As some of you know, I’ve a bit of a background in the music industry (often described as “my other expensive hobby” – though, neither I see as hobbies, moreso lifestyles – but hey ho)

I’ve often seen many parallels between the music industry and the Femdom industry. So much so it’s scary.

First – some like for like

So.
Mistresses are your Rock Stars.
They’re the public face of the industry you see and, to be honest, the bit you’re most interested in.

Dungeons, clubs and play spaces are your live music venues.
In order to see the band/Mistress play you need somewhere to experience it and somebody somewhere has paid for it.
(in music this is usually a promoter – in Femdom a lot of parties and events will have a promoter, but solo Mistresses not so much)

Clip Stores are your record labels of sorts (though, record labels used to pay an advance and then take a cut of your earnings – now there’s no real advances and everyone takes a cut)
(Perhaps more that content producers are the record labels and clip stores are more like the HMV)

Mistress Directories – well, if the Mistress pays to be there then they are like magazine advertising. In a magazine few people read.

Mistress News Sites – equivilent of online music blogs. And, yeah, there’s a growing amount of music magazines where if you want your news/article printed you also have to take an advert.

Twitter is Twitter (same kind of promo logic)

OnlyFans/Premium Content/etc. is similiar to a Patreon (pay a monthly amount and get stuff others don’t or before them) or possibly ‘deluxe edition albums’

FetLife is like one of those local music forums, you know, where people complain if a gig in their town isn’t free entry whilst simultaniously complaining their favourite band doesn’t play their town whilst simultaniously sharing rips of music while simultaniously moaning whenever someone tries to sell their music “well give us a sample so we can see what we’re buying”

So.
Anyway.

This takes us on to the crux of my points.

Compliments aren’t currency

“I really like your band”
“You’re so pretty Mistress”

Do you know how many times per day people hear this?

As a comment on it’s own it carries very little weight.

I’m not sure what you expect next.

It doesn’t actually help anyone. I mean, if compliments could pay the mortgage then, maybe…

“I’m such a big fan, I torrented all your stuff”

Then, no, you’re not really a fan.
I mean. You’ve taken something, for free, from someone trying to make a living through what they create.
And you’ve obviously decided you’re a fan – possibly you like the content, it’s something you’ve related to, something that got you excited.

What makes you decide you’re a fan?

636x460design 01 - Mistresses are Rock StarsIn the world of finances, I kind of understand what a juggle things can be and sometimes you want something and your financial priorities are elsewhere and not paying your bills gets you cut off, and you starve if you don’t buy food (and the punishment for shoplifting outweighs the punishment for downloading) and culturally you struggle a little bit with the idea of “this thing I want costs £12, I’m going to the pub tomorrow and spending £20, if I didn’t go to the pub I could buy the thing and have £8 left over.”
We don’t get into the idea of self-sacrifice like that.

And there’s even a kind of justification of “If I bought all of the music/porn I wanted I definitely wouldn’t be able to afford it even if I did make financial sacrifices elsewhere… so I’ll pay for none of it” which, hmm…but you’ve still found something/someone you enjoy enough to decide you’re a big fan – that the content is clearly of good quality – and yet you’ve not yet thought to give something back above a compliment.
Compliments don’t allow the person you like to keep making the content you enjoy.

Why not consider giving something back? Go see the band in concert, book time with the Mistress, spread the word so someone else might put their hands in their pockets. I mean the value of gift might be lower than the value of the content you took, but, still.

“but they’re raking it in”
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raking all the cash!

You see the £100/£150/£200 per hour tribute or the £10/£20/£40/etc ticket price.
You do some weird calculations in your head at how much is being made.

But, you forget to do the deductions.

Ohh…
I’ve never tried to calculate how much someone makes because (a) it would be rude (b) I would be wrong
But I know it is “less than you think”
Because there’s venue hire to take out of this, travel, web hosting, PR, accounts, admin, advertising.
Also – maintaining an image. Hair, make up, pedicures, manicures, outfits, maintaining equipment, repairing equipment, replacing equipment.
Oh – and – umm, tax and national insurance.

