Getting asked to play a benefit event is something every band has gotten asked to do at at some point during their career.  While every group has different policies regarding the particulars, most bands have a number of benefit events in their schedule.

We’ve Done A Few

For Fun DMC, the short answer is “yes”, we absolutely play benefit events, some paid and some pro bono. Besides the personal contributions and involvement in local non-for-profit organizations and causes that each band member provides, we also provide entertainment and organizational support for a number of events in the Springfield, Illinois-area.  In conjunction with The Curve Inn, we host our own annual benefit for the Marine Toys for Tots Foundation called Christmas At The Curve and have a brand new benefit event being announced.  We have played charity events for organizations such as The Legacy of Giving Festival, Susan G Komen Foundation, The Friends of Sangamon County Animal Control, Fat Ass 5k, Springfield Public Schools Music Programs, and more.  We also regularly play a number of benefits on behalf of individuals.  All of these we do for no charge, and sometimes go so far as to assist financially with marketing efforts.

I’m not listing all of these to brag on all the good that Fun DMC does.  There are so, so many bands and venues in this area who do incredible things with their time and resources.  Look at The Illinois Times pub crawl in December and you won’t see many events that don’t have the word “benefit” at the end of the title.  Central Illinois is overwhelmingly blessed by the musicians, venue owners, and supporters whose big hearts make it possible so that kids gets Christmas presents, homeless get coats and gloves, food pantries get stocked at Thanksgiving, and an unfathomable list of more.  Fun DMC is just a group of six people trying to humbly do our part alongside this community.

Booking

I handle all the booking for the band.  We have a group calendar that we use to keep everyone on the same page for event details and another one that everyone posts their unavailable dates for.  The rule for booking has always been, if you don’t want me to book a show for a date, then block it off.  If it’s open, I’m free to book it without having to message everyone and wait for five responses while a bride or event planner or venue owner is ready to move on to the next band on their list.

That said, we get anywhere from 2-5 inquiries a month from individuals or organizations asking us to play their benefit event.  The members of Fun DMC put enough trust in me to make sure we meet our financial needs (more on that in a second), while at the same time giving me the leeway to accept an event that might pay nothing for a cause we all support.  As close as we all are, we are very familiar with each other’s passions and know what organizations we resonate with individually.

But.

And at this point, I am strictly speaking only for Fun DMC, there are times when it gets complicated.

There are 52 weekends in a year and we deliberately take about 8-12 of them off, be it for holidays, vacations, or just needing some scheduled time to regroup and refresh.  We’re realistically not going to get booked every single weekend of the year, due to individual availability or any number of other reasons.  While I’m sure we’d all love to be hitting the stage 2-3 times every week, we all have wives, kids, hobbies, personal lives, day jobs, and other businesses we run beyond our band that just doesn’t allow for that.  While we wish we could play every event we get asked to do, we realistically can only take on a certain number a year in our very busy schedule.

The other part of it is the awkward part – finances.  We operate a bit differently than most bands we know in a few ways:

• In 2017, Fun DMC registered as a Limited Liability Company, which gives five of us legal and registered ownership of Fun DMC with corporate protections by the State of Illinois.  Under normal circumstances, a band can just split up their income from a gig and head to Steak n’ Shake.  Fun DMC, LLC has to hand it over to Katey, who hands it over to our accountant, who hands it over to the government so they know exactly what we took in for the year.  Then, as self-employed employees of Fun DMC, LLC, we get to pay an insane amount of taxes on it all.  That doesn’t even include the annual cost of maintaining the LLC or managing the books.  Why would we do this? That’s probably for Katey to explain a little more about at some point.  But ultimately, when you’re bringing in a certain amount of income (like a band that does mostly weddings and private events), it’s better to be protected financially from the IRS and from any arbitration from anyone you signed a contract with.
• We own all our own equipment.  Some bands do this, but it’s still fairly uncommon to drag around as much gear as we do.   We have a large trailer that is packed full of instruments, PA to play an event of almost any size, a full lighting rig, video screens, and totes filled with miles of cables.  We do this because our show is incredibly dependent on specific equipment, but also because it saves us and you money from not having to hire it out from a third party.  However, and I don’t know about you, but if our trailer ever caught fire, my bass got stolen, or our in-ear monitor rack took a tumble down some stairs, I can’t necessarily just buy a replacement with 24 hour shipping so I can be ready for the next gig.  We always have a backup plan in place in the event of an emergency, and carrying insurance on everything we have is one of them.  Every piece of equipment is fully covered from damage and theft so we never have to worry about scary “what-if” scenarios.
• We do a lot of marketing.  We’re one of the only bands in the area whose primary focus is on weddings and private/corporate events.  This means we have a pro account for WeddingWire and TheKnot.  We have been regular vendors at The Elegant Bridal Expos for years.  We manage a very active social media presence, including running paid campaigns and emails.  We also operate and maintain this website.  All of this means more booking opportunities for these events, but is certainly an recurring investment.

There are more things like this, but to sum it all up – we have a large number of large ongoing expenses that require certain monthly financial obligations be met.  This doesn’t even include one-offs like equipment maintenance (I’ve gotten really good at repairing lights), gas and vehicle costs (pulling a trailer isn’t cheap), and our costume budget.  I say all this to explain that this isn’t why we’re not playing your specific event, it’s why we have to limit ourselves to how many we can play overall.

So we shouldn’t contact you about benefit events?

No no no!  That’s not the takeaway here.  Please DO NOT HESITATE to reach out to us to see if your event is something we can make happen!  If we can make it work, we will absolutely do so, regardless of our financial obligations or availability.  If nothing else, we will always try to recommend another group that might be available or a better fit, or we might be able to offer help in promotion.

So, in summary, while we unfortunately can’t play all of the ones that we’re asked about, yes, we absolutely play benefit events, and you should contact us about getting involved in yours.