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You may get to Carnegie Hall through practice, but you get to walk away from Carnegie Hall with a half million a year by being a stagehand at the legendary venue.
Bloomberg News blows the lid off the shocking salaries that Carnegie doles out annually, saying that while "a star pianist can receive $20,000 a night... he or she would have to perform at least 27 times to match the income of Dennis O’Connell, who oversees props at the hall."
Indeed, O’Connell made $530,044 in salary and benefits last year, and the four other members of his full time team (including two carpenters and two electricians) each took home about $430,543. The site points out that the stagehands "benefit from a strong union: Local One of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees." Stagehands at the hall do everything from move equipment to prep work on the three stages to operate audiovisual and sound fixtures, and only the Artistic and Executive Director, Clive Gillinson, makes more — earning a whopping $946,581 per year.
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Give me a break! this is lunacy.
Good for him!
that's salary plus benefits. what's the straight salary?
this is like cops saying they only make 42K a year, well that's what they take home but what is the entire amount including benefits like pension, sick and vacation days, night diffs, allowances, health insurance, OT etc.
Notice both jobs are Union jobs.
lunacy.
anyone who has played carnegie also knows they are the laziest stagehands on the planet. want a music stand? need a chair? wait a minute, we are in the basement playing Hearts.
I love it when people judge what others earn as too much. That's what they arranged, they aren't stealing it. It's America, good for them.
More like extortion by the unions.
I don't know how you "earn" 500k for moving a piano. Must be one heavy piano.
I don't know to what extent O'Connell's wages can be classified as information that may be made known to the public (Carnegie gets public funding? Union, so that everything is calculable?), but I wouldn't like to have my income made known.
nonprofit organizations are required to list the compensation for the five top-paid employees (over $50,000), as well as compensation for all officers. The lack of privacy is the price we (as nonprofit employees) pay for the tax exemption and public funding we receive.
www.guidestar.org has tax forms for nonprofits. Look at Lincoln Center and the Met Opera as well --stagehands are among the highest paid.
Real people who do real work are making real money, and the money comes from the pockets of the upper class.
I see no problem in that.
It's a good point, this is Sanford Weill's cash not ours.
Agreed. If Carnegie Hall couldn't afford it they wouldn't pay it.
First, every person who buys a ticket to see a show at Carnegie Hall pays these salaries, many of whom are not rich people.
More importantly, the issue is that this high salary is not a function of the skill or hard work of the person receiving it, but rather the fact that this union is able to essentially blackmail the theater owners. Anybody can move a prop, and many others are skilled enough in electrical, carpentry or whatever else these guys do.
I personally have no dog in this fight, but please call a spade a spade.
Now, if these guys were government employees, then everything changes and this would be an absolute outrage.
It must be nice to have a good union.
I hear Biff Henderson makes more than Letterman himself.
And I make less than 5% of his salary, serving my country by putting my life on the line. Love it.
I don't know what exactly you do for a living, but dude, I would love to see NYPD cops making this kind of money. We would have some seriously awesome cops vs the robot football thugs we have now.
Wow!! I need a union job =[
It's pretty disgusting how our culture bashes these guys for how much they make, bashes the unions that protect them, and then celebrates assholes on Wall Street who make much more by raping the economy, pillaging our national treasure and enslaving hundreds of millions of people into poverty. You are a bunch of brainwashed perverts.
Ummmm... I dunno where you've been the past year and a half, but we bash those assholes too.
It all comes down to whether or not a person is creating the value of his or her salary through the work they perform. In either of these cases, the answer is no. Moving physical shit around for 500k+ is just as much bullshit as moving phantom money and paper around for 500k+.
here here!
perception is key.
I believe this is the "Westies" union, management involved is in fear for their lives.
these unions jobs are few and far between.
these guys stay in these jobs till their seventies then hand it down to their sons. all these sweet union jobs in broadcasting are the same.
how often do you see a young guy in the control room?
you know what's another sweet gig, school custodians.
Once again, Union bullshit. This is why our country is fucked. Scum of the earth. Someone needs to start putting inflatable rats in front of these guys' homes.
As someone that has done stage hand/lighting and sound for the last 20 years (albeit non-profit theater) I know that there is no way on earth to justify this kind of money.
It's not like they're dealing with complicated technical systems. The lighting for example is as simple as it can get, a general wash with the occasional spot on 1st violin or the concert master.
Props, what props, moving a piano, music stands etc is not rocket science.
What these guys are making per year could fund a dozen or so struggling theaters and their staff, and those are the places you can see work for $10 - $20, not the $90 - $300 it will cost to go to a concert at the Hall.
I've always been and always will be a union guy, but this is outrageous in the extreme.
IMO best reply
Thanks for the insight.
how many of you commies feel the same way about goldman sachs?
My dad was a New York stage-hand and I didn't see him for about the first 20 years of my life. They often work 8 a.m. to midnight, weekends, holidays. They perform/supervise renovations to the theater between seasons/shows.
If you take a look at the tax return that notes these guys salaries, it says they each average 80 hours a week and I believe it. $300,000 at 80 hours a week is only $120,000 base. CH is the creme job of the New York stagehands. Most of the guys at CH have put in 20-25 years in the union before they even get there.
Do they earn too much? Probably...
Nevertheless, the star pianist only works 4 hours a day to pull in his/her $20k.
After spending how many hours a day practicing over many months for just that concert, and paying the agents, managers, teachers, coaches, publicists, etc. who got them that gig. And then paying cartage if you're bringing your own instrument (harpists, etc.). Most musicians in the mid stages of their careers don't get to keep all that much of that $20K.
Please, we all know unionized overtime is generally bogus.
Surprisingly old news. This same article came out in 2000, but back then he was only making $382,066. I cant find the orignal, but google for "It pays to be a stagehand". Clearly nobody who matters sees a problem with this.
This little bit of waste pointing at show biz
ain't nothing to the waste of money in the military and
other venues like Medicaid provider cheats.
Easier to look at Carnegie hall ,then "secret" Government waste.
This is a sexier story for the news.
Ah, the "star pianist" works usually since age 5 or 6
about 12 hours a day at music school and other tutor's to
get that 4 hour $20.000.00 fee for a performance.
Let alone the cat fights and wiggles and benign bribes
one has to do to get into the "commercial" marketplace.
Only the fittest survive or the richest and of course
no union protection.
Your poetry sucks.
Union=Mafia. Nuff said.
The pianist would have to work 27 performances!
Oh my god, isn't that terrible?
Bet you the stagehand works about 250 days a year, and without him there wouldn't be any performances.
You fucking douches look down your nose because he holds a traditionally blue collar job yet earns white collar money.
It's Carnegie Hall, not your retarded kids class play.
To Hymietownhero,
"Your poetry sucks",ain't much of a poem either.
See you on my night shift job ,at Bellevue ER with
the cops handcuffs still fastened on your wrists.