Lifestyle Feature
So You Wanna Book a Rock 'n' Roll Star?
Neal Santelmann

If you're a hard-core rock fan and have a net worth of nine figures or  
more you may not have to tune into your iPod when you next want to  
listen to your favorite band. For the right amount of money you can  
hire them to play in your own backyard.

While data on such performances is hard to come by, there's no denying  
that private gigs--both corporate and personal--have lately become a  
ready revenue stream for music entertainers of all stripes. Gone are  
the days when faded acts such as The O'Jays and Kool and the Gang were  
the biggest names on the circuit. Everyone from Elton John to Madonna  
has put in time at private gigs--for the right price.

 From a pure business sense--and they don't call it the "music 
business"  
for nothing--private gigs are win-win for entertainers. Tacking a  
private show or two onto regular tour stop doubles a destination's  
productivity--one night at the Gund Arena plus one night in some  
wealthy dentist's backyard equals two paychecks from Greater Cleveland.  
Also, they're a great way to recoup the exorbitant costs of mounting a  
major tour. "Artists like doing private gigs quite simply because they  
pay," says Barry Weisblatt, head of WhiteLeaf Entertainment Group, a  
New York-based boutique event production outfit. "From a financial  
standpoint, private gigs pay the bills and can help subsidize the cost  
of a tour."

Assuming you have the money to fund a private gig, what are you getting  
yourself into? Well, if you're not sure, you might as well not even  
bother to inquire. "No agent is going to sell an act to a client that  
doesn't know how to produce a show," cautions Ben Bernstein, a personal  
appearance agent at the William Morris Agency in Beverly Hills who  
specializes in private gigs. "Ninety-nine percent of end clients don't  
have production experience, and the last thing we want to do is get a  
band into a situation where they can't perform."

In such circumstances, Bernstein typically recommends potential clients  
a local production company, such as Barry Weisblatt's WhiteLeaf  
Entertainment Group. Such firms can handle everything from negotiating  
a reasonable price from a booking agent to acting as a liaison between  
artist and client, to actually producing the show. "Often private  
clients have no idea what they're responsible for," notes Weisblatt,  
who oversees some 20 private gigs a year. "They hear a price and they  
say, 'Great!' But when they find out what goes into mounting a show,  
they're dumbfounded."

For starters, every performance contract has a production rider, which  
spells out the nuts and bolts required: staging, lights, sound  
equipment and the rest. For "one-off" private gigs that are not  
coordinated within a tour schedule, bands typically prefer to rent  
sound equipment rather than transport their own, requiring the  
production company to cut deals with local sources. Every band needs a  
green room in which to cool out before the show and dressing rooms as  
well--and chances are your master bedroom won't cut it. Then there are  
the catering necessities pre- and post-show for both band and their  
crew. And don't forget about adequate parking for all the semis and  
catering trucks it's going to take to haul everything to the  
performance site.

Want to assure you and your friends get to hang out with the band? A  
"meet and greet" will have to be spelled out in the contract ahead of  
time. Hoping for an invite to hop up on stage and join the band for a  
song? Better put that in the contract, too--and bear in mind Mick  
Jagger's reminiscence of Fats Domino's advice: "You should never sing  
the lyrics out very clearly."

Perhaps the most important thing to bear in mind about private gigs is  
that most artists are going to want to put on a show. "As soon as I  
hear client say he only wants a band to do two or three songs, or maybe  
a scaled-down version of their usual show, that's an immediate red  
flag," says Weisblatt. "It doesn't matter what the gig is, no musician  
wants to be produced in a half-baked manner."

Then again, it's only rock 'n' roll.