Thread: booking dancers for a restaurant

Although I teach in a big town, there's only one middle eastern restaurant. It's owned by Egyptians and it started life as a shisha cafe. I introduced one of my best students to them and she danced regularly on a Friday night for them until a few weeks ago when she got a better job at a restaurant up in central London.

With the smoking ban they had to stop the shishas and discovered the bellydancer was what was now bringing in the punters. When she left, bookings went way down.

they phoned me up and asked me if I knew anyone who could replace my student. I thought about it and decided I'd really love to do it myself but not every week (I have a lot of teaching commitments and a husband who can only take so much bellydance!) So I asked another Bhuzzer (hi Zaf ..g.: ) if she'd like to share the gigs on a rota. Which she's happy to do but, like me, not every week.

Then the owner said that since the bellydancing was so successful, he wanted to introduce it on Saturdays. Then after Zaf danced there he was even happier and said over time he wanted to bring in a dancer on a Thursday too. I've since emailed another local Bhuzzer (hi Razia ..g.: ) and she can do occasional gigs there too. But again, not regular slots. I also have a couple of advanced students who will soon be ready to dance there.

I can see that I could soon be responsible for booking dancers for this restaurant. And I'm fairly happy about that, because I like the idea of having an involvement in a place that has benefits for my students (somewhere they can go to see good bellydancing, a good place for the potential pro students to cut their teeth, etc)

But I can see that there's a certain amount of work in it for me (juggling the commitments of other dancers, making sure the place always has someone, finding a replacement if someone's sick) so I feel like I should have some kind of payment for that work. So I'd like to know....how do those of you that do this get paid, if at all? Do you charge the owners for booking dancers or do you charge a commission to the dancers for booking them? I don't like the idea of the last option because I don't really want to be taking money from fellow impoverished bellydancers

Oh, and it might be worth mentioning that the guests in the restaurant almost never gave tips in the past, but I've negotiated with the owners that they start the tips going so the diners know that tipping is what you're meant to do and the dancers get more money. So I am trying to make the whole thing work as well as possible for everyone...

Around here, based on what I know the dancers don't get extra pay for doing this. But since they are doing the schedule, they know they will be dancing on the regular basis / they can bring their students, so that is a good selling point for teachers.
Some dancers like / don't mind the extra responsibility, and other don't want to deal with it.

There's nothing wrong with asking for compensation for your time and effort, but I have no suggestion of how much to ask for.

around here the norm is that the bookers don't get any extra pay. but, there are definitely benefits you can arrange for yourself:

you choose your own schedule first

you can give yourself more nights, or regular nights (so you can advertise 'every first and third friday!' or whatever on your promo materials)

you get first dibs on special nights

you can arrange it that you are the only dancer allowed to display brochures or pictures on the door and have your business cards out every day (other dancers may hand out their own cards only on nights they work).

other benefits are:

you can be sure the other dancers are not snakes who might try to steal your job

you can shape the quality of dancers seen by the public, and help elevate the artform


watch out for that razia. she's a nutcase.
kidding!!! lol! xoxoxoxo

I think you should get paid. I know a lot of people don't get paid for such work, but that doesn't mean people shouldn't.

When I was a baby dancer, I was very surprised that I got to keep all the pay & tips from restaurant gigs. I always thought my troupe director should be getting 20% or so for acting as an 'agent.'

Maybe you can tell the restaurant guy that you & the crew of dancers you've collected for him will be happy to continue to cover Friday & Saturday nights. Sure, adding dancers on Thursdays & beyond is a great idea! Good luck with that! Bye now.

I have been getting calls into the studio from people looking to book dancers for an event/party/etc. Because I do negotiate a good price for the dancer, spend time lining up coodinating things - I charge the dancer a 20% fee of the set price for the gig. I make sure that the person hiring the dancer knows that the price quoted does not include tipping the dancer (and that it is always appreciated).

In one of my former icarnations (LOL), I worked as a talent agent - and the agency charged simular for getting talent booked (and my commision came out of this). Since you are essentially booking talent for the restarauant, no reason you cannot collect a fee for your time/effort.

hm

- i think with your classes you can never do thursdays yourself, right? so it would mostly be extra work...

