By Cindy Koppen It’s surely an honour to be named a Cultural Capital of Canada. Live music and culture enrich our community and provide entertainment for many public events. My sincere appreciation goes to the countless volunteers and paid persons that put on all of our community functions, from one end of the peninsula to the other.
Whether it be Sea Fair, the Lund Shellfish Festival, Arts Alive in the Park, Lund Daze, Blackberry Festival, Open Air Market or other similar events, there are always vendors who sell their products and services. There is also live music. The music is provided by Powell River’s musicians, a talented and diversified bunch of super folk. They give their energy and musicianship to make the events an entertaining and pleasant experience. Musicians attract people to the events. Without live entertainment, the attendance would be considerably less. At these events, the vendors make money selling their products, which is great. The sound person is paid at the larger events, and rightfully so. The musicians are almost never paid.
Unfortunately, this lack of remuneration also applies to other venues as well. When musicians play at a local restaurant, they usually have a free meal and sometimes make some cash from a tip jar, sometimes not. They go away fed, but underpaid, again and again. A few local restaurants are generous and pay the musicians a reasonable amount to play, which is only fair as it attracts customers. This is great. This is normal.
What is wrong with the following picture? A musician rehearses, drives to the venue, sets up all the needed equipment, plays for said amount of time, knocks down all their equipment and drives home empty handed. There is something inherently wrong with a cultural capital that doesn’t honour its own.
When I and several other musicians played at Sunshine Music Festival a few years ago, the out-of-town act for Saturday evening was paid $6,000. They were talented, but so are we, only we just live here. The local musicians were lucky to make $50 each that weekend for almost as much effort.
Blackberry Festival is the height of insanity where musicians have actually had to pay to play. This is not done anywhere else in the world.
I would like to propose that part of the fees that vendors pay to set their booths up at an event goes to the musicians playing at the event. This is reasonable because, as stated previously, without the music there would be far less attendance. Additionally, somewhere between two to five per cent of monies made by each vendor the day or night of the event should go to the musicians as well. This way, if it’s a bust for them, nothing much is shared and that’s fair enough. But if they do well and the music is enjoyed by all, why the heck do we all sing our hearts out then go home feeling used? Oh sure, “it’s good exposure” they always tell us. Well okay, we’ve been “exposed” and now we need to fill our bellies too. How about it, Powell River? Sound like a plan?
Cindy Koppen is a Lund musician who had helpful suggestions from other musicians for this Viewpoint.
