About a month ago I wrote this, a post about the business models musicians in Seattle have to deal with when performing at one of the city’s many live music venues. I wrote about what I think is fair, what I think isn’t, and listed the venues I think do a good job of working with musicians and the ones I avoid because I think they take advantage of performers.
In the time since, I’ve spoken with owners and employees of a handful of venues and have gotten a clearer picture of their side of the equation. Those conversations have forced me to re-evaluate what I think is fair (more on that to come later), but have also re-enforced my position that the live music attending audience needs to know about the places musicians love and the ones they don’t.
To that end, I’ve created a survey intended to be taken by Seattle’s working musicians. I hope to get it to as many of them as I can, and think that with enough participation some trends will start to emerge. To be sure, there are a lot of venues in town, but from my conversations with players of all genres, I know there are standouts on both ends of the spectrum.
The survey itself is short and should only take a couple of minutes to get through, so please submit your input and share this link with other musicians in town. Thanks in advance for your time and effort.