Creative knowledge lab
Log in to add your comments!
Creative ventures - making it pay.
So many creative ventures end up dead-in-the-water, not because the idea was bad, but because the logistics were ill thought out.
I've just come back from a tour with a band - an amazing collection of musicians with a fantastically diverse range of skills and musical interests. The music we were playing was complex and challenging in all the right ways. It was the kind of group you can imagine being able to turn their hand to a whole range of styles and situations. Because of this, when I was asked to participate, I immediately said 'yes' and didn't really worry too much about the logistics or specifics of what was going to happen. I was just excited to be involved.
This turned out to be a rather costly mistake, as although the music was indeed fantastic, much of the experience of playing that music was frustrated by the huge technical limitations of the playing situations and it became all too apparent as the rehearsals and build-up took place that there was no money ringfenced in the budget to actually pay any of the musicians. That's right, a tour of professional musicians - organised by professional musicians, was planned without any mechanism for actually getting paid. Money had been allocated for percussion hire, van hire, PA hire... but none to pay anyone actually involved in playing the music.
It's my fault, clearly, for not establishing at the start what the financial terms of the engagement were. I assumed, wrongly, that getting paid was a concern I shared with the rest of the musicians.
There are various priciples that need to be drawn from this situation:
- Loving what you do is no reason to not get paid - it's very easy if you're fortunate enough to exercise your passion in life as your career too, to forget that you're running a business, and if you don't "take care of business", it won't be your career for long.
- Creative ideas need to be scalable - the scale of the production on this tour didn't fit either the schedule or the budget in way that meant we could get paid. It was financially doomed from the start. We weren't the victims of bad luck, just bad planning. If the band had discussed the potential revenue of the tour before, started by extracting from that a fee and then looked at what was available for a production budget, we'd still have been able to put on a great show, just on a less grandiose scale. (musicians: Audiences really aren't bothered by that stuff - it's fun, but not vital!)
- Communication is key My huge mistake was not talking to the rest of the band beforehand - there was a mismatch of expectations over the project, and it was entirely my fault for not finding out what those were. Discussing what your resources are, what your required outcomes and desired outcomes are, and then fixing a plan to facilitate those is vital to the survival of the project.
The tour was a chance to play great music with great people. But with a little extra thought, and a little bit of earlier intervention from me, it could been both of those and a chance to earn some money and make the future of the project more financially viable.
Getting to exercise your creativity is a wonderful thing, but that wonderfullness doesn't pay the bills. To keep doing it, it needs to work on not just a creative level, but also financially, logistically and infrastructurally. Sometimes it's as simple as just talking about it beforehand. Other times, it means recognising that you need outside help.
Either way, I learned some valuable lessons on the tour. I'm sure this band will work together again - the others are too nice and too talented for me to let it go that easily - but we'll be having some pretty big conversations about how we make it pay next time!
Can you think of a situation where you let the excitement of the project distract you from the mundane task of making it viable? Please post your thoughts in the comments. (you'll have to sign in to comment, but it'll only take a few seconds!)
Comments
I know I've gone too far in the other direction - excitement always wins over financial viability for me - romantic recklessness has a charm - but then I'm stuck saying "oh noes - the bills!" over and over again. So I'm attracted to the idea of planning and talking things over, but at the same time, I've worked on projects (as opposed to those I've initiated) where things have been dreadfully dismal and uninspiring because all the passion was planned out of it. So what's the line between "a little extra thought" and death by control freakery and management? I really don't know - except that I've *got* to get better at it or go and live in a tent on the Isle of Man, or something :)
I have been on the receiving end of quite a few similar things.. your three points are spot on the button. It doesn't surprise me in the least that musicians can end up in the same financial bind as visual artists... We love what we do.. But that mustn't blind us to the fact that we actually need to eat and pay our bills same as other people. All credit to you for owning up to the mistake of taking things for granted.. I.e. that you'd get paid for the work you were doing... I mean why wouldn't you! "..Getting to exercise your creativity is a wonderful thing, but that wonderfullness doesn't pay the bills.." Made me laugh.. A bit ruefully but there you go. In my case not asking for payment.. not feeling able to be "rigorous" about asking the obvious.. has lead me up some right dodgy alleyways.. Not much fun to learn the hard way so I'm sorry it happened to you too.
Lloyd - you're right, of course - there has to be a balance. Things can definitely be planned to the point where they are stifled beyond all creative value... I guess we need to be 'mindful' of the possibility of it being ruined in either direction - as that great business strategist John Cougar Mellencamp once said "I know there's a balance, I see it every time I swing past". :)
Communication is indeed key. I learnt the hard way having participated in countless 'showcase' type scenarios with various bands and artists where it soon becomes blindingly obvious that I'm going to be playing for no money. I've decided that it's always best to sort out the financial aspect of any musical situation right away at the first contact. I used to feel slightly embarrassed about bringing up the subject of money so early on in a conversation (usually speaking on the phone to someone I'd never met before), not wishing to portray myself as one of those terrible mercenary type musos just in it for the money. But let's face it, unless you are one of the privileged few playing with the Stings and Van Morrissons of this world, there isn't an awful lot of money to be made in holding the vague assumption that most artists know what musicians deserve to be paid. Since I got over this hang-up I've found it much easier to deal with people and subsequently make an informed decision as to whether or not to take on the work.
Sorry folks, that last comment was mine. Somehow I got logged out just as I posted...
Simon, thanks so much for that - we do end up feeling really uncomfortable about asking for money upfront, and we have to get away from that reticence to 'take care of business'. It's an ongoing learning process, how best to address it, how to come across etc. but without some thought, we'll all just end up homeless...
Please login to comment on this blog post.