- on the other hand,
there is all the things you said (opportunity for yourself, students, etc) and if he really wants a dancer then, and you leave it up to him, who knows what/who he gets, whether that person behave ethically or not, is any good, etc. i'd prefer being in charge of the whole thing.

so, well, i'd say, do the sheduling yourself, and if it get's too much, ask zaf/razia/any of the other regulars you might get to take that over, in exchange for getting most of the gigs but you can still kind of tell them which ones you wont for yourself?

and it's not a life time commitment, try for a short while?

depending on the pay, i am in favour of the booker getting a small fee. i do so when i hand gigs on to my students, i'm kind of a booking agency then, and when i've spend all the time on the phone, it's my website r contact that got the job etc. i didnt do so for the restaurant where we danced (cause the pay was pretty low as is). and a percentage of that is such peanuts that it makes me feel cheap ;-). on the other hand, you would do all the work involved..

maybe contact tracey (tracey, are you here)... i'd love her input on this too.

ps, if i'm in the area, i'd love a slot ;-) ;-), that would be fun.

Thanks for all the input everyone. It's really valuable. And yes, I can see that there are benefits to doing it that go beyond any financial remuneration (which would be minimal anyway) and I guess it's up to me to decide whether those benefits are worth the extra work.

My husband used to be in a band and he's been badgering me for ages to charge a booking fee. He says that in the band, the agent always used to take a cut of every gig. The agent would get paid by the client and then pay the band himself, minus his fee. I've finally got my head around the idea of taking a cut when I book someone onto a bellygram or other gig, but as Artemisia says, in those cases the fees are more substantial.

I was going to suggest to the owner that I can put a section on my website about the restaurant under the title of where to see live bellydancing in the area. As I say, his is the only restaurant in the area which has bellydancers but it's not well publicised. My website gets a LOT of traffic and I have a heck of a lot of students. I'm thinking it would help to bring in more people to the restaurant with obvious benefits to us bellydancers. (more punters equals more fun, more tips and less chance of getting cancelled at the last minute)

I was thinking of doing a 'where to see bellydancing' page with his details and info about me, Zaf, Razia and anyone else who is dancing regularly. And a diary of who is dancing when. And I thought I could see if the owner might pay me a bit extra for doing that.

It's funny - it's not that I need the money particularly. But I guess in our society we show the value of something through money....

Oh and also, I meant to say...

I danced there for the first time on Saturday and I had an absolute ball! It's small but a fab atmosphere and I was on a real high for two days afterwards - I haven't had that from a gig in a long time!

And yes, I'd love to book international bellydance star Artemisia there whenever she likes

International Bellydance Star Artemisia of Leuven, Belgium would also love to come and see the Fabulous Charlotte of Croydon, UK dance !!!! i'll let you know when i'm in the area and i'll try to drag chris along to come and see you!!!!! whoohoo!

Originally Posted by sunshine

Oh and also, I meant to say...

I danced there for the first time on Saturday and I had an absolute ball! It's small but a fab atmosphere and I was on a real high for two days afterwards - I haven't had that from a gig in a long time!

And yes, I'd love to book international bellydance star Artemisia there whenever she likes

Hi

I know as the Zaf in question I may be shooting myself in the foot, but here we go.

I wouldn't object to you taking a cut. Obviously I'd prefer not, but I think you would be well within your rights. Hell I danced at a place for 3 years where the scheduling dancer took 10% only to treat me like ****e, so I'd be happy for the money to go to someone who actually appreciates me!

Having said that, I think adding a schedule and a bit of promo on your website is a really good idea, especially as I remember you saying it was getting a very healthy amount of hits. . .
The restaurant doesn't really have much of a web presence so your page could also be something that us other dancers could link to.

Z

Hi All Im here Im here


ok Sunshine here is the bad news first

If you do take this on then even if you are not dancing that evening you will still be working and with the best will in the world someone will let you down and the resturant will be on to you screaming shouting etc etc .
You will have the call when they say please can you not send that dancer again etc etc , if you feel you can handle that then yes charge a booking fee but perhaps with the resturant and not the dancers just a thought

off to pack on an adventure in the desert next week Siwa
can't wait
yipeeee
Tracey love