How we can offer gigs with no commission!

This is just about the most asked question we get! How can we offer the same cruise ship gigs as other agencies but not charge our musicians any commission or fees.

Here’s the deal. We are all former musical directors with large American-based cruise lines… many of which now rely on our services to source and recruit musicians on their behalf. If you’ve tried other agencies, you know the usual deal… you audition for them… they find you a gig and then bill you for 15% of everything you ever make again while on that gig. So if you work around 8 months a year and do a few year’s worth of contracts, you’ll probably end up handing over around $10,000 over the course of your ship employment.

We just think that’s unfair… and here’s the thing… totally necessary as well.

All the big cruise lines have recruitment budgets to pay third-party recruiters and agents like us to find them musicians. Why do not all agencies operate like this? Well, simply put, not all agencies have our personal relationships with the cruise lines, they don’t have our level of onboard experience and ultimately they aren’t trusted as much as we are by the cruise lines. Because we worked as musicians on cruise ships for decades between us, we know the gig inside out and we know that if you pass our audition, you will do well on a ship contract. We pride ourselves in having a 100% keeper rate… that is we have never had any of our guys fired from a ship for not being a good enough musician.

So – our auditions are probably more challenging than other agencies, and we would never put you in a position that you won’t succeed in and for those reasons, we’re trusted suppliers to several of the largest cruise lines in the world. They know that if we say you can play, you can play, and they’ll ask us to offer you a job. No commissions. No fees. And if your audition and resume are strong, we’re confident that we can get you a great starting salary.

So what have you got to lose? Get in touch today to find out more about our audition process and the gigs we can offer you.