I’ve been thinking a lot about tipping as The Dregs have been performing at Siouxland Festival this weekend.

Every act that asks for tips has to figure out a way to convince the audience to dig into their pocket.  Every theater that produces shows has to convince the audience to not only buy a ticket but to hopefully support the theater in other ways because it is almost impossible to meet your budget with ticket sales alone.

Asking for money feels unnatural and it can be difficult but when it comes to tipping a server, most of us do it without even giving it a second thought.

I’ve been a server and I’ve been a performer and here’s what I know: being a performer takes more time and is a lot more difficult.

Serving is a hard job and I completely support tipping a server 15 percent or better.  It is completely fair.  I usually tip 20 percent.

It startles me, though, that people who will almost unconsciously give a server $10 will have difficulty reaching into their pocket to give a musician a dollar.

Contemplate that for a moment.  Think about the amount of work it took someone to learn how to play that instrument.  And then the amount of time it took them to learn to play that song.  In the case of The Dregs, we often wrote the song ourselves.

And someone will watch a musician (or a juggler or a dancer) and find that their effort isn’t worth a dollar.

I don’t resent people who don’t tip performers.  I simply don’t understand them.  I don’t think they get it.

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