What Does It Cost?

...to book a popular musical act. Suburban Men has the story. Follow the link for the details (and I wonder at the accuracy...). Some examples, Adele, north of $750,000. Some acts around 1 million: Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen. On the other hand, you can get Jefferson Starship for a modest $15,000 to $25,000. Rihanna will cost between $500,000 and $750,000.

But what about our favorite classical musicians? What would it cost to book, say, Hilary Hahn for your birthday party, wedding or funeral? Sadly, the website for her management, IMG Artists, does not list fees for this sort of engagement. What about Grigory Sokolov? Sure, he won't travel outside continental Europe, but what if you wanted to book him for a special party in the hills south of Florence? Sokolov is with Artists Management Company and again, there is no information at the website regarding fees. What about Igor Levit? He is with Classic Concerts Management and again there is no information regarding fees. It is almost as if these folks are simply too busy playing with the Vienna Philharmonic or performing at the Salzburg Festival to bother with your birthday party! No wonder people think classical musicians are elitist! They are!

Of course, you can hire a classical ensemble for your wedding, funeral, bar mitzvah, whatever. Here is a trio available in the UK.

But again, search as I may, I cannot find an actual fee quoted. A friend of mine gigs with a string trio in California and I think she mentioned that they charge around $500 for a two hour gig. Or was that $300 for each musician? I forget!

I suspect that the performing musician marketplace is as competitive as any other market, but there are likely huge factors that wildly affect pricing. I have a tiny amount of background knowledge on this from my work on the board of the local concert society. You can book a middle-rank piano soloist for around five or six thousand dollars plus expenses. A front rank guitarist will be about the same. This is for a single performance or perhaps a pair of concerts back to back. I would speculate that if you wanted to book a front rank soloist like Igor Levit or Hilary Hahn in your concert series you would have to start the negotiation process about two years ahead and expect to pay, what?, $20,000? $30,000? $50,000? Perhaps even more. Just based on my attending one concert by Grigory Sokolov last summer I would estimate that since he probably fills every hall that books him, and this would typically be a 2,000 seat hall and given ticket prices around sixty euros per then the receipts would run around €120,000 and it would be a poor management indeed that did not get at least half for the artist. Therefore, €60,000 per concert. Or you could get Jefferson Starship for a lot less...