lady ga ga
There was a recent online campaign by an American groom to get US alt rock band Ben Folds Five to play at his wedding. The gist of it was that the enterprising groom wanted Ben Folds to play and rather than forking out top dollar he was going to harness the power of the Internet and shame Ben Folds into appearing. So far as I am aware it didn’t work!
There is, however, a simple way of getting major stars like Ben Folds , Lady Ga or The Rolling Stones to play at your wedding or party. It’s pretty simple really. You have to be super rich and offer them bundles of cash.
Deutches Bank payed The Rolling Stones a reputed £2.6 million to play at their corporate bash back in 2007 and the Stones have also played mega bucks parties for the likes of the Sultan Of Brunei. Both Beyonce and Nelli Furtado have taken big wonga from the Gadhafi family in the days before the Libyan Governments fall (although, admittedly, Beyonce donated her fee to the Haitian earthquake appeal) and both Usher and Mariah Carey played similiar parties for the bad boys of Middle Eastern politics. Elton John played at Rush Limbaughs wedding. Both 50 cents and Aerosmith have played Bar Mitzvahs in recent years.
Live Music Management have had some experience of booking these high end artists for private events. The main criteria is how much money does the client have? A recent call to the Live Music Management office was from a guy wanting to book Pink Floyd. He had a budget in mind that he thought was adequate.It was around £100, 000. A considerable amount of money by many standards but ,of course, nowhere near enough to tempt the Floyd to get back on stage for his wedding.
If you are looking to book a major act for your wedding you need to be thinking six figures plus expenses (private planes to and from event for the act and crew, top quality PA equipment and rider etc etc.) No major stars advertise their prices for these events and , indeed, the event itself will probably have a no publicity clause attached to it. It’s likely that you will enter into a blind auction to book the act of your choice but one thing is for sure and that is that all acts have their price.
Can I book Lady Ga Ga to play at my wedding? Live Music Managements answer is “probably but only if you are stinking rich!”