Don't let your budget dictate the quality of the performance, let the quality of the performance dictate your budget. Consider this analogy: I remember when I could buy a bag of potato chips for twenty-nine cents and the bag was full. Nowadays that same bag costs fifty-nine cents and it is full of air. So at 2:00 in the morning when I stop off for a bag of chips on my way home from a "gig" I have to decide whether I will let my budget, the standard rate of fifty-nine cents, determine how many chips I get, or let my wallet (how much money I have to spend) decide. For $1.69 I can get the premium bag of chips with about the same amount of chips I was accustomed to in the twenty-nine cent days. If I have $2.00 in my wallet, then maybe I will let my wallet decide what I get, rather than my budget. I may have to forgo the Coke, but by golly I got the chips I wanted. Are you going to let your budget force you into buying a cheap bag of air, or are you going to "flex" your budget and live for the moment? In this case, the moment happens only once. Lay's will make more potato chips for next time, in case I chose the bag of air, but there is no next time for your wedding day. When it is over it goes into the history books, under one of three chapters, disastrous, mediocre, or spectacular.

Be very wise in budgeting for your band and allow enough to get the best. Be realistic in your expectations. You are probably expecting the band to supply their own transportation and service vehicles, load-in and set-up crew, talented musicians, thousands of dollars worth of instruments, expensive state-of-the art sound system, lighting, pre-recorded music for the breaks, and the technical knowledge and experience to put on a phenomenal show that will make or break your event. Consider this: Just renting the kind of sound and lighting equipment that a professional band would use to do the job right could cost between $2500 and $3500. Most bands purchase their own sound and lighting equipment, but they have to amortize the initial cost and maintenance of the equipment into every performance. This is less expensive than if you, the client, were forced to rent the sound and lighting at $2500 to $3500, but nonetheless the cost has to be covered. When you add in logistics costs such as equipment storage, transportation, insurance, legal and accounting fees, office supplies, demos, brochures, telephone, advertising, etc., a professional band will easily have $1500-$2000 per performance invested before they ever put a musician on stage. If you get a quote from a band that seems too good to be true, it probably is in fact too good to be true. You wouldn't expect a top of the line Mercedes for the price of a Kia would you? The saying, "you get what you pay for", is never more true than in a wedding market that is flooded with so many "cheesy" bands. Find out what the going rate is for the best wedding reception bands in your area and budget accordingly. The truth is that there is usually only about $1000 to $1500 difference in price between a hobby band and a great professional band. If your guests go home early because you booked a "budget band", that could not hold everyone's interest and maintain the flow of the evening, your caterer will most likely wind up throwing out thousands of dollars worth of food that wasn't eaten -- perhaps wasting the amount of money needed to have had a professional variety band in the first place. You do your special event the greatest service by booking a reputable professional band that has the years of experience necessary to make your reception flow at the perfect pace. You can usually save the amount you need to make the difference between getting an "okay" band or a great band by trimming the flower and food budget. But be sure you are speaking with a professional wedding band, not just a band that does weddings on the side to fill in an opening in their calendar. A professional wedding band should be able to provide a list of wedding receptions they have played and prove that is their focus. My band, Mixed Company, maintains a Web page with numerous E-mails, cards, letters, and even voice mails from past clients, so our visitors can feel secure in knowing that the band has the experience necessary to make their big day the best it can be. You can review this page at www.mixedcompany.com/letters.html.

Another point to be careful of when getting price information together is the size of the band. Be careful how you ask for the size of the band. If you ask how many members are in the band, you will get a body count. That may or may not be useful information. Let me explain. Some bands have separate singers and instrumentalists. Suppose you ask how many members are in the band and they respond with eight. And when they quote you a price of $4000 for 4 hours, it sounds like a very good deal compared to a band that may quote $3500 for 5 people. That's $500 per musician versus $700 per musician, right? Don't get caught in the trap of dividing the price by the number of musicians to measure the value. Remember that the equipment, advertising, demos, and logistics costs are factored into the quote, so not all of the money is divided among the musicians. What you really want to measure is how full the sound will be. What you are paying for, beyond their experience in performing for wedding receptions, is the "fullness" of their sound. The 5-member band may have 4 instrumentalists, all of whom are also vocalists, so for $3500 you get the same amount of sound as an 8-piece band which is made up of 4 instrumentalists and 4 vocalists. And you save $500 in this example. See how that works? Be very careful not to get snared by thinking in terms of headcount and dollars. Incidentally, the prices used in my example are not necessarily standard and certainly do not represent any particular market area. I just used them for comparitive purposes.

In twenty years when you look through your photo album, I bet you will prefer pictures of your guests dancing rather than pictures of them eating. Get the best band you can find. For tips about finding the best band, read the article entitled "How To Book the Perfect Variety Band?"

I hope you have found this article helpful. Please feel free to contact me if you have a question I have not covered in one of these articles. I make this advice available for no charge, as I endeavor to raise the bar of excellence with regard to wedding entertainment.

Doug McAlexander - Arsis Productions

E-mail: arsisproductions@gmail.com

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