Tipping musicians

jenijoyk

We are hiring a musical group for our cocktail hour. After talking to several groups, we noted that all but one had a 2-hour minimum. We're fine with this, and picked the best group and will happily pay them for 2 hours even though, due to our timeline, we will only use them for 1-hour as this seems to be the norm. We've also let them know ahead of time we will only need them from 530-630pm, in case they want to book another gig later in the evening.

But we're unsure what the tipping etiquette is. Do we tip them at all, considering we are paying them for an hour we are not using them? Do we tip them 18% of their hourly rate (i.e. tip them for one hour)? Or do we tip them 18% of the entire (2-hour) bill?

cafarrie

As a musician myself I would absolutely not expect a tip - especially in this situation.  As a bride, I would not tip them.

Lauderdale Pink

I generally don't tip vendors beyond the contract specifications. The caterer/venue tend to have a tip built in to the price as do some others. If there is no tip mentioned, then I don't provide one, especially in a case like yours where they are getting an extra hour of pay for not working.

jenijoyk

Huh - thanks for letting me know! Is it not the norm to tip musicians? I have no idea. But I assumed we would tip all of our vendors 18% barring some sort of disaster. But the fact that we're paying them for two hours when they'll only need to be at our venue for one makes me think this isn't completely necessary here. I just don't want to be an asshole. But I also don't want to be throwing money around like I'm playing monopoly.

jenijoyk

Wait, really? People don't tip vendors??? This seems strange. My catering contract includes a "Service Charge" but we assumed we would tip beyond that to make sure the waiters/bartenders received something. Our DJ contract does not include a tip line item but there's no way we're not tipping him 18% of the total contract price at the end of the night. I thought this was totally expected???

tammym1001

I tipped our musicians 20%. They had a flat rate so I don't know about the hourly thing. Is the minimum 2 hours of playing time? Is it possible the 2 hours includes one hour of playing time and then 30 minutes for set up and 30 minutes for take down? If that's the case then I think you would tip them based on their total price because that is actually time that they are working.

jenijoyk

I agree we definitely would base a tip off the time they are working. But they are a mariachi band and told us they warm up outside, at their car, and walk in with instruments in hand. There are no mics or speakers to set up, they are unamplified and walk around while they play. It sounded like the clock starts ticking from the arrival time we tell them. We asked they be there ready to play at 5:30, when our ceremony is coming to an end. We won't use them past 6:30, which is when we are doing our grand entrance and first dance. So I'm confident they will consider it just an hour's worth of work. But regardless, it feels weird to not tip at all. I'm leaning towards tipping 15% of 1/2 of the total price. So 15% of the hour they worked, and then we're paying them for another hour just to meet the minimum. It seems like the best compromise.