Yes! Supporting artists is core to the Sofar mission. Here are some ways we financially help artists:
- Across all ticketed Sofar shows, we pay our artists a minimum of $100 (or local equivalent), a figure which increases with the size of the audience. The more seats in the audience, the more artists get paid. Payment works a little differently at our ‘pass the hat’ shows, where artists keep 100% of show proceeds beyond expenses. Head here for more information.
- Across all ticketed Sofar shows, artists are paid roughly 70% of net profits.
Note: Some of our curator shows (operated by independent concert organizers around the world) are donation-based. At these shows, artists are paid 100% of profits after show expenses. - Artists are paid 100% of profits from merch they sell at the show.
The cherry on top: Artists are not expected to sell tickets to get paid. Instead, Sofar promotes the show so the artist can focus on their performance.
We also support artists by promoting artists’ music through our regular content, such as New Music Alerts and Sofar Artist News. Find out more here.
It doesn’t stop there though: we also run a video performance series called The Listening Room, where we promote artists’ entire sets. Artists film their performances, we upload them to our channel, and they benefit from Sofar’s global reach. Want to submit? Find out how.
Through all this, we’re proud to have helped artists with some of the following wins:
- We've built out a series of new live formats and have done well over 1,000 shows with compensation >$1K per artist.
- Since 2020, Sofar has directly paid over $30M to artists performing at Sofar shows. This is in part thanks to the new fan reward and VIP campaigns, both of which we manage through our concert platform, Seated.