just saw this over the internet the other day.  i think paying each person in a band $300  usd/cad  a night is just barely minimum.  and hiring one musican for your event for a night deserves $400-500 usd/cad.

think about it, you are hiring a group of musicians to entertain your guests, and musicians are artists.  

we can break it down this way.  let's assume each person in a band gets $300 for a night, playing 30 tunes.

- time spent on learning the tune/writing charts - 20min per song -> 30 tunes = 10 hours

- rehearsal time for these 30 tunes - 4 hours

- if the event is from 7pm to 10pm, call time is normally 5pm and finish up before 11pm -> 6 hours

$300 / (10 + 4 + 6 hours) = $15/hr

what do you think about the hourly rate?

or we can put it this way, for those of you who have kids, do you bring them to music lessons? and how much do they charge per 30-45mins lesson?  can the teacher/instructures play better and/or entertain your guests more than a group of musicians do?  maybe.  

no to complain, i'm just putting a break down of things here.  if you want someone who can do it for cheap, try local classfied to find someone who will do it cheap or free.  you come to hire someone because of their performance, the product they provide.  pay them what they deserve.