kiyaanii mom

Last year our committee got burned by our Host Northern Drum. They only showed up with 3-4 singers. We did not have a contract. We decided we better do contracts this year with our drums.

Does anyone have a sample contract?

What guidelines should we include?
What penalties would be fair if our drums aren't crewed up as outlined in the contract.

MissFancyChick

a penalty i would think of would be, less $$... maybe losing Host status... verbally abusing the drum throughout the weekend.. AYES!!

just make the penalty fit the crime.. and if you take the HOST status, make sure you have a back up... haha

make sure you have all this outlined in the contract also, so they have an idea what to expect...

maybe a certain amount of money per drummer, per session... i dont know haha

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Love the Dance...
Feel the Drum

lsijohn

Honestly I don't think contracts work very well. A committee I worked on did that with a host drum and even though the host drum signed the contract --- something better came up for them and they took off somewhere else.

How do you hold the whole group responsible for this contract??

Generally our contract included how many sessions the powwow had, outlined the honorarium, things we expected the host drums participation, minimum singers at the drum, and permission to sell their CD's.

Thankfully we didn't pay anything up front to this group. But it sure put the committee in a bind because we didn't find out the drum wasn't coming until a few days before the powwow!

Best of luck to you and your committee.

chazziff

threaten to post their name on the internet as "big bums" if they all don't show up ... ayez!!

just keep in mind the amount of money you are paying them, the amount of money it will take to transport from where they are based to where you are and most importantly their track record ...

get to know the group - review their cd's. go check them out on their "turf." get a roster of singers when you are initially setting up the contract of their original singers and emphasize the fact that you are paying for this crew not a pick up crew.

give them advance give it a couple of days before the pw for travelling to get there - if they are asking for it weeks/months in advance - red flag.

give the some when they arrive at the pw and keep an amount as a "deposit" until the end of the pw for any damages done to the rooms you have gotten for them.

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opwaaganasin

i take care of most of our negotiations for our group, pipestone. we have from wisconsin and have hosted all over indian country. as far west as washington, as far east as north carolina, and as far south as louisiana and alabama, not to mention just about everywhere in the north. first thing you do is contact the group you are interested in asking. ask they what they would charge, and how many rooms they would need. some drums are just outrageous, and others will surprise you at how affordable they are. ask them how many singers they would bring and use the number they give you in the contract. when we host we try to bring the best possible crew to represent our music, but things happen and we aren't always to bring everyone. never have we been penalized though, since we always have a minimum of what we say we will. next, you can negotiate. say they ask for 2,500, offer them 2,000, see what they say. some will go for it, some won't. its like bargaining with anything else. just remeber, if you are trusting the drum to stick to their word, make sure you stick to yours. more than a couple times we got the old "well there is some money missing", or "we only got you 2 rooms instead of four", "we didn't make as much at the gate as we thought we would." goes both ways. our group bases it all on the distance of travel. if we could get around on our good looks, we wouldn't charge anything to host. unfortunately, gas is outrageous, cost of vehicle maintainence, families, time off of work etc, we have to charge. usually base it on long it takes to get there. 5 hr ride or less, we'll do it for 1,500 for a 3 day weekend. 5-10 hours, 2,000, 10-15 hours 3000, 20 hrs +4,000 or more. we hosted ft.hall idaho 2 summers ago which is about a 22 hour ride for us. they gave us 6,500 and 6 rooms. above and beyond what we'd ever ask for. so we showed up with 13 guys and 4 back up singers. let them get their money's worth. but any committees interested in pipestone let me know, we are as reasonable as it gets these days for a high caliber drum group. looking to host more this summer.