Has anyone ever booked a famous band for an event?

[Hornsey]

Just wondering how one would go about this and if anyone has some example costs of what different bands charge to play an evening set?

[StevieBee]

You can book bands in the same way you'd book any celeb for any type of corporate type gig. Google "Entertainment Agencies, Celebrity Booking Agencies" etc.

Cost is on a sliding scale correlated to profile. Same goes for availability. Two extremes:

Sultan of Bruni paid Kylie £5million to sign for an hour at his Son's birthday party about ten years ago.

Five years ago, I looked at hiring The Hamsters for a town fair type thing I was helping to organise.

Now, the chances are you've never heard of The Hamsters but they are a fantastic blues/rock/zz top style band and hold the record for the most gigs played in a year (380 odd IIRC!!). We were looking at £3k per band member (three of them) and that's just them and their instruments. PA, Lights had to be hired and expenses covered plus guaranteed numbers of people in the audience. We abandoned the idea when we got to £10k!

[Animal]

Most bands' websites will have a mention of their management company if not a link, that's who you should contact in the first instance.

I suspect you're going to need deep pockets though!

[clonmult]

Animal said:

I suspect you're going to need deep pockets though!

Very, very deep.

A colleague has been in a band thats had a little commercial success (in Japan and America) over the years, and a while back they were touting themselves on the US college circuit. Bon Jovi reps were at some of the expos, and the price difference was scary. IIRC, they were asking something upwards of £100k for a one off gig.

[TonyHetherington]

StevieBee said:

Now, the chances are you've never heard of The Hamsters but they are a fantastic blues/rock/zz top style band and hold the record for the most gigs played in a year (380 odd IIRC!!). We were looking at £3k per band member (three of them) and that's just them and their instruments. PA, Lights had to be hired and expenses covered plus guaranteed numbers of people in the audience. We abandoned the idea when we got to £10k!

To put it in perspective - you easily pay £2k for an average covers band that bring all their own equipment for the night. So it's not mega silly, though it doesn't make it any less palatable of course

[HereBeMonsters]

My Uncle was in the Nashville Teens. Still gigging now, I do you good price.

[Mr Heathen]

HereBeMonsters said:

I do you good price.

Bargains! Bargains! Much cheapness!

Again to add another perspective, it depends to some extent what sort of bands you're talking about. Some up & coming talent, young & desperate to play, will do it for a lot less than you might think. It is possible to get some serious talent through the doors for £1.5-2K, way less if it's for charidee...

DJ's are usually (but not always - we just forked out nearly £60,000 for a DMC champion last month) going to be cheaper.

[Pupp]

I had John Otway play for my 40th

It's do-able with cheek and beer

[Sir Snaz]

Begining of 09 we looked at booking a 'name' band for a Corp do...iirc RHCP were £125k, aerosmith were £200k+, and rolling stones were £500k