Sultans of Swing

Practical Information for Prospective Clients

eMail: dwlit@cpcug.org

Contracting procedure   Wedding Reception Questionnaire

The following is basic information on the band and procedures that you should read carefully.

FEES--Please eMail us, providing as complete information as you can about the event, including the name, address and location of the facility, type of event, planned number of guests, your thoughts as to the size of the band, basic types of music you want. While you're at it, include your mailing address if you want a demo CD/tape , and your phone number.

For most weddings, the 5-piece "core band" is required, and the fee will include up to 4 hours. You may hire additional musicians.

The fee includes setup immediately before, breakdown immediately after the engagement. Earlier setup or later breakdown are charged at the overtime rate.  Usually only the rhythm players would be affected, since the horn players only have their instruments to set up.

Travel time:  The basic fee includes 80 minutes round trip from the DC beltway. There will be an additional charge per extra hour or fraction per musician total round trip time. (Our fees are based on time away from home, and we can't play another engagement while we are involved with your event.) If we know the location of the engagement, we have a map program that tells us the mileage, so we can usually predict the travel time pretty accurately.

Breaks:  We play 45 minutes and break 15 minutes each hour. We encourage you to have ceremonies such as cake cutting and toasts during breaks so you get the most music for your money. We usually MC the bouquet and garter events.

Overtime is charged per musician for 30 minutes. On evening engagements, we don't need advance notice. For afternoon engagements, our ability to do overtime depends on whether we also have an evening engagement.


Contracting: If you decide to hire us, we'll send 2 copies of a contract; within 2 weeks, you'll return one signed copy to us with a deposit for 50% of the agreed upon total; the rest will be due during the second band break.

We'll keep all of our eMail correspondence in a separate mailbox, and when you notify us that you intend to hire the band, we enter your event in our engagement database as a "Hold" and send you the contract. After that, if someone else calls with a firm offer to hire us for the same time, we'll notify you, and you will have 3 days to send the deposit. When we receive your deposit, we mark your event as "Confirmed", notify the musicians, and turn down any other offers for that time period.  If you find that you don't have time to deal with the contract right away, but want to reserve the band, you may send the deposit; that will give you "confirmed" status; we can firm up details later.


Playlist:  Although we have a standard list of tested crowd-pleasers, you may select the entire playlist. We'll go down the list, mixing up tempos and styles, and play as many as we can--usually 8-9 tunes per set. We do take guest requests, but won't play your hates. You can mark up a printout of our tune lists, and, at least 6 weeks in advance, even request some tunes not on the list--we'll let you know what's feasible.

Announcing:  We have an MC who will make all the formal and informal announcements you want. The MC usually leads the Bouquet and Garter ceremonies. Usually we don't announce the tunes. However, if you want, our regular MC can do a "night club" shtick.

Coordination of events:  Please note that we make announcements, but we do not coordinate events--we're too busy playing music; you will need to appoint someone (only one!) to be the liaison between you and the band and notify us of events as you wish them to occur.

Guests giving toasts and blessings may use our microphone.

Sound volume:  We don't bring a large sound system. We usually start softly and work our way up, but almost never get "loud", even when we are whooping it up. However, we don't mind requests to play more softly.

Break music: If we are playing mainly music from the "big band era", you and your guests will probably enjoy a break from the music. We do have a CD kit that includes nice background music, plus a large selection of "New Swing", Oldies, Motown, and some 1980s hits. (We don't act as a DJ, just put a CD on and let it play till we return.)


Audition ("demo") tapes:  The "sound clips" have replaced demo tapes. We can send you a CD or cassette tape of the same material. At this time we do not have any clips of the current band with trumpet, guitar, etc., nor the ballroom dancing or classic 50s rock'n' roll. But the clips answer all the relevant questions: "Is that a good trumpet player, saxophonist, vocalist, etc.", "Does the band sound good?"  "Does it play the music well, have my kind of beat..." etc. "Would I and my guests enjoy that music at my event?"

When listening to demos, keep in mind that the band is trying to convey an image of what it does, and how it does it. Each track is only an example of a particular type of tunes and tempos, merely the tip of an iceberg.
 
Public Appearances:  We are usually too busy to appear in public regularly, so unless a particular site is set up so outsiders can sneak in and listen, or we can schedule some public events between now and then, you may not be able to see us in person.
We'll put you on the mailing list to notify you of public events.


As soon as you have sent your deposit and contract to the band you're hiring, you should notify all the other bands you have contacted so they can take you off the books--this courtesy will save you time later, as most bands sooner or later will check on the status of the date.

There's no such thing as a silly question; answering questions is part of our job!  eMail is very convenient for saving information and refreshing oneself on what has been said, but if you want to call us to chat about your event, please don't hesitate to do so.

 

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Revised 9/17/03