Ethics involving hotel fees

[Guest]

Am trying to get some school and library gigs in February, on either side of Motionfest West in Reno. Up til now, most of my shows have been within a couple hours drive, so hotel fees haven't been a big issue.

Got some questions...
When do you charge the customer for an overnight stay, is it just when you have to stay over for them alone. When there are two shows for which you stay (obviously only one gets charged), which one?
That kinda thing...

Chris

[Peter]

"When there are two shows for which you stay (obviously only one gets charged), which one?"

Chris, when I have two shows, they BOTH get charged expenses. I do divide up the expense so each show gets charged a portion. Same way I handle expenses for U.S. taxes. I charge off a portion of all to each show on the road and get my tax write off that way.
Peter

[HiveQueen]

Also, if each client pays only a percentage of your travel / accomodation expenses, it's to their advantage to make sure you're as fully booked as possible, thus splitting those costs more ways. With the right explanation of how it works, which I'm far too scattered right now to script but am sure someone on this board already has all worked out and probably posted as a library article, you just book one or two "seed" clients and then they do a lot of the hustling, getting their friends at nearby insitutions to book you as well for the same time frame, or at least giving you names and numbers and references and a foot in the door. You get lots of gigs, they all get lower prices, everyone wins!