It’s the economy…. you silly goose

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread… so I’m probably a fool to even address this subject. But it has been weighing heavily on my mind. Believe it or not, I do have a conscience and sometimes it nags me mercilessly.

First off, let me say up front, thank you to all the venues that have ever paid me a fee. I realize that I generated little funds to offset the expense I’ve incurred. Your generosity is noted and much appreciated.

In times past I’ve played shows for fees I would not play for tips. From now on, I’m not going to do that anymore. I would rationalize that the venue I was playing was not a real music venue and the patrons would not tip me reasonably, so a fee was in order. I should not play these shows at all. It’s a waste of my time and a rip off of the venue owner, whom I suspect is trying to cash in on my popularity.

News flash… I’m not really that popular. The people that love my music love it very much, but there aren’t a lot of them.

That being said, let’s press on to the deep end.

When somebody opens a music venue in Second Life, They are going to be spending a lot of money. In theory, people attending the events they host will tip the venue and you’ll offset at least a portion of the expense. The actual amount generated by the generosity of those in attendance varies. But the overhead of running a venue is constant.

When the venue starts paying fees to performers the basically volunteer to operate at a deficit, because I’ve never seen venue tips equal even the most modest fee charged by a performer.

The performer gets their fee, and then pockets his or her tips. Cha-ching.

I’ve done it. Feels good to watch my Linden balance go up. Feels good to “Cash out”. All venue owners do it put “Cash in”.

I don’t feel good about this. Not one bit. Tips are fine. People choose to tip. They choose how much and how often they tip. They feel I’ve earned it, and I agree. I’m sure most venue operators that pay me a fee feel I’ve earned it, and I won’t argue with them. But let me try to put this into perspective.

Breathe deep and feel free to read this a few times. I feel it’s important.

When a venue operator pays the overhead to have a venue, he or she is in effect already paying me. They are buying (or renting) me a place to perform my music. When an artist insists on a fee, they are in effect saying, “Thanks for paying the overhead so I have somewhere to perform, now give me some more of your money”.

I don’t have a problem with the generosity of venue operators at all. I do take issue, with artist that feel they should demand compensation for their time, while choosing to ignore they fact they are not really providing the venue operator with any method to offset their expenses.

Venues work for tips, why shouldn’t the performer?

There are a lot of elaborate plans on how to make it profitable for a venue to operate. I mentioned one suggestion in my “Crazy… it’s the new black” entry. But the simple fact is if there were no fee due the artist, every L$ generated by the artist via the generous tips of the audience, would go towards defraying the venue’s cost of operation.

The artist would be asset instead of a liability.

There is nothing wrong with a venue operator choosing to be generous, or an artist in accepting the boon offered by a generous venue operator. But in a more perfect world, if the venue got by on tips, so would the performer benefiting from that venue.

I’m not presuming to tell anybody what to do. I’m just telling you what I’m thinking. I can only control my own actions. I intend to support as best I can the venues that love and support live music in Second Life. Not because I’m a “Good guy”, (and for the record I am a good guy) but rather because it is in my own best interest, and the interest of music in second life overall.