On Saturday night, the former Swans/Shearwater drummer Thor Harris headlined a show with More Eaze and Lumberob at the Sultan Room in Brooklyn. After the gig, Harris posted an image of his settlement from the venue, in which he and his bandmates were paid nothing. In text laid over the image, Harris wrote, "@thesultanroom Paid us zero dollars tonight for a beautiful show ." The breakdown shows that the venue took a slight loss on the evening, after selling 46 tickets for a room that holds 280. Harris' Instagram post has kicked off a fresh round of discourse about the economics of touring among independent musicians. Here's the post:
In his post, Harris tagged the venue's talent buyer and his own manager, neither of whom has commented. In the comments of his own post, Harris wrote, "Hey @thesultanroom . What’s ‘ House Nut ‘?" In another comment, he added, "I’ve never had a club say 'you get nothing.'"
"House nut" is a term referring to venue’s expenses for the concert -- in this case, $400 for sound and lights, $400 room fee, and $50 for marketing. Until those expenses are recouped, the artist doesn't get paid anything unless they have a guarantee. According to the expense breakdown that he posted, Harris was due "80% of Net Revenue after Taxes, Fees, and Agreed Expenses."
Many of Harris' fellow experimental indie artists commented on the Instagram post -- some in support of Harris, some in support of the venue, some in support of both. In all cases, the consensus is that the economic situation for small-scale touring is an absolute disaster these days.
In the comments, former Liturgy drummer Greg Fox had this to say:
Thor is my friend, as are the owners of sultan room. I think this post should be taken down or heavily edited for clarity. Sultan room always treats artists fairly. In this case my understanding is that the venue rented the room to a third party who ran the show. What that promoter did or did not do contractually with the artists they booked is not sultan room's fault. Also, artists should ALWAYS review contracts before playing gigs. If you don't read (or even have) a contract, you can't have any expectations. This business is trash and people like the folks who run sultan room create an umbrella that stops some of the shit from flowing downhill. Love to all involved and equity for all artists without question, but the pile on vibe here is uncalled for and inaccurate.
Responding to a comment, Fox also wrote, "smearing one of the few good venues in nyc when they are not at fault is wrong."
Angel Deradoorian commented:
I'm glad you posted this. People who don't play concerts can now see how venue breakdowns work. This is very typical. We pay to play. Venues have "room costs" aka "house nut" and all of that comes from our ticket sales before the band gets paid. It makes a band feel real shitty to get a piece of paper like this. Sultan Room should have at least waived the room cost. Also note that the band didn't even put comps down. This means everyone in the room paid for a ticket. This is the degrading tour industry now, y'all. It has never felt this bad. After Covid shit just kept going down.
Note: it is always appreciated if you can buy a ticket instead of asking for guest list in this f'd economy. It makes a difference.
Sorry this happened @thorharris
The band Bloomsday commented:
$850 is insane - the highest I've seen is $300 for this size and even that sucks.
Sultan room lures in touring acts from out of town, and should be ashamed for how they treat artists. Transparency is a MUST, before a band agrees to play here they need to know what they're signing up for.
I'm so sorry this happened yall :/
In a series of Instagram stories, opener More Eaze reshared the settlement and had this to say:
i’ll just say $400 for sound and lights being charged to the BANDS is crazy.... sounded good last night even though we made no money and sultan room doesn’t even have a designated lighting guy they’re paying $400 to -- they seemingly just flip the on switch on this wall... DMs are being flooded by people saying the same thing happened to them at the venue. don’t book sultan room
Others in the comments pointed out that the venue could've made money selling drinks and that the artists could've made money selling merch, though it's hard to imagine that we're talking about big numbers in any of those cases. The whole conversation is illuminating, and it's the sort of thing that fans don't often get to see.
Thor & Friends' latest album Heathen Spirituals came out on Joyful Noise in May. Tonight, they'll play at Providence, Rhode Island's Lost Bag.
