Thread: Undercutting By Entertainment Agencies?

Anyone else experience a lot of this lately?

Having worked with agencies a few times in the past, I'm aware that the booking agent generally takes a small cut from your profit. But these past couple of weeks, I've had a couple of gig inquiries where the prospect has already spoken with an agency who will get them a dancer for $125 or even as low as $95.

The solution is simple. Say "you get what you pay for," and make yourself available to clients who will pay you what you're worth. Next!

But I'm bringing this up because it seems to be a fairly recent phenomenon for me. I guess a lot of businesses out there are hurting and some of them have reacted to the changing market with competitive pricing tactics. We might start seeing a lot more of this in some regions.

But dancers also have the choice not to get stiffed by working with agencies that won't pay a fair rate. For those who work with an agent on a regular basis, what's a normal "cut," anyway?

I've worked with agents whose cut was anywhere from 10-50%, but *my* price was the same. I gave them the minimum I would accept and they added their fee on top of that for the client. I'm not sure how others have handled it.

I have the same experience with Event Planners that MJ has had. I give them a stated rate and they add their fee on top of that. Dancers are a line item. They charge $XXX for a dancer. As long as we are charging less than that, they don't care. The current problem seems to be that people still want the full shabang, but are bargaining for their prices. Which in turn means that Event Planners are cutting corners and upping their profit margins where they can.

{{{HUGS}}}

Ditto. I get my normal rate for a BellyGram or Full Set, and most of the time have no idea what the agency is charging on top of that. But I've only worked with an agency 2 or 3 times.

Ditto to what others have said.
I've certainly gotten phone calls from agencies who are looking for el cheapo dancers... but they don't call me back. lol.
There are also plenty of agencies who are happy to work repeatedly with quality, responsible entertainers who will Deliver. They feel assured that their clients will be happy, and therefore will be returning (and/or referring) customers. Returning customers simply require that you do a good job. New clients often require advertising to find. It pays to make clients happy with high quality.

Ditto as well. It could be the agency has some cheap dancers working for them. Don't blame the agency... there are dancers out there that are accepting that pay.

Yeah, that's how I thought agencies were supposed to work. But a couple of agencies actually seem to charge less than individual dancers around here, which boggles my mind.

A woman from an agency called me last night and I quoted her $250. She was surprised and I said, "That's what pretty much everyone here charges. At least, that's what the professional dancers charge. Some people charge a LOT less, but I really can't vouch for their quality."

Her response? "Well, I have a business to run. I've got to make money."

All I said to her was a blase, "So do I. That's why I charge what I do."

I know, this was very rare departure from my sweet, polite way of explaining rates and quality. But one would think an agency might attract bigger events and repeat customers by having quality dancers on their roster. One would think ,r:;

Just to clarify, since I used the term event planner, is this a "real" talent agency or is this an Event planner? My experience with Event planners is that many of the smaller ones who don;t have followings will do a lot of undercutting in the hopes that the client won't know the difference in quality. Talent bookers, on the other hand, are trying to go against the standard rate, i.e. you and me, and are going to ask you to take a lower price because they are supplying the Event planner. A lot of subcontracting going on there. . .

ETA: I need to extrapolate a little more. . .

Event planner has convinced the host to spend $400 on a belly dancer. They don't book their own talent, so the go to a Talent Booker and offer them $250 to find a dancer. The Booker, trying to make money, offers the dancer $150, maybe $175.

{{{HUGS}}}

Now my turn for clarification

I went to the agency's website and it looks like a really small singing telegram type of operation. Not a big talent agency, per se. Their blurb about belly dancers made me chuckle:

"If it's a birthday party they get the birthday boy up and do a belly dance for him as well as everyone else. She will then delight the audience by teach him a belly dance and then teach everyone else one as well! Always a hugh [sic] hit!"

Maybe a "Hugh" hit is what you get when you don't can't afford a huge hit? .w.: ..l;,

Originally Posted by SatinWorship19

Now my turn for clarification

I went to the agency's website and it looks like a really small singing telegram type of operation. Not a big talent agency, per se. Their blurb about belly dancers made me chuckle:

"If it's a birthday party they get the birthday boy up and do a belly dance for him as well as everyone else. She will then delight the audience by teach him a belly dance and then teach everyone else one as well! Always a hugh [sic] hit!"

Maybe a "Hugh" hit is what you get when you don't can't afford a huge hit? .w.: ..l;,

*chuckles along with Satin*

I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to contact the owners of websites just to tell them that they're embarrassing (sp) themselves with their improper use of language and spelling/typing errors!

