The Exploitation of Student Musicians in St Andrews

Large events in St Andrews cost committees tens of thousands of pounds to run. While organisers will shell out for venue hire, transport costs, security, and professional sound technicians, student musicians providing the entertainment at these events often see little to no pay.

The Saint spoke to more than a dozen artists from across the town’s music scene, uncovering a consistent pattern of underpayment. The majority of these musicians requested anonymity.

“We have played Christmas Ball two years in a row now without being paid,” a member of a prominent student band told The Saint. “Because we’re students, they think they can exploit us.”

Christmas Ball is run by Mermaids, a Union sub-committee, which is described on its website as “first and foremost a funding body” — a mantra seemingly at odds with their approach to paying student musicians. 

“We were asked to play at Christmas Ball for free last year,” Marco Gil Harris, singer and guitarist of the Macaronis, told The Saint. “We hoped we would at least get some exposure, but they had us playing in the Union Bar while people were getting on the bus and kept telling us to turn the music down.” 

A committee member of this year’s Christmas Ball independently confirmed to The Saint that the Ball was allocated a budget in the region of £65,000 by the Union. “Whatever profit we make gets rolled over to the Fringe Representative, and we spend it on sending shows to the Fringe,” this year’s Christmas Ball Convenor, Eilidh Read, said. “This year, that profit was in the region of £20,000.” Musicians questioned why none of this enormous surplus was used to fairly compensate the musicians.

Leon Tasch, the former President of JazzWorks who performed at the Christmas Ball in 2024, shared his experience. He explained that Mermaids agreed to pay £45, the price of a ticket, to each member on the condition that they left the event immediately after their set. 

“We were asked to perform outside on a rainy night in December,” Tasch said. “Our equipment was exposed to mud and rain, and after our set, we sought cover. We were then promptly asked to leave in order to retain our payment.”

Tasch also highlighted the poor communication and on-site support at Christmas Ball. “I performed at Christmas Ball with my a capella group, the Other Guys,” he said. “Our contract specified that we required nine microphones. This was agreed and signed by both parties, yet at the event, we were provided with four and told to make do. There was no Mermaids representative present to address this issue.”

The group received a carrier bag of cider as a belated apology.

Mermaids are not the only union-funded society accused of failing to pay performers. Gil Harris described a similar experience with CATWALK, the union-funded charity show, in September 2025.

“We played their pre-event for two hours without being paid,” Gil Harris explained. “We also provided them with sound equipment and stayed behind to help set up sound for the DJ later, so it definitely felt like we’d earned some form of pay.”

CATWALK, like Mermaids, is not short of money to pay artists. A source close to the Union revealed that the charity fashion show was set to make “huge profits” from this year’s event. 

The fashion show did not respond to The Saint’s request for comment. 

In response to The Saint’s request for comment, a spokesperson from the Student Union said the organisation has opened “a wider review of all of our networks,” looking into the “financial transparency, operational procedures, and structures” of each. 

Union-affiliated societies are not the only culprits. Five Card Draw, another popular student group, is one of several bands asked to play at a Barn Bash launch event for free. “As soon as I asked if we were getting paid, the tone of the conversation really shifted,” one of the band’s members said. “We were told it was a charity event, so we wouldn’t be getting paid.”

Organisers said Barn Bash relies on ticket proceeds from its launch event to run the main event in January. “We try to cut costs wherever we can,” this year’s Director of Barn Bash, said, “The reason a lot of events use student bands is because it’s a cheaper alternative to what you can get online.”

Musicians pointed out that funding is routinely allocated for venue hire, professional sound crews, and security, while student performers are often expected to play for free. Venues like the Rule charge £500 for hire, while security can cost anywhere from several hundred to several thousand pounds for larger events.

“We understand it’s a charity event, but when all the contractors are getting paid, we should be too,” another band member said. “If you’re going to sell tickets to an event and advertise us as the entertainment, we deserve some form of payment. We dedicate a lot of time [to] preparing for these events, not to mention the time it takes us to transport our equipment and set up.”

It’s not only charity events underpaying student musicians. HAUS, a for-profit DJ organisation, hired Grammy award-winning DJ Flowdan to perform a headline set. Flowdan’s agent confirmed to The Saint that his client charges between £5,000 and £6,000 for a set like the one he played at the HAUS event. A student band performing at the same event, however, was offered £40 to play for an hour. Split between the members, the fee amounted to £8 each per hour — well below the minimum wage in Scotland. 

“If we book a student band and pay them all £40 an hour, it’s just the same price as booking a small external act,” Archie Donald, the Founder and Director of HAUS, said. “We can’t always afford to pay double the rate for the same period of time.” 

These expectations also extend beyond student-organised bands. George Davies, saxophonist and band manager for JazzWorks, the Union-sponsored jazz group, was asked to play at the FS Fashion Show in 2025. He agreed to play the main event for free, but an FS committee member asked if he could also perform at the reception for corporate sponsors. In the past, these sponsors have included Red Bull, Dior, and Moët & Chandon. 

“Performing for an hour for wealthy corporate sponsors at an event where they can afford to spray Dom Pérignon across the stage, without getting paid, feels like it crosses a line,” Davies said. “For one member of the FS team to then suggest that I was being uncharitable for refusing to do that was a bit insulting.”

A representative of the FS 2025 committee denied this statement. “I do not believe that a musician asking for compensation for a performance is uncharitable, and would never personally or professionally label someone as such,” they said.

In a statement to The Saint, FS justified their payment policy on the basis that performing was “optional and voluntary.” Davies explained that performing for corporate sponsors before the main event had begun was not mentioned when he initially agreed to take part. 

As the band manager of JazzWorks, Davies is involved in an organisation that has adopted a proactive approach to payment.“We have a policy of only playing paid gigs, with the exception of a few selected gigs each term for small charitable societies without huge budgets,” Davies said. “We’ve found that standing up for payment has not really reduced the number of gigs we get.”

It has proved harder for independent student bands to secure fair pay. The oversaturated market in the town and the lack of independent venues mean that big events are the only opportunities for St Andrews students to perform to large audiences. This makes it difficult to push back against unpaid work, creating a race to the bottom over who will accept the lowest fee. “You’re scared to say anything because you’re worried you’ll never get hired again,” Gil Harris said. 

The St Andrews Music Fund, which often rents equipment to committees, introduced a Talent Compensation Policy last month, requiring organisers to pay performers a minimum of £15 each, per hour at events using their gear.

“Committees will happily pay for venues or to hire our equipment,” President of the Music Fund, Palmer Lykes, explained, “but when it comes to student musicians, suddenly they don’t want to pay. We hope this policy helps change this.”

Student-run committees and promoters are reliant on their peers buying tickets for their gigs, but students seem to be the only ones missing out when it comes to dividing the profits. As one musician put it: “Organisers act like it’s a privilege for us to play, but equally it’s a privilege for them to have live music at their event.”

Illustration by Eleanor Vielhaber