YOU DO THE MATH!
Why we charge a 10% commission fee
We have been asked lately about the 10% commission fee. It’s really quite simple. Today show fees keep going up as do travel expenses, all adding up to considerable sums before an artist even gets the chance to sell. Before we got into producing shows many years ago, we did many shows that charged a small fee plus 10% and we loved it. If the show was weathered out or it was just one of those weekends where the public just didn’t seem to be buying, our out of pocket costs were much less, and let’s face it, sometimes saving a few buck can make all the difference. If on the other hand, if we had a really great show, we had no problem writing a nice big commission check to the promoter because we had made really good money and figured the promoter had done their job in getting the word out via advertising and in securing good locations.
Let’s do some simple math. A great percentage of the shows available in Arizona now cost from $250 to several hundreds of dollars to get into. Almost all of the better quality shows also require a jury fee. So for the sake of using round numbers, let’s just say that you sign up for a show that costs $300 including jury fee. If you sign up for one of our shows at $100 and no jury fee, this is a $200 savings. Your cost of doing our show will be less than the other show until you have made $2000.00! The 10% fee on sales in that amount is $200 added to my show fee equals $300. Anything less in sales and you are ahead in our show!
Using the same numbers as above, if the weather is bad and you loose a day or more in a show, you are out a bigger show fee and more in the hole!
Also, something that gets overlooked in comparing shows, is that we do half page ads in local papers for every show that we do! Most in full color! No other promoter in Arizona can make that claim unless they are promoting really large shows with many hundreds of artists. We also give more space than any other show out there. No booths crammed next to each other in long rows making it very difficult to set up and take down and also very difficult to stand out! We also have drive-up room for set up and take downs at every show or only a very short carry.
To us, the “look” of the show is very important! As artists our selves, it has always been important to have the use of outside walls and enough room to really have our work seen.
Another thing we would like you to consider is that our locations are in very affluent areas. We are in communities where we are dealing with people who, for the most part, are living in second homes that start at a half million and go up from there. Let’s face it, if a person can afford a home or second home in that price range, then they can afford to decorate with anything that they want. This is one of the major reasons why our locations are very popular and why we almost always have a waiting list to get into them. Even though we have plenty of space available to us in these shows, we limit the number of spaces for each show.
The last thing that we would like to remind you of is that we will never over sell a show! Unlike many of the other promoters out there, we will not put 2 or 3 times as many booths in a show area where the traffic base can only support a small number of booths. We want every artist to have a good shot at making a good living, our selves included! Because we charge the 10% fee, this allows us to not over sell a show area and yet still cover all the many expenses occurred in producing these shows. If we have done all the right work on our end and the show sales are good, then we feel we have earned the 10%. Remember, if a promoter is just selling spaces, then that is their only source of income, hence, the more spaces they sell, the more money they make and the more competition you will have in competing for the dollars in that show!
YOU DO THE MATH!
Alan & Vickie |
