Fees for performers and workers

You can’t charge fees or deduct money from an entertainment worker or performer’s earnings until they agree to your terms and conditions.

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Creative's & Agent's cannot be the same

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An individual cannot be both a Creative & Agent on the same project.

 

A performer cannot be asked to give a commission of their fee’s to a choreographer or creative director on the same job. This would be against Equity regulations and a break of industry standards.

 

No person can be both creative and agent on the same project. This includes roles such as; choreographer, director, creative director, producer. 

 

The term protects against unfair choosing of talent and manipulation of those booked.

 

An agent's role is to submit talent for a project, they do not select the talent chosen. And a creative's role discovers the best talent for the project from those submitted by agents. They cannot submit and request agency commission from any talent upon the same project.

 

If any performer has had a commission of their fee’s taken by a creative upon the same project this can be reported and the result of reimbursement is possible.

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Double Dipping

U.K law states an agent’s fee must only be charged as a commission from earnings.

Agents cannot charge a fee to both the performer and the employer (aka double dipping) – it is breach of U.K law and illegal activity.

A proportion of entertainment and modelling agents differ from employment agents. Specifically when charging fees for their services;

·      Most employment agents charge a fee, or commission, to employers advertising jobs when able to fill their vacancies.

·      Entertainment and modelling agents, however, charge a fee or commission to the performer which they find work for, and not the employer or client hiring the performer.

Agencies cannot charge fees to both employers and workers. i.e charge the client an agency commission on top of the performers fee and then deduct an agency commission from the performers fees.

·      This part of the regulations is to ensure that an agent only receives one fee/commission.

·      Agents cannot request commission or any other payment for arranging a job from both the performer and your employer/client.

This fee is normally an agreed percentage of the amount to be paid by the performer to their agent as the agent has negotiated terms and arrangements on the performers behalf.

·      Fees or commission usually ranges from 10% to 25% between a performer and agency for a job.

·      The law and industry regulations include certain provisions relating to this fee, but they do not state what that percentage fee must be.

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Promotional fees for performers and entertainment workers (not models)

You can only charge upfront fees for listing the worker or performer’s details in promotional publications or on websites to help them find work.

 

Promotional publication includes listing information in publications or on websites and photographs or audio or video recordings.

 

You must give the worker or performer a chance to see any copies.

 

Other fees or commission for finding work normally come out of the worker or performer’s earnings from the employment that you found.

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Fees for promoting performers

You can only charge fees 30 days after the start of the contract (if there is a fee for promoting a performer).

 

In that 30-day period the performer can cancel or withdraw from the contract without penalty and won’t have to make any payment.

 

You need to show the performer any promotional photographs, audio or video before its published. They then have 7 days to object to anything being used.

 

You can’t charge the performer until the 7 days is over or you’ve dealt with any reasonable requirement from the performer, whichever is later.

 

You can charge fees for the following performers:

• actors

• background artists

• dancers

• extras

• musicians

• singers

• other performers

 

Fees for entertainment workers (except models)

If there is a fee for promoting a worker, you can only charge this 7 days after the start of the contract.

 

In that 7-day period:

• the worker can cancel or withdraw from the contract without penalty

• the worker doesn’t have to make any payment under the contract

• the worker can say what information shouldn’t be included in the publication

 

This covers the following types of workers:

• composer

• writer

• artist

• director or producer

• production manager

• lighting cameraman, camera operator

• make up artist, clothes, hair or make up stylist

• film editor

• action arranger or co-ordinator, stunt arranger

• costume or production designer

• recording engineer

• property master

• film continuity person

• sound mixer

• photographer

• stage manager

• choreographer or theatre designer