Samira asked: What you seem to be saying is "if the teacher is a sound business person she will arrange for no financial risk, but if the teacher has no risk it really puts the promoter in a bad position to possibly lose thousands." Can you please explain this further...

Certainly. The lack of risk doesn't automatically make for good business. The potential for reward is generally linked directly to exposure to risk. That's why the risk gets a share unto itself. Avoiding risk should, logically, reduce potential profit share. Any party (whether it the talent or the promoter) that accepts the potential downside, should share the potential upside.

My comment about good business practices for talent was really about making a financial decision regarding the benefits of sacrificing local revenues (and comforts) for road gigs. If the math works (and sometimes it's not strictly dollars; the right exposure/association also has value), then talent that doesn't assume a risk role should have no stress regarding their outcome. Sometimes talent agrees to a deal before doing this math and later realizes that they're taking a loss. Sometimes this same talent might grouse publicly about that loss. That approach hurts the producer, the audience, and ultimately the talent. If the talent does inadvertently make a deal that doesn't work for them, I'd suggest using it as motivation to always do the math in the future and put on a professional face in the present.

As for talent that assumes no risk putting producers in a position of risk, well... That's kind of implicit, but nobody holds a gun to their head. If a producer freely enters into a deal with a talent that assumes zero risk, they must know that somebody is assuming all the risk and should probably figure out that its themselves.

I guess my entire point is that risk equals reward.

As for the threat of producers who forgo risk having very little incentive to promote properly, that's as proportionally true as the possibility of talent who forgo risk having very little incentive to deliver good product. If we encourage a healthy economy where all parties are fairly rewarded for their contributions, neither should ever happen.

Currently, the bigger threat to this scene is that posed by inexperienced producers. These well-intentioned folk step in to fill the void created when previous producers accept all-risk/low-reward arrangements and are subsequently burned to the point that they don't repeat the process. This removes the benefit of an experienced producer from the scene.

Every producer has a first time and that should be encouraged, but in the right scenarios. Perhaps the first time out, it's as an assistant to a veteran producer, or perhaps operating a more modestly scaled affair, with little to no inherent risk of loss. Perhaps it's as the minority-share partner with an established talent willing to accept the risk. There's lots of ways for it to play out but the goal should be creating a community filled with experienced producers capable of creating successful events. Logically, that means more lucrative opportunities for more talent more often.

Just as savvy producers weigh the draw/deliver of a particular talent for a particular project, savvy talent should vet producers just as vigorously. Does this producer have a proven and consistent track record of taking care of their talent and their customers? Will they produce an event that I can be proud to be part of? That last point, while often disregarded, is crucial for talent conscious of protecting and promoting their personal brand.

Ultimately, it the responsibility of every party involved to manage their own budget and live up to their role to ensure successful events that not only make the current event work but also deliver to customers (students and audiences) in a way that creates a positive impression of this community and grows the general economy. Failure by any party to deliver not only jeopardizes the current project, it damages the future viability of all projects by burning customers.

And this all holds true no matter what the scale. Producers in smaller markets who bring in a teacher from just the next town over may assume smaller risks, but their responsibility to deliver is just as large as the major-market mega-festival producer. And the challenge can actually be greater, because they typically have fewer resources to work from. But, while the financial risk may be assumed by a single party in these cases, the threat is absorbed by us all. Customers burned by badly produced local events may reasonably assume all events in this scene are just inherently badly produced and stop being customers, which hurts everyone.

And I loved the previous "Broken Dance Economy" discussion in this forum. It should be mandatory reading for anyone interested in the Biz of Belly Dance.

bellydancebiz.tribe.net/thread...75b6260

a few things to look at as a host:
contract- single most important job is getting a good, clear contract so everyone is on the same page!
venue- for workshop & for performance- sometimes booked as much as a year in advance (even for small shows)- can also include finding folks to do lights, sound, stage manager, cleaning crew
insurance
music licensing for the show
advertising- this is a whole topic in & of itself...
registration- sending out, collecting, manning the door
arrange travel, lodging & meals for instructor
arrange snacks & water & other comfort measures for participants
communicate clearly with participants and others involved (studio owners, service providers)
Organize- get tech sheets & performer info correct, make sure everything is running on time- no getting locked out of the studio, etc.
Have an emergency use computer & printer for the instructor (can not count how many times we didn't have enough hand outs!)

I'm sure there is more I am forgetting, but there is something to get you started anyway.

As long as your rates are reasonable and you have adequate draw/deliver, I have no issues with your expectations of a promoter. My only thought is that there are many (this is not directed any one individual) artists that think nothing of charging hundreds and hundreds of dollars per hour and don't think twice about what it takes for an organizer to pay all the expenses. There needs to be some education about the needs of the artist as well as the needs of the organizers so that everybody benefits.