Rock Out to Retro Bands on a Budget for Corporate Events

While Shackman Associates New York has booked Grammy Award-winning talent at events where we close down major venues in Manhattan for private corporate events, meetings booked on short notice will likely have a tougher time pulling off an event with that kind of splash. Especially when the price for a band like the Rolling Stones recently reached $7 million.

Even if budget is no issue, busy schedules for major names can obviously be one.

So why not trying something a little more unusual that still has name-brand quality, like booking 60's and 70's bands before they can't perform at a high level.  The most available names we are seeing include Jefferson Starship, Stevie Nicks, the Beach Boys, and Huey Lewis and the News. Your destination meeting's executives will fondly remember these bands and millennials might think it's kind of retro-cool.  Your meeting could also try some old-school hip-hop; Rob Bass, Coolio and Tone-Loc can be had at reasonable costs, especially when playing in New York City can lead to other well-paid gigs.

Want to go totally disruptive?  You might consider the Dukes of Hazzard.  We're not kidding, and ironically, the Dukes are quite sophisticated these days. Stars John Schneider and Tom Wopat used Kickstarter to finance a 2014 Christmas album. Together, the band costs low five figures, but Wopat has been known to play a few smaller events by himself for as little as $3,000.  That would be one heck of an opening cocktail hour!