How do you pay band members fairly when some travel further?

Pay each player's travel first, at a rate the band has agreed, and then split what is left equally. That is the whole answer. The player who drove furthest is repaid for the drive without being paid more for playing, and the player who lives round the corner is not quietly covering everybody else's fuel.

Everything below is the detail: why that order is the fair one, how to set the rate, whose postcode it comes from, what to do about lifts and passengers, what happens when a band does something else, and how you should be able to see your own line.

Why is equal-after-travel the fair one?

Because it separates two things that are easy to mix up. One is the work: everyone on the stage played the same night, took the same risk, learned the same songs. The other is the cost of getting there, which is different for every person. Pay the work equally, repay the costs individually, and nobody is paid more or less for anything except the thing they actually did.

A worked example, with round numbers. A duo, a fee that leaves a pot of £400. One player lives ten minutes from the venue, and the band works her travel out at £10. The other lives a long way off, and his comes to £60.

	Near	Far
Travel, taken off the top	£10	£60
Left to split (£400 less £70)	£330	£330
Equal share	£165	£165
Takes home	£175	£225

Both are paid £165 for playing. The far player gets £60 on top because he spent £60, and the near player gets £10 on top for the same reason. Nobody has gained from the arrangement and nobody has lost by it.

Now do it the other way round. Split the £400 first, £200 each, and leave everyone to cover their own drive. The near player is left with £190. The far player is left with £140. Same night, same set, £50 apart, and the only difference is where each of them lives. That gap is what makes people quietly resentful, and it is entirely avoidable. It is also why the order matters more than the rate: reverse it and the person with the longest drive pays for it every single gig.

This is the same method UK function bands use to split a gig fee, with a manager's cut and more players. The idea of an equal split is also in the glossary.

What rate per mile should the band use?

The band's own, and it is worth saying that plainly, because it is not a legal figure and nobody else sets it for you. It is meant to cover fuel and a reasonable contribution to the wear on the car, not the full cost of running one. Different bands choose different rates, and that is fine.

What matters is the rule around it:

• One rate, written down once. Not one rate for the weddings and another for the pubs.
• Round trip. The journey there and the journey home, both counted.
• Applied the same on every gig. A rate that moves with the mood is not a rule, and everyone can tell.
• Changed on purpose. If the cost of fuel moves, change the rate for everyone from a given date, rather than adjusting it for one gig because it feels unfair.

Do not confuse the band's rate with any figure used for tax. That is a separate thing for a separate purpose, and our guide to claiming mileage as a musician is the place to start for it. The number used to split a gig fee is whatever the band agrees.

Whose postcode does the travel come from?

The one the player actually travelled from. For most people that is home, and the band works the distance from there to the venue.

The case people forget is the dep. When a member is covered, the journey that was made is the dep's, so the travel is worked from the dep's postcode and goes into the same sum. The member still gets their equal share, and the dep's travel is paid to the member to pass on. If the dep lives a long way off, every share on that gig is slightly smaller, including the ones belonging to the players who did turn up. It is worth telling whoever runs the band before the figures arrive. There is more on how much a dep gets paid elsewhere on this site.

For anything else, such as a player coming straight from another job or staying away the night before, pick a rule and apply it. "From where you actually set off" is the usual one. What matters is that the rule exists before the first awkward case, not after.

There is more on how distance is worked out in the glossary entry for travel and mileage.

What about lifts and passengers?

The moment two players share a car, the sums have to know about it, or the passenger is paid travel for a drive they did not pay for.

The clean rule: the driver claims the miles and the passenger claims none. The band's sheet then shows one journey. If the two of them want to split the fuel privately, that is between them.

A band that wants to encourage sharing can pay a small lift allowance, a fixed amount to the driver for each passenger. That is fine, as long as it is written down and is the same for everyone. What does not work is "we will see how it feels on the night". That is how two people end up working out in the car park who owes what.

What happens when a band does something else?

Bands do, often. The common alternatives, and where each one tends to go wrong:

• Split evenly and everyone pays their own travel. Simple, and the long-distance player loses on every gig. It works while everyone lives in the same town. The moment someone moves, it quietly stops being fair, and nobody says so.
• One flat travel amount for everyone. Easier to work out, but it overpays the near player and underpays the far one, and it raises the question every time somebody's journey changes.
• Whoever organises decides on the night. Fine until the first time two players remember it differently. A decision made in a car park is not a record.
• Extra pay for the long drive. This starts as generosity, and the trouble comes later: it mixes the pay for playing with the cost of travelling, so nobody can say what either one is.

Each of these fails the same way. They put a rule in someone's head instead of on a page, and a head is the wrong place to keep it. The equal-after-travel method is not clever. It is just the one that still gives the same answer when the people change.

The wider story of what comes off a fee before anyone is paid is in how band members get paid, and what you should be able to see.

How do you see your own line?

If you play in the band and do not run it, you should be able to see how your own number was reached. Not everyone's, only yours. A fair statement shows, for each gig:

• the fee the band received
• anything taken off the top, such as a cut
• the pot, and everyone's travel
• the equal share
• your travel, and the postcode or distance it was worked from
• your total

If a figure has no workings behind it, that is the line to ask about, calmly. "How did you get to this?" is an ordinary question, and a band that works this way will have the answer to hand.

If you want to see how this looks on your own gig, put the fee, the players and each person's postcode into the free band gig pay split calculator. It works out every travel figure and the equal share to the penny, and nothing is stored. If you want the same thing kept for every gig, with a statement each, Event Band Manager does that, and the page for musicians and the list of features show how.

The short version

Agree a rate. Work out each player's travel from where they set off. Take it off the pot and give it back to them. Split what is left equally. Write the rule down once, and show the workings every time.

Try your own gig. The band gig pay split calculator is free, takes a minute and needs no account.