Research — By WATMM Desk —
Pay stub: what a small club gig pays a four-piece band after costs
On our worked example (80 paid at £10, a 70% door deal after £150 of venue costs, a 120-mile round trip), a four-piece band clears about £394, or £98.50 each, against the Musicians' Union recommended pub and club rate of £167.16 per musician. Every assumption is below. Sources read 28 Oct 2026.
Key facts
- The Musicians' Union recommended casual rate for groups in pubs or clubs, up to 3 hours, is £167.16 per musician, as reported by Last Minute Musicians (updated 1 May 2026).
- HMRC approved mileage rates for 2026 to 2027 are 55p per business mile for the first 10,000 miles in a car or van, up from 45p.
- Sentric Music describes the PRS Gigs and Clubs scheme for venues where live music is not the main purpose as paying around £5 per show, an older figure.
A four-piece band of original songwriters plays a Saturday headline slot at a 150-capacity club, two hours from home. No guarantee, just a door deal. What does everyone take home? Our earlier stubs did streams and a Bandcamp sale; this one is the money that most bands actually live on.
Assumptions
The door deal, ticket price and crowd are our own illustrative figures, not quoted rates. Deals vary from room to room, so swap in yours.
- UK gig, 80 paid tickets at £10, sold on the door. No booking fee, no guest list in the count, no merch.
- Door deal: the band gets 70% of the door after £150 of venue costs. That £150 is our assumed figure for the in-house sound engineer and door staff, so the band does not hire its own engineer. If the venue charges for sound separately, it comes off the gross the same way.
- Travel: 120 miles round trip in one van carrying the band and kit. We cost it at HMRC's approved mileage rate for 2026 to 2027, 55p a mile for the first 10,000 business miles in a car or van, up from 45p in 2011 to 2026 (HMRC). We use it as our own proxy for fuel and running costs.
- PRS live royalty. Sentric Music describes the PRS Gigs and Clubs scheme for venues where live music is not the main purpose as paying around £5 per show (Sentric). That is an older figure and we could not confirm a current one from PRS, so treat it as approximate. We use £5 and assume all four members are PRS writers on an all-original set. The money arrives months later, not on the night.
- India (IPRS). IPRS also licenses live performance, but we found no published per-gig figure for small venues, so this stub stays UK-only.
- Even four-way split, before tax. No manager, agent or booker commission. Food, parking and strings are left out.
The stub
| Line | Calculation | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Gross door | 80 × £10 | £800.00 |
| Venue costs | assumed | −£150.00 |
| Net door | £800 − £150 | £650.00 |
| Band's share | 70% × £650 | £455.00 |
| Van mileage | 120 × £0.55 | −£66.00 |
| PRS (later) | ≈ £5 per show (older figure) | +£5.00 |
| Band clears | ≈ £394.00 | |
| Per musician | £394 ÷ 4 | ≈ £98.50 |
At HMRC's old 45p rate the van would cost £54, and each member would clear about £3 more.
Against the union rate
The Musicians' Union recommended casual rate for a group playing a pub or club for up to three hours is £167.16 per musician, as reported by Last Minute Musicians, which says the figure was updated on 1 May 2026 (Last Minute Musicians). On this deal the band earns about 59% of that.
To reach it, the band needs 4 × £167.16 + £66 − £5 = £729.64 from the door. So 0.7 × (10N − 150) = 729.64, which gives N ≈ 119.2. That means 120 paid tickets in a 150-capacity room, 80% full.
What we think
- The fixed cost line hurts more than the percentage. On our arithmetic, cutting venue costs from £150 to £100 adds £35 to the band's share, the same as moving the split from 70% to about 75%. Most bands haggle over the percentage. They should haggle over the cost line first.
- Every 10 extra tickets is worth £70, or £17.50 each. Promotion beats renegotiating.
- File the setlist anyway. About £5 split four ways is not much, but it costs five minutes, and as a share of what the band clears it is bigger than any one stream payout we have costed.
- A door deal puts the whole risk on the band. At 30 paid, the band's share is £105, and after the van each member gets about £9.75. That gap is the real case for asking for a small guarantee.
Sources
- Travel: mileage and fuel rates and allowances, HM Revenue and Customs (GOV.UK) (primary source). Accessed 28 Oct 2026.
- MU live rates, Last Minute Musicians. Accessed 28 Oct 2026.
- Week 2: the song is performed at a local pub, Sentric Music. Accessed 28 Oct 2026.
Researched with AI assistance, written and checked by WATMM Desk.