And besides.
Even if they were.
How does this make your throwaway ‘compliment’ of any value above those who’ve put them in that position?

“OK. I genuinely can’t afford/justify this, but,umm, do like the content put out. What can I do?”

That’s a good question.
Telling the Mistress She is pretty or the band that they’re good doesn’t really help them in the slightest.
Telling others. That helps.

Retweet, signal boost, write a blog about how great they are and how others can pay them, recommend them to people. Tell your peers.
When you are in a position to buy or gift or book concert tickets or a session or whatever then do.

Some concert cliches are true

But, to further my angle on the “Mistresses are rock stars” thing.

One of the first gigs I went to, probably the first actually (consider my first 4 gigs included seeing the first band twice, so I know which band it was, just not which gig – the band was Pitchshifter by the way, whom, although their later stuff went off the boil for me – some of their mid-late 90s stuff was superb.) and they did a slight cliche in the sense it was a bit “This is how it works. We play, we give energy to you – you then dance and sing and cheer and it gives energy back to us, that makes us play better and harder cos we can see you’re enjoying it” – and, you know, the same logic often applies in sessions and play.

Sometimes I don’t always get this right if I’m not in the right place mentally – but, you know, the logic still applies.
Because, it’s what it’s all about, really. People coming together in one space at one time to create some magic.

But… there’s more.

The exposure myth

This gets quite complex.
It also involves pulling the curtain back a little bit further than I’d like – but – consider there’s a big difference to playing in a pub to 7 people where you’re barely mentioned on the listings and being listed as “special guests” on a sizeable tour playing to a couple of hundred per night. The former being unpaid and the latter possibly paying to be there.

The problem is, too many people try to use “for exposure” as means to get a band to give their product for free.
If the band is being given a crowd of a couple of hundred people they wouldn’t normally get to impress – that’s exposure.
If they’re bringing people to your bar then that’s not exposure for them, that’s take for you.

The same happens in Femdom to different degrees – I’m sure most Mistresses have been offered terrible deals to do pictures or make clips or come to a club or party in exchange for “exposure” which isn’t really going to boost their reputation – whilst I’m aware of such opportunities that do.
(there’s also a side note of “I know it won’t boost my reputation, but I want to do the gig because it will be fun.” which is different.)

lf8tj - Mistresses are Rock Stars

not all ‘exposure’ is bad, but – don’t be duped if people are making money out of you!

I think a lot is for everyone to weigh up.
Will the money I make for this pay for the outlay?
Will it signifigantly boost future bookings/sales?
And… will it be fun?
And addressing things on merit on a case to case basis.

But, I think a point here is that if you are about to offer a Mistress a terrible deal which will not boost Her reputation, but will benefit you.. then… err… don’t.
Equally, if you want to add a band to your gig to sell tickets and bring their mates, supporting a touring band but you put them on at 6.30pm well before fans of the other bands can make it down to check out this band, then, yeah, don’t do that either.

Funnily enough, the day after I wrote this part in draft, a Mistress shared a screenshot of such an ‘offer’ where someone had video ideas he wanted to do with Her on a profit share basis.

This seems fair, but, umm… he’s an unproven random looking for effectively free/no-risk content – so She gives up time to film his kinks/ideas and if it doesn’t sell She gets, well, nothing.
(while the idea of producing my own content does sometimes appeal to me… I appreciate even as someone who is relatively known that I’m probably going to have to agree a fixed fee….)

Going back to another angle.
You never see the soundcheck, only the show.

I remember years ago in a discussion group “Oh, it must be great being in a band [referring to a particular band in question] – travelling around the country, meeting adoring fans everywhere you go – then coming back and writing some songs to do it all again”

The band in question I know hated touring. Though I’ve seen them 7 times (and am in some of their live music videos, as a young lad just 18) I interviewed them once and it was a “we only tour because our record company tells us we have to. I obviously love fans support us, but a lot you speak to are quite entitled about wanting your time and I’m not really big on interaction with people, especially strangers. We get given a spending budget of £7 per day, so if the promoter hasn’t provided sufficient food we don’t eat. I just want to write and record and create, but we have to tour to promote what we’re selling”

cwd5sqyueaqnpu7 - Mistresses are Rock Stars

and if you think the mic check is boring, you’ve never sat in for soundchecking the drums….

