City Beat: It's time to start paying artists for their work

Imagine you own a food business. For our purposes, it could be a food truck, a diner, a gourmet restaurant or a catering company. Truthfully, the business could be any type, but food works.

You started it because you have a real passion for cooking for others. You love seeing the joy that your dishes bring to others, but now you've decided to try to make a living at it - to actually pay your bills doing what used to be a hobby.

Now, let's assume people like what you do. They like it so much you are constantly being asked to cook for people. Sometimes, however, they want you do do it on your dime, and sometimes they want to pay you pretty well for your time and efforts, but there are fewer of those occasions than the other.

You get asked all the time to cook for fundraisers and charity events. You're told it will be good marketing for your product, and occasionally it does pay off and you actually get new business from the people you see at the events.

Complicating things even further, friends and family are constantly asking you to cook for their events. For free. Because, you know, they're family.

This is exactly what happens to a lot of the musicians and other artists in town. People ask them to donate their services. Actually, it happens everywhere, but it's here that we're concerned about.

I get it. I like free stuff, too. And musicians and artists are people, too, and many of them love doing charity events and fundraisers, but not all such events are created equal.

We have more than a few free or nearly free events (Riverbend might as well be free) in our area throughout the year, and it should be emphasized that just because there is no admission charge, it doesn't mean the artists are necessarily working for free. In many cases, they are getting paid, as they should.

But, and we've talked about this before, these events have created a sense among a lot of us that music should be inexpensive, if not free. And why should we spend $40 and up to see an act when we can wait a night or two and see a similar act for nothing? As one musician who helps book events in town pointed out to me, you also have local acts that will play for free one night, for the door the next and then be on a $25 ticket the next.

But we also have many events with high admission prices, and it's at these that a lot of artists are asked to donate their artwork, time and talent.

In many ways, these events have helped make Chattanooga the cool place that it is, but it's time to put an emphasis on paying people for their work. It won't happen overnight or even in the next year, but it needs to happen.

Contact staff writer Barry Courter at bcourter@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6354.

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