Versus, door and bonus deals: how settlement works

A versus deal pays the artist a guarantee or a percentage of the net door, whichever is higher. A door deal pays only the percentage, with no minimum. A guarantee plus bonus pays a fixed fee and adds agreed amounts when ticket sales pass set thresholds. Each of them is settled after the show, from numbers both sides agreed before it.

Who carries the ticket risk

With a flat guarantee, the promoter carries all of it. The other deals split it in different ways:

• Versus: the guarantee protects the artist on a quiet night, and the percentage lets them share in a full one. The guarantee is usually below the artist’s flat fee. The percentage is what the artist gets for accepting less up front.
• Door deal: the artist shares the risk completely. You see it with local and resident acts, new nights, collectives that bring their own crowd and small clubs with low costs. The percentage is higher than in a versus deal, because there’s no floor. A door deal rarely works for an artist who has to fly in.
• Guarantee plus bonus: a fixed fee with steps on top, for example €500 more from 600 paid tickets. The simplest of the three to settle, because only the ticket count matters, not the costs.

Gross, net and agreed costs

A percentage means nothing until both sides agree what it’s a percentage of. You need three figures (gross and net):

1. Gross box office: what ticket buyers paid for admission, presale and door together.
2. Net box office: gross minus the VAT included in the price, and minus ticketing fees if they sit inside the ticket price rather than on top.
3. Net after costs: net box office minus the agreed costs. In most club versus and door deals, this is the number the percentage applies to.

Ask five promoters what “net” means and you’ll get several answers, so write the whole chain into the offer: “70% of ticket revenue after VAT, ticketing fees and the agreed costs listed below.”

Agreed costs are a list with amounts or caps, fixed before the show. Typical items:

• room hire and in-house production
• additional sound, light and stage
• security, door and box office staff
• promotion
• support acts
• the collecting-society fee for the music (AKM in Austria, GEMA in Germany), where it’s charged on the event

Usually not on the list: bar staff and bar stock (the bar revenue isn’t shared either), the promoter’s office and overheads, and the fee of the artist being settled. The headliner’s flights and hotel are a cost only if the offer says so. If the promoter pays them on top and also deducts them, the artist pays for their own travel out of their share.

A worked settlement at three attendance levels

Say [Artist A] plays a 900-capacity club. We assume:

• tickets at €20 each, VAT included; the booking fee is paid by the buyer on top and doesn’t count
• the night qualifies for the reduced Austrian VAT rate of 13% (see VAT below), so each €20 ticket holds €2.30 VAT and €17.70 net
• agreed costs of €5,000: room and production €2,000, staff and security €1,200, promotion €800, support acts €1,000
• the artist’s travel is inside the fee (landed), so it isn’t a cost

Four deals for the same night:

• flat guarantee: €2,500
• versus: €2,000 guarantee versus 70% of net after costs
• door deal: 80% of net after costs
• guarantee plus bonus: €2,000, plus €500 from 600 paid tickets, €1,000 in total from 850

What the artist is paid:

What’s left of the door for the promoter, before the bar:

How to read it:

• At 300 tickets the versus deal pays the guarantee, because 70% of €310 is only €217. The door deal pays €248, and that’s the night every artist who travels has in mind when they turn one down.
• From the 444th paid ticket the versus deal pays more than the guarantee. That’s where 70% of the net after costs passes €2,000.
• At a sell-out the door deal pays the artist most. The flat fee leaves the promoter most, the bonus deal nearly as much. Between versus and bonus, the difference for the artist is €4,651.
• At 300 tickets the promoter is €1,690 down on a versus or bonus deal and €2,190 down on the flat fee. On a bad night, the lower guarantee saved the promoter €500.

Setting a fair versus

A versus deal is fair when both of its numbers mean something: a guarantee the artist can travel on, and a percentage a good night actually reaches.

• The guarantee is what the promoter can lose without the night hurting. In the example, €2,000 against a flat fee of €2,500.
• The break-even sits at an attendance the night can realistically reach. In the example, the percentage overtakes the guarantee at 444 paid tickets, about half capacity. If it only overtakes at 95% of capacity, the versus is a flat fee in disguise, and the artist has accepted less for nothing.
• Versus and plus are different deals. Some deals pay the guarantee plus a percentage of what’s left after the costs and the guarantee: the promoter recovers everything first, then the rest is shared. In the example, “€2,000 plus 50% after costs and guarantee” would pay €2,000, €3,810 and €6,465. Write down which one you mean.

Try your own numbers in the deal calculator.

Agree the cost list before the show, with amounts or caps. Nearly every settlement argument starts with a number someone sees for the first time on the night.

The settlement itself

The settlement is the statement both sides sign off after the show. It has:

• the ticketing platform’s report, by price tier and channel, with refunds
• the door takings, cash and card, and the scanned or counted entries
• the guest list and comps, against the agreed number
• each agreed cost, with receipts on request
• the calculation and the resulting fee

Settle the door on the night, with the artist’s tour manager or by email to the agent, and finalise presales once the platform’s report is in. Ask for that report as the platform’s own export, not a screenshot. Pay the share on the date the contract names. “When the platform pays out” isn’t a date.

Common disputes and how to avoid them

What counts as a cost. Items that weren’t on the list, a promotion budget that doubled, an “in-house production” line nobody defined. Agree items and caps in the offer, and settle with receipts on request. Anything not on the list isn’t a cost.

Comps and the guest list. Free entries bring in nothing, and fifty extra names on a busy Saturday show up in the artist’s share. Agree a number: guests up to it count as zero; above it, each counts as a sold ticket at the lowest price tier, or isn’t allowed at all. The artist’s own guests usually come out of the same list.

Ticket tiers. An early-bird ticket at €15 isn’t a €20 ticket. Gross is what buyers actually paid, tier by tier, not the number of tickets times the door price. A bonus threshold should say whether it counts paid tickets of any tier, or revenue.

Presales and door. Presales come from the ticketing platform, often paid out after the event and minus its fees. The door is cash and card on the night. Agree whether the platform’s fees sit inside the ticket price, and whether refunds and chargebacks reduce the gross.

Paid tickets or heads. Bonus thresholds and settlements count paid tickets, not everyone who came through the door. A full 900-capacity club with 200 people on the guest list is 700 paid tickets.

The bar. Unless the deal says otherwise, the door is shared and the bar isn’t. If a bar share is part of the deal, define it as precisely as the door.

Timing. Say in the offer when the statement arrives and when the share is paid.

VAT on tickets. The percentage is taken after VAT, so the rate changes the result. In Austria, admission to music performances is taxed at the reduced rate of 13% (§ 10 Abs. 3 Z 6 lit. b UStG 1994). The VAT guidelines name DJ performances as music performances (UStR 2000, Rz 1407), provided the music is the purpose of the night. Playing recordings, or music that only frames the bar, doesn’t qualify; then the standard rate of 20% applies (§ 10 Abs. 1 UStG 1994). In Germany, the Federal Fiscal Court held that techno and house nights can be concerts taxed at the reduced rate of 7% under the same condition (§ 12 Abs. 2 Nr. 7 lit. a UStG; BFH, V R 17/17, 23 July 2020). Other countries have their own rules. Put the rate the settlement assumes into the offer, and use the one your tax adviser confirms for the night. This is the state as of 1 October 2026.

This is general information, not tax advice. Check your case with a tax adviser.