I mean, obviously a lot of bands do enjoy touring, but, it’s not always the glamour you think. There’s a lot goes on behind the scenes. And while the fan can turn up at 7pm for doors, watch the bands and be home by 11pm – for most mid-level bands they’ve been on site since early afternoon, loading in gear, setting up, soundchecking so they sound their best with the facilities available, trying to find time to eat and get ready and then after the show having to pack everything down and get out – if it’s a bus tour, possibly sleep and drive and if it’s a van tour going to whichever hotel they’re shoved in ready to get up early for the long drive to the next spot.

And of course there’s parallels – that, well, some elements of the job Mistresses don’t like but have to do in order to promote themselves or diversify income, or to comply with the law or whatever. That for a session, the Mistress may have been at the premises an hour, or more, before you arrive (and paying rental for this time) setting up equipment, getting dressed, make up on – so you come in and see Mistress-mode from start to finish (at which point She is staying behind cleaning up and putting the room back how it was)

You don’t see the time She spends talking with people who don’t book session (timewasters or otherwise), researching things to improve what She does, researching you… (sometimes) so you get the best experience, shopping for new equipment and outfits that will add to the sessions…
So forth.

And, finally…

Assorted ‘business advice’ from tight or entitled ‘fans’

“You should do this thing…” pretty much always means “this thing will benefit me and probably very few other people – especially not you”

The classic for bands is when tour dates go up and someone shrieks “Play my city”
Plotting tours takes a little while. Where is played is based on things like cost to go there, likely revenue, how it benefits a strategy, the size of the market, whether it’s been overplayed recently, so on so forth. Shrieking your city name helps nothing here – it’s not like they can look at dates and be like “Oh, we missed your city, silly us – we’ll reroute everything and slot a date in”

cant download - Mistresses are Rock Stars

or a session…

Also see anything about how tickets should be cheaper. The “if you charged less more people would come to your shows” fallacy.
I mean, when you say that to Metallica who are gonna sell out at £90 tickets, they’d sell out at £50 tickets. So why miss out on £40 per head?
But also… some maths…
Let’s say a show needs £1000 to break even – tickets are £10 so needs 100 people.
80 people show.
Shit.
£200 short. The promoter is the one usually out of pocket here. Sometimes, in rare cases, the band may agree  slightly lower fee or some such. But, it should never be expected. It’s happened to me twice.

Anyway.

If tickets were £8 the show would STILL need £1000 to break even and so needs 125 people. 45 more than came at £10 tickets. The £2 saving is not going to attract an extra 45 people.
However, if tickets were £12.50 – then only 80 people are needed to break even. While it’s possible that some people might be put off, it’s not going to be many – and needs to be as many as 16 before the show is worse off.
So, the truth is, putting prices down to attract customers is bad business.
Yet, “fans” suggest it is good business.
It’s not.

Of course, there is a line – the people paying the £10-£12.50 are people who are fans of the band or supporting the genre or whatever, as you start to crank the price up you get a mixture of the “well when I saw them in 1983 it was £3” or the casual fan gives it a miss or so forth, so the higher you go then, yes, the more it does put off.
But certainly when you’ve priced your sweet spot, putting prices down doesn’t necessarily gain more business. Or certainly, not enough viable business when you consider some of my other points.

So to apply to Mistresses, someone on a £200-per-hour tribute, She has monthly expenses.  If She charges £150-per-hour She STILL has monthly expenses and now needs more sessions to make the same money AND if She is renting a premises by the hour actually has more expenses by asking less!

What is different, however, is a discount trial period, or special day or special offer, because any business of any sort prices up the cost of discounts and what they hope to gain from it.
But these only works when the business dictates the discount or special, not the buyer, because when the buyer dictates it it’s not “advice” it’s being a cheapskate.
I’ve another future blog that goes into this a bit more. But still.

And this returns to my top point. Being a cheapskate, doesn’t help support anyone in their business – your favourite band split up? Your Mistress packed in?
Should’ve taken the chance when you had it….