At the other end of the spectrum, I hired a local blues cover band to play my private party for $600 and all they could drink. The “all they could drink” part nearly made it cost prohibitive.
Not at all. He is only $25k, so simply book him, and Crosby & Nash, at the same time, and you have the trio for half price. 
Neil Young, however, is $750,000+. 
That list is really strange. They have groups on there that I don’t think are playing together at all and haven’t been for years, like Dire Straits. And who knew Quiet Riot was still trying to tour since their singer died years ago. Still doesn’t make much since as I’ve seen some of those bands in really small places with 20-30 people and there’s no way they would have paid them $50k, they never would make anywhere near that back.
If it is true though one could have one hell of a metal show for a quarter of a million, lots of bands from 10k-50k who I’d much rather see then people like Motley Crue for $250k.
Biggest surprise? Jada Pinkett Smith for $10,000. What possible use could another $10k be to her?
**This list is bullshit. **
Anyone with even the slightest knowledge of music should know that the Allman Brothers played their last concert ever last night. Bob Weir and Ratdog have been on an indefinite hiatus for months. Bobby Womack is no longer among the living.
If I book them, do I have to provide the roadies for set up and tear down? Do I have to supply the sound system?
I suspect the list actually represents, “we found where these people once played a show at this price.”
Does the price include M&Ms with all the brown ones removed?
Regards,
Shodan
This list doesn’t even agree with the source they cited and is laughably wrong. For example:
and every other name I bothered verifying was also off by some degree.
If you’re really curious, just go to Celebrity Talent and look at the data yourself. Celebrity Talent is a broker for corporate events. You submit to them a list of a dozen or so celebrities that you think would be suitable for your event and are within your budget and then they go and negotiate with each one to find someone suitable. They don’t have a contract with any celebrity, they simply facilitate the booking process and the numbers on the website are just their best guess.
I’m a fan of singer / songwriter Toby Lightman. She ran a PledgeMusic drive last year to fund her new, self-produced album. As part of that drive, she offered:
- For $5,000, she’d travel to you, and perform a solo concert at your house.
- For $10,000, she’d do the same, only she’d bring a backup band.
I don’t think that anyone bought either of those pledges, though the drive itself proved to be successful, and she just released the album.
$15,000 for Mickey Dolenz?
That must be theoretical since I can’t imagine anybody’s ever actually paid it for him alone (not since before LBJ left office, anyway).
Speaking fees for non-musical acts vary just as widely and as erratically. Alice Walker (The Color Purple) asks for- and receives- north of $50,000 for a single appearance, while some internationally famous celebrities or politicians or writers will apparently come there for a cheese sandwich and bus fare.
I was on my college’s student affairs committee that booked entertainment ca. 1990 and I remember receiving a list. Since we were fairly small we had to look at the low end, and I remember that included George Takei from Star Trek, who then received $2,000 plus travel and per-diem. Thanks to his internet fame he’s now in the $40,000-$75,000 category on one site.
William Shatner is demanding $75,000 minimum for a speech.
What exactly would make him worth it? He wasn’t even the best Kirk.
Hot Tuna | $35,000+
Alice Cooper | $60,000+
And then*,*
George Thorogood & The Destroyers | $125,000
? That can’t be right.
Tuna opening for The Coop would be less expensive than Thorogood alone?
At the cons I’ve been to most celebrities sell their autographs for $20 per, with a few really big ones selling for $50 (Tom Felton was one who charged this much). The most I ever saw anybody charge for autographs “on the floor” was Christopher Lloyd, who charged $75 and had a long line for his table.
Shatner charges $100 and signs them remotely (i.e. you don’t talk with him or chit-chat while he signs) and you pick them up from his assistant. Presumably, some people still buy them.
As as been pointed out repeatedly, this list is very inaccurate to say the least.
That was because he was doing the “Evil Kirk”, from “The Enemy Within”.
Ah! Conventions.
750 people paying $100 for a collectable from an iconic show seems a lot less crazy than one person paying $75K to hear a crappy scifi author drone on for an hour.
Remote signing sounds extremely unmagical.
Why would you think that it’s one person paying to hear another person talk? Most likely it’s one person paying $75k and renting a theater and then selling tickets and hoping to make a profit. Or a large organization, like a university, paying for it out of their entertainment budget for their members/students to watch.
I find it ridiculously unbelievable that you could hire Katy Perry for a mere $750,000.
And although I love them, I’ll bet you could haggle Richard Cheese & band below $10K! Right in the middle of one of their songs he stops and says, “Seriously, we do weddings…”