How membership pays for itself

Membership organisations tend to describe their value in adjectives. This one can be described in numbers, so it should be, and anyone who does the sum and concludes it is not worth it should not join.

The starting position

Founding membership is $150 a year, capped at the first twenty members, and the rate is locked for as long as the membership is held continuously. Standard membership is $250 a year. Both include the same core benefits; founding members get more guest passes and the price that never rises.

Against the $150, the first line is the included professional setup. One a year, carried out at Mythic Guitar Company's bench, priced at $175 as a retail job. That single benefit exceeds the founding membership fee before anything else is counted. It is not a discount voucher or a credit toward a larger job. It is the same setup a walk-in customer pays $175 for.

The second line is admission

Guild Live runs roughly twice a month. Members are admitted free; the public pays $15 to $30. A member who attends both shows in a month, every month, is receiving somewhere between $360 and $720 a year of admission. A member who attends one show a month is receiving $180 to $360.

Attend three shows in a year and nothing else, and the admission alone has covered a fifth to a half of the founding fee. Attend one a month and the membership has paid for itself twice over on that line by itself.

This is where the honest caveat belongs: this benefit is only worth what a member actually uses. Someone who joins and never comes to a show has bought a setup at a small discount and a directory listing. That is a fine reason to join and a poor reason to expect the numbers above to apply to them.

The third line is the bench

Member repair pricing at Mythic applies to everything past the included setup: fretwork, electronics, nut and saddle work, structural repair, refinishing. Working players do not have one repair a year. They have a fret dress in the spring, a jack that fails in July, and a truss rod adjustment every time the weather turns, which in Central Texas is roughly four times a year and often twice in a week.

Members also get priority and emergency service. The value of that is not a percentage; it is the difference between playing Friday's show on your own instrument and playing it on something borrowed.

The lines that do not have a price

Several benefits resist arithmetic and are listed here without one, because inventing a number for them would undermine the ones above.

• The gig board and substitution network. One depping call that comes to you instead of somebody else covers a year of membership several times over. It might also never happen. Both statements are true.
• The verified artist directory. A profile that a booker can actually find, with your genres, lineup size, typical draw and fee range on it.
• Partner discounts. Strings, printing, and the other businesses in the partner directory. Small amounts, repeatedly.
• Guest passes. Two a year on standard, four on founding. Worth $15 to $30 each at face value and rather more as a way of taking somebody out.
• Guild Credits. Earned for bringing guests, attending, referring, performing and volunteering, spent on Mythic services, tickets, merchandise and partner services.

The whole sum, stated conservatively

A founding member paying $150 who takes the setup and attends one show a month receives $175 of bench work and roughly $240 of admission, at the low end of the ticket range, before a single discount, credit or guest pass is counted. That is $415 against $150.

The same member attending three shows in the year receives $175 plus about $60. That is $235 against $150 — still ahead, but a much narrower margin, and a fair description of what a light user gets.

The membership is priced so that a musician who uses it moderately is clearly ahead, and one who uses it heavily is absurdly ahead. That is the design. It only works because the shows are subsidised by ticket sales to non-members, sponsorship and partnerships.

Why it is priced this way

The obvious question is why membership is not priced at what the benefits are worth. The answer is that the Guild does not want dues to be its main revenue line. Dues buy the membership base; the membership base is what makes ticket sales, sponsorship and business partnerships work. A member who feels they got a bargain tells other musicians. A member who feels they broke even tells nobody.

The founding cap of twenty exists for the same reason. Twenty people who joined before there was much to join are worth more to an organisation like this than two hundred who joined once it was safe.