TromboneChat

(I hope this is the correct area for this question)

A group of us are planning the first-ever Pacific Northwest Trombone Symposium for this April. Since we are all new to this we are learning and one thing we need help with is: what is a typical cost range would be for a clinician?

We are hoping to provide several master classes/sessions; some for younger students, some for more experienced/advanced, etc.

So far we are still looking for sponsors. and have some leads but nothing committed yet. We don't know what budget we will have and since it's the first time, don't know how many attendees.

I was hoping you all could give me some idea of what to expect for clinician's fees ?

thanks in advance

A good start is $500/work day for a lot of touring musicians. Travel and Housing coverage would be ideal as well. If you don't have that - be honest with the people you invite. Many people will say yes to take the trip and network with future potential colleagues and students, especially with a first time festival.

I'm not in academia but I know a lot of college music folks will do stuff like this for free or cheap as a recruiting tool for their schools.

Some people like to actually make a living doing what they do.

Yeah...the people in academia who do things like this at no cost to the presenters have jobs that require them to do recruiting events like these. In other words, it's considered part of their salary. And they are usually getting travel funds from their universities, if they have enough time in advance to apply for them. This April might be pushing that timeframe for many.

This is not true for everybody in academic jobs.

Sometimes you can get someone and have a manufacturer pay for him/her. I worked with the Northeast Brass Conference (in Holyoke MA) and David Neil told me that some of the presenters were sponsored by various manufacturers. All I had to do is mention who the sponsor was when I introduced the artist.

GabrielRice wrote: ↑Fri Jan 13, 2023 4:45 pm Yeah...the people in academia who do things like this at no cost to the presenters have jobs that require them to do recruiting events like these. In other words, it's considered part of their salary. And they are usually getting travel funds from their universities, if they have enough time in advance to apply for them. This April might be pushing that timeframe for many.

This is not true for everybody in academic jobs.

Totally agree- sometimes, with enough time to apply for it, one can get the funds to cover travel/per diem/etc from their institution for recruitment. But it's a careful subject to broach if you don't know the person though it's definitely doable.
I do a lot of these kind of institution visits (mostly to composition departments) and agree with the fee outline Will suggested as pretty normal.

One quintet wanted $2500 for a one hour clinic and $3500 for the abbreviated concert...

BGuttman wrote: ↑Fri Jan 13, 2023 5:05 pm Sometimes you can get someone and have a manufacturer pay for him/her. I worked with the Northeast Brass Conference (in Holyoke MA) and David Neil told me that some of the presenters were sponsored by various manufacturers. All I had to do is mention who the sponsor was when I introduced the artist.

Just like the previous reply about the differences of levels of support from Universities for something like this, manufacturers offer different levels of support for their artists to appear in a setting like this. Also, different manufacturers have very different budgets for this sort of thing in the first place. Yamaha is a big corporation with deep pockets, but a small operation that only makes brass instruments might not have a large promo budget. If it's an artist with big name recognition, they may have access to more support, but also, their fee might be larger so the presenter might still need to cover some of the cost.

There's no free lunch, and yes, people do want to be paid for doing their work.

Jim Scott

These are all helpful comments. It confirms the notion I was thinking: it depends.
We would likely approach a person with the question, “ are you interested and what would you charge” (along with details) just so we cover all bases. But your comments above give us a ballpark and that’s what we needed. I had wondered if geographic region mattered, for instance. We are in the Seattle/Tacoma area and some of you are from East Coast or near large cities where maybe the rates might be different. We did ask one professional in our area and he quoted $500, so that was inline with a comment above. Thanks for the feedback !