Thread: Holiday rates when Christmas falls on a regular gig night?

My regular restaurant, where I dance almost every Friday and Saturday, is open on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. They asked me to dance on Christmas Eve (Thursday), but I am doing family stuff that night so I turned it down. I offered to book a friend who is working that night for double the normal rates, and they refused because they have only a modest number of reservations. I had no problem telling the owner that that night is double, because it's an off-night anyway when they wouldn't normally have a show.

But Christmas is on a Friday, and they want my regular show that night, too. I don't think they're going to be willing to pay double, but I feel more responsible for booking someone that night or doing it myself since not everyone celebrates Christmas and it's just a normal night at the restaurant.

I was thinking of asking for 150% and letting him know that I can't do it otherwise. WWBD??

You may want to pose this question to the nyc pro board yahoo group. If not for more localized answers then for information for other dancers who may have the same question.

Yeah, that's a good idea! I just never log into my Yahoo account anymore so I rarely think to use bellydancepro.

Ya know, I just had this conversation with the local restaurant dancers regarding dancing on Christmas night. No one wanted to do it. We all planned to be out of town visiting family, and we were pretty sure we'd have a hell of a time finding any subs willing to dance Christmas night. I suggested that if we honor their Middle Eastern holidays with no dancing (and as I recall, I've shown up to dance only to find out it's a holy day where there are to be no celebrations and OOOPS! They forgot to inform me beforehand to tell me they had canceled the show....) they need to honor our Christian holidays as well. No dance. Turns out, the restaurants totally understood, though I was prepared to go down fighting for the night off!

Depends-do you want the work? Do you need the money?Do you want to keep the job?

In response to Candi, yes, yes, and yes! But I also don't want to undercut by charging normal rates on Christmas, and it would be nice to get at least "time and a half" that night, since I normally would take off for Christmas. I guess it's been a while since it fell on a weekend.

Consider this. Does your regular employer pay you time and a half to work holidays? Mine did, if one of my gigs asked me to work for my regular pay I had to tell them this fact and that I would not sacrifice that pay for them. Working restaurants must pay their ethnic/non-ethnic employees something extra to work on holidays whether they are regular nights or not. Many employers do pay time and a half for holidays and gigs should too. If nothing else they need to guaranty X amount of tips based on the best tipping nights and pay you the difference.

just my 2 hay pennies worth.
Andrea

Christmas is a stat holiday here for all workers, and I believe that many employees get double time for their work hours. I think it would be reasonable to treat it as such.