Deborah

Originally Posted by SatinWorship19

Her response? "Well, I have a business to run. I've got to make money."

All I said to her was a blase, "So do I. That's why I charge what I do."

I've had almost the exact conversation with an agency! What's worse, the owner of the agency is a retired belly dancer. ,m::

An agency near me charges about half the going rate for a bellygram, and the final pay for the dancer is probably a third of the going rate.

When I told this owner the going rate, she said "Oh, I could never get clients to pay that much!" I told her, "What a pity, I get booked for $XX amount more than the going rate all the time - you're really losing out on a lot of money."

I feel like that supermodel that said she doesn't get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day or whatever - I don't put on false eyelashes for a third of the base rate!

Originally Posted by phillyraqs

When I told this owner the going rate, she said "Oh, I could never get clients to pay that much!" I told her, "What a pity, I get booked for amount more than the going rate all the time - you're really losing out on a lot of money."

This is exactly what boggles my mind. Of course, the marketplace is a little bit different today in a sense that many folks are hunting for a good bargain.

However, business is better for me now than it's ever been before. Honestly, good branding, a quality product, a well-filled niche, and top-notch customer service make the majority of price comparisons a non-issue.

A lot of business strategy experts warn against slashing your prices during a recession. While it's a band-aid fix that might boost your profits in the short term, there's sufficient proof that businesses that invest in branding and customer service (while keeping their prices the same) emerge from economic downturns twice as strong as their shellshocked competitors.

Plus, high-end companies that drop their prices may experience irrepairable damage to their brand's cachet when the economy picks up. Why would the consumer want yesterday's "damaged goods" when they can pay a little extra for quality?

Thinking about writing a Gilded Serpent article on this tangent...

Originally Posted by phillyraqs

I've had almost the exact conversation with an agency! What's worse, the owner of the agency is a retired belly dancer. ,m::

An agency near me charges about half the going rate for a bellygram, and the final pay for the dancer is probably a third of the going rate.

When I told this owner the going rate, she said "Oh, I could never get clients to pay that much!" I told her, "What a pity, I get booked for amount more than the going rate all the time - you're really losing out on a lot of money."

I feel like that supermodel that said she doesn't get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day or whatever - I don't put on false eyelashes for a third of the base rate!

I think I know this agency owner ,r:;

I find that lots of entertainment agencies want to "stay competitive," so they actually won't tack money on top of your rate. I used to go through them more often, and at the time, if my rate was $200 for a 20-minute show, they'd pay me $150 and (I think) charge the client $200. But usually they were really easy gigs - a pretty wide window for performance time, 20 minutes in and out, and really no hassle beforehand (typically booked without a lot of advance notice, so I wasn't reserving time for a lower paying gig until I knew I had an opening)... Once I got paid more by having the agency add a "travel" fee that the client had no qualms about paying.

Then again, I also had a *nightmare* experience doing a show through a different agent at an assisted living home, where I didn't get the aides to participate enough and was told, "These people see horrible things every day, they watch people DIE. Don't you think they deserve a little enjoyment in their lives?" Then the clients got a partial reimbursement, which came out of my meager pay, because I danced for ONLY 25 minutes.

My verdict? Take the super-easy ones where they skim a percentage off your rate but take a lot of the work out of it for you - but only to fill the gaps on slower nights. Anything where there are too many special requests is so not worth it.

Originally Posted by bellyfina

Then again, I also had a *nightmare* experience doing a show through a different agent at an assisted living home, where I didn't get the aides to participate enough and was told, "These people see horrible things every day, they watch people DIE. Don't you think they deserve a little enjoyment in their lives?" Then the clients got a partial reimbursement, which came out of my meager pay, because I danced for ONLY 25 minutes.

That's awful. What if the aides didn't want to participate? Not every audience displays appreciation by getting up to dance with the dancer. Some audiences are quieter and more reserved, but that doesn't mean they loved your show any less. I really don't think this was a fair gauge of your abilities. Nor should they have shamed you into feeling like a harbinger of mass depression because your audiences weren't feeling it.

And I don't believe in mini-lessons after a show. One or (max) two audience participation type songs at the end is more than enough. But when I see dancers linger 30 minutes after their set to teach audiences new moves (sometimes against their will), I think "What are they thinking?????" I charge extra for that sort of thing.

Ugh, I know. It was really a disaster. This agent and I had a talk about going rates (she hadn't upped hers, um, ever, and for some reason, no one ever brought it to her attention before that it is not customary to dance for 45 minutes to an hour). I posted about it at the time because it was probably the worst performance experience I've had.

But I didn't mean to hijack the thread! As you were...