Should a band pay a dep's travel?

Usually, yes. A dep's journey is covered the same way every other player's is: worked out from the dep's own postcode, taken off the top before the band's pot is split, and paid out to the member being covered, who passes it on. The one thing worth agreeing before the gig is whether it sits on top of the dep's fee or inside it.

Most bands land on that without ever discussing it, which is fine until the night somebody's dep drives in from the other end of the country. The rest of this post is the parts that genuinely cause friction: whose postcode, who hands the money over, what a long drive costs the four people who did play, and the lift. If the word itself is new to you, the glossary entry for a dep is the one-line version and what is a dep the longer one.

Why is it the dep's postcode, not yours?

Because the dep is the one who drove.

It is worth being precise about what travel money is for in a function band, because the confusion comes from treating it as an allowance attached to a chair. It is not. It pays for a journey that somebody actually made, at a rate per mile the band sets, for the round trip from their own front door to the venue and back. That is all it is. The glossary entry for travel and mileage has the mechanics.

So on a night you are not playing, your usual run to the venue did not happen. Your dep's did. Whatever the band pays for travel on that gig belongs to their drive, not to the one you would have made.

Two practical consequences for the member being covered:

• Ask for the postcode when you ask them to play. It belongs in the same message as the date and the fee, not in a scramble the week after.
• Pass it on to whoever works out the figures. The person doing the band's sums cannot guess that the keys player for one night lives somewhere else.

Neither is a big ask, and both are things deps notice. A band that gets the drive right first time is a band that gets called back.

Does the band pay the dep's petrol, or do you?

Both, in a sense, which is why the question keeps getting asked. The money comes out of the band's pot, so the band is paying for the journey. But it usually reaches the dep through you.

In most UK function bands the chain runs one way: the band pays the member as though they had played, travel included, and the member pays the dep. The band's paperwork keeps the same shape every gig, a person who is not in the band never appears on its statements, and the dep deals with one human being, the one who asked them. The full arithmetic of that is in what a dep actually costs you, and who pays whom.

Some bands do pay a dep directly, and there is nothing wrong with it. If yours does, write down against that gig that it happened, and make sure the travel is not then paid out to you as well. The dull, expensive failure here is a band settling up with the dep on the night and the monthly statement paying the same travel to the member a fortnight later, because the statement did not know.

Is the travel on top of the dep's fee, or inside it?

This is the one that actually causes arguments, and it is the easiest to prevent.

Fee plus travel is the common arrangement and the one that explains itself. The dep's fee is for playing, the travel covers the drive, and the drive is costed exactly the way everybody else's is. It also scales properly: a dep who comes from nearby gets a little, a dep who comes a long way gets more, and neither has to argue about it.

An all in number is also perfectly honest. One figure, agreed beforehand, that covers the night and the journey. It suits a dep who lives close to the venue, and it suits bands that would rather settle one amount than two. The risk is that nobody says which kind of number it was, and the dep quietly assumes travel is still coming.

There is more on how bands set the fee itself in how much does a dep get paid. For the travel, you only have to answer one question out loud: is this on top, or is it in?

What if the dep lives much further away than you do?

Then that gig has more travel in it than it would have had, and every share is slightly smaller, including the shares of the people who did play.

That is how a travel off the top arrangement works, and it is not a flaw. The pot pays for the journeys the gig actually required, then what is left is split equally, so a long drive by anybody, member or dep, is carried by everyone. The reasoning behind that is in how do you pay band members fairly when some travel further, and the principle itself is the equal split.

What it does mean is one short message. Tell whoever runs the band that your dep is coming from a good way out, before the statement tells them. Nobody minds a longer drive they knew about. People do mind finding out from their own figures.

If the drive is really long, it is also worth asking whether there is somebody nearer who can do it. Not to save a few pounds, but because a dep who has to leave mid afternoon and gets home at four in the morning is a dep who plays one gig for you and never another.

Should the band pay travel for a dep who gets a lift?

Pay for the journey, not for the person.

If your dep travels with another member, or the band takes one van, there is one journey to cover, and it belongs to whoever paid for the fuel. Two people claiming the same drive is the thing to avoid, and it happens by accident rather than by anybody being dishonest.

Settle it on the day, in one line: who is driving, who is in the car, and whose postcode the travel is worked out from. Then tell whoever does the figures. The same applies when a dep is picked up on the way, which is common enough with a dep who does not drive.

What if your band does not take travel off the top?

Some bands do not. They split the fee equally and leave every player to their own fuel. That is a legitimate way to run a band, and it is also the arrangement where a dep is most likely to be caught out, because deps who play for several bands assume the common one.

If that is your band, there is no band travel to hand on, and the drive is simply part of what you and your dep agreed between you. You may well want to put a bit more on the fee to reflect a long journey. What matters is saying so in the message where you ask them, rather than letting them work it out from what arrives.

The two arrangements and what each one means for a player are set out in how band members get paid.

What should you agree before the gig?

Four lines, in the message where you ask them:

• The fee, and whether travel is on top or included. One sentence does both.
• Whose postcode the travel is worked out from, if it is on top. Theirs, as a rule, and ask for it there and then.
• Who pays, and roughly when. You, usually, and on about the date the band pays you. A known date is fine. Silence is not.
• What happens if it is cancelled. Agree it while it is still hypothetical and nobody is out of pocket.

That is the whole conversation. It takes a minute and it removes every awkward message that would otherwise arrive six weeks later.

Where it shows up afterwards

Whatever you agree, it should end up somewhere other than a memory: the gig, the date, who covered you, what the travel was worked out from and whether you have settled.

If your band uses Event Band Manager, that is already the shape of it. The gig page records who is covering whom, the travel for that date is worked out from the dep's postcode rather than the member's, it appears as its own line on the statement so every player can see what the night's journeys cost, and there is an I've paid them button against the dep, so settled is a recorded fact rather than a feeling. The player's side of all that is on the page for musicians, and the full list is on features. If you run the band, band management software does the same for every gig.

The short version

A band should pay a dep's travel, because somebody made the journey and that is what travel money is for. Work it out from the dep's postcode, take it off the top like everyone else's, let the member pass it on, and say in the first message whether it is on top of the fee or inside it.

Try your own numbers. Put the fee, the players and your dep's postcode into the free gig pay split calculator. It works the travel out from the dep's own postcode and shows every share to the penny. No account needed.