Santa Cruz Music Festival is not paying local performers. They're saying no.

Plenty of bands are asked to play the Santa Cruz Music Festival. But according to musician Kevan Smedt, the festival is not offering to pay local artists. Shown: Pacific Avenue in downtown Santa Cruz, Calif. on April 7, 2019. less Plenty of bands are asked to play the Santa Cruz Music Festival. But according to musician Kevan Smedt, the festival is not offering to pay local artists. Shown: Pacific Avenue in downtown Santa Cruz, Calif. on ... more Photo: Nic Coury, Special To The Chronicle Photo: Nic Coury, Special To The Chronicle Image 1 of / 178 Caption Close Santa Cruz Music Festival is not paying local performers. They're saying no. 1 / 178 Back to Gallery

Kevan Smedt, a musician who lives in Los Gatos, recently got a strange email in his inbox.

Addressed to his band, Skyline Hot Club, it read: "We want you on SCMF19" (that's this year's Santa Cruz Music Festival). A few lines later, the email says: "Pay: $0."

OK, so no pay. Surely, he thought, they'll at least offer a full pass to the festival? But all that was offered was a "ParkPlus Pass," which doesn't give access to the bigger venues on the lineup (a.k.a. where all the headliners play).

Smedt quickly declined the offer.

"Firstly, it's insulting to ask people to play for free. Secondly, I make my living — or at least part of my living — playing music professionally, so for me to block off an entire weekend to not make any income doesn't make sense," he explained.

The Santa Cruz Music Festival, which is in its sixth year, is scheduled for Oct. 19-20 with over 100 acts performing across more than a dozen venues. This year's headliners include Jai Wolf, Hippie Sabotage, Autograf, and Louis Futon. Tickets run from $60 (early bird, not full access) to $1,200 (two-night hotel VIP package for two).

But not paying wasn't the only uncompelling aspect of this slot on the festival's bill. The email offer also included a radius clause, asking that performers not play any shows in Santa Cruz for the two months preceding the festival.

"October is still prime event season time, so if I decided to play that festival because I thought it would be an adequate opportunity, I would be losing out on two full days of income," said Smedt, who plays mostly private events such as weddings.

Radius clauses are standard practice for large events, but not when the artists are not being compensated, explained Smedt.

Brian Crabtree, a representative for the Santa Cruz Music Festival, explained that while the festival preferred performers don't play elsewhere in the area, they are open to waiving the radius clause.

"Our booker has waived 100 percent of the radiuses for anybody not getting paid for the festival every year," said Crabtree.

But why not offer to pay artists?

"We pay a majority of our musicians," said Crabtree. The headlining national acts are getting paid, for example — but smaller, local acts being asked to play one of the eight stages of the festival that are free to the public may not be.

Crabtree also stated that the offer was negotiable, and that some musicians originally offered zero could negotiate some amount of payment. However, "as an independent festival with no major corporate backing," paying everyone "isn't in the cards," he added.

It's the classic "work for exposure" model that every up-and-coming artist comes up against. Locally, as Nastia Voynovskaya reported for KQED, Apple doesn't pay the artists performing in its stores, instead offering them low-end merchandise. Until recently, musicians who played Sofar Sounds, which puts on shows in people's living rooms, were not compensated, as reported by Emma Silvers for KQED.

Play this gig for free and you'll gain hundreds of new fans, which will pay off in the future, these events promise.

Playing for free, however, often ends up costing artists money — either from travel costs or from missing out on other paying opportunities during the event's time frame. And, said Smedt, "It just opens the door for more opportunities to play without pay."

Other local musicians also received this "play for no pay" offer from the festival. Colin Gailey, another Santa Cruz musician, was asked to play the Santa Cruz Music Festival for free with his band, Jive Machine, last year.

"We received an email saying there would be no compensation, but they talked about how it would be a great opportunity," said Gailey. "I renegotiated, and said I had too many people in the band to do that. They said their hands were tied."

Eventually, Gailey and his band did agree to play the festival and received a small amount of compensation — but due to rainy conditions, the band of eight members had their set cut short from 30 minutes to 10.

Gailey has not been invited back to the festival this year.

Many local musicians have been gathering on social media to commiserate over the festival's decision to not pay local artists. Smedt shared screenshots of the email he received on Facebook, leading to over 100 angry comments. The screenshots were then posted on Reddit, where the post gained even more traction.

"One of the reasons that I've decided to do all this posting on social media is because the city that this thing is occurring in is already sort of a notoriously difficult city for you to get any paid work," explained Smedt. "Santa Cruz is oversaturated with people who play music, so there's fierce competition, and this attitude that artists need to be suffering for pay."

The Santa Cruz Music Festival not offering to pay all of its acts sets a bad precedent for the city as a whole, he explained.

"It creates an environment for local businesses who might hire me to perform to say, 'Wait, why do I have to pay you anything?'"

[Editor's note, Aug. 13, 2019: After speaking with SFGATE for this article, the Santa Cruz Music Festival has since released a further statement regarding how the festival pays its artists. To read the full statement, head to the SCMF site here.]

Madeline Wells is an SFGate editorial assistant. Email: madeline.wells@sfgate.com | Twitter: @madwells22