I know, I know, you’ve heard it over and over again; “Don’t work for free!” You probably feel like you get the point, but I want to dive into the world of why doing things for free will leave both sides tainted.
As an artist, as a coach dealing with artists, and someone who frequently books gigs, I am often left in amazement at how many venues/events have artists performing for free. The classic pitch to you is, “it’s really good promotion.” Though I am a big advocate of donating services for good causes, I also always push that credit be given and all promotional materials mention my name, or the artist I am booking for. “Why?” you may ask, well there are different ways you can exchange to people in life: poorly, fairly, or in abundance. The latter two are the ideal ways of exchanging.
You see, when you do something for free, the person having you at the event is actually exchanging with you poorly and this leaves, many times, the person doing the event for free feeling used or tainted. It also, in a lot of cases, does not make the other individual feel good or at the very least is not setting them up for success by allowing them to exchange poorly with the individual. Furthermore, on a bigger scale, it does not help your fellow artist who works hard prepping and investing money and time into making themselves the best they can be, only to have that investment not be returned! So the next time you are asked to do it for “promotion” make sure that you work out a fair exchange!
