“Fair Pay to Play Campaign Kickoff Summary”

In spite of the beautiful Northwest autumn afternoon on Sunday October 26^th, about 50 musicians from the greater Portland area attended the Fair Pay for Play campaign kickoff meeting.

It was a chance for musicians to meet and talk with the committee of both union and non-union musicians who have been working on the design of the Fair Pay for Play approach.

Hosted by Illya Torres-Garner, the meeting began with a presentation by Alison Dennis who talked about the work the committee has done.  For the past 10 months the group has met to develop an approach.  They have surveyed both musicians and venue operators to put together a plan that is fair to both. 

Next both Dave Kahl and Ryan Hohman gave testimonials about some of the unacceptable situations they had experienced.  Dave, a veteran player with decades of experience, talked about the fact that musicians pay in the 70s has deteriorated considerably.  Where a musician could formerly support themselves through gigs alone, today this is not possible.  Ryan told us about a recent gig where his group attracted a good crowd at a venue with a cover charge.  Even though the club took in almost a hundred dollars at the door his group received only $3.00 (yes, that’s not a typo – three dollars!) after paying the clubs exorbitant club fee.

Next John Huckfeldt presented the 5 tier pay scale that they had formulated.  He selected several audience members and gave examples of what the minimum pay should be considering the size of the group and the tier level of the venue.  Also, there are additional components of the FPTP pay package regarding costs that venues have systematically relegated to musicians furthering the negative pressure on musician compensation.  These include venue House Fees, salaries for sound and door people and event promotion costs.  John also talked about various activities related to a venues involvement in the FPTP program including a community agreement, FPTP window stickers and promoting the venues that sign up for the program with victory parties (a FPTP event at their site to publicize their collaboration).

A discussion period of followed at this point with a lot of good questions about how the scale worked and various aspects of how the campaign was to be publicized and promoted.

Patrick Mongeau next took the mic and talked a bit about some of the problems musicians have because of years of being on the receiving end of disrespectful, unsympathetic venue operators.  Patrick inspired the group to give their self-esteem a wake up call by working together on this campaign.   Then he asked the group to cast a yay or nay vote on the details of the campaign including the adoption of the 5 tier pay scale.  There was unanimous support.

Finally Jake Pegg encouraged everyone to join Musicians Union Local 99.  This local has made a commitment to support the Fair Pay for Play campaign.  The human resources and support resources needed (facilities, food, utilities, etc.) costs money and union membership is vital to helping fund the project.