam to Aretha Franklyn to Michael Jackson to Journey, but understand you’re not gonna get the whole catalogue of any one of those artists, maybe just one or two from each. If you and your guests tastes are fairly in line with each other and that taste is Mick and Keith, then a Stones tribute is probably what you need. But chances are, in our experience for most events, tastes and age are going to be wide ranging, and as they say, variety is the spice of life.
That said, there are different varieties of… uh, variety bands, and you can definitely lean towards one type of genre more than others, such as Classic Rock, Motown, Big Band, 80s, Hair Band, Yacht Rock, Disco, 90s, etc. For these bands, understand, as a potential client, if you hire a Classic Rock band, they’re most likely not going to be able to pull of “This Is How We Do It”. And if they somehow miraculously do, you’ll be saying “Umm, I don’t think that’s how you do it.” Conversely, if you hire a Current cover band, there’s a decent chance they’ve never even heard of Frank Sinatra. Look at their song list, ask them about their current rotation, ask how many requests they can manage (PLEASE manage your expectations with this question as we don’t have the time to learn an entire new set list for every show!), and ask about what genres they lean towards.
Most of all, it’s important to keep in mind that a good cover band has spent many years fine tuning and researching on-the-job what works and what doesn’t work for the greatest common denominator of people. You’re never going to be able to please everyone, so it’s important to not displease the many in exchange for pleasing the few. Tell them a handful of songs you and your guests like, a handful you can’t stand (unless it’s Africa. EVERYONE likes Africa! So keep that to yourself and go get a drink when it comes up), and they can pretty much do the guess work from there, so long as they are the appropriate style band.
Well that’s gonna do it for us! Thanks for coming out, everybody! We’re Pop Vinyl, we had a great time tonight! We hope you did too! Check us out at www.popvinylband.com! Hit us up on Insta @popvinylmusic and Facebook and twitter @popvinylband! GOOD NIGHT!!! … … …
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Oh, you’re still there?!! Well alriiiiight!!!
“Just a small town girl…”
In all seriousness, here is the real encore: professional working musicians are an increasingly dying breed these days and need your support more than ever. In our next installment, we’ll be breaking down a new bill that just took effect, AB5, and how it will further decimate our profession. Whatever your decisions are for your weddings and private events, whether it’s a band or a DJ or an iPod, please keep supporting live music in whatever capacity you can, because without live music, a DJ spins air, and your iPod will be empty. Like Alicia Keys so eloquently serenaded at the Grammy’s, “music is that one language we can all speak, it doesn’t matter where we’re from, we all understand it…”
– Peace and love from all of us at Pop Vinyl.
