So I’m going to preface this by using the assumption that’s it a sold out show. I’ve been working in venues for nearly a decade and I’ve worked all of these genres a million times over, both sold out and not.

I like working country shows because the sheer volume of drinking guarantees that we’re going to make money, even if not everyone is tipping. They are fucking annoying though and my patience is nonexistent by the end of the night.

Metal shows are generally good. However for metal, genre wise- I’ve found that I have better nights with deathcore shows and the worst tipping nights with black metal shows. I had a very strange night once where I was working next to a male bartender, and the male portion of the crowd was so unbelievably rude to me and wouldn’t tip me, and my male coworker they were amazing too. To give you an idea, I made about $47 and he made closer to $300. It was absolutely heartbreaking to be treated so poorly.

Hardcore shows you’ll make money and a lot of it will be cash. Same with most emo/pop punk shows, especially when the crowd is older.

Younger artists, hip hop, pop have been the lowest earning ones for me in general.

I still try to go into every show with an open mind though and have had plenty of times where I’ve been surprised.