The fees vary tremendously and like everybody else who has posted I am flexible. A lot depends on whether I like the gig/venue etc. I belong to some cultural organizations and usually will do a performance for free if they are involved. Everything else depends on travel time, etc. But I have learned this - it isn't a good idea to do too many free gigs. I've been treated with the utmost disrespect for some of the gigs I've done free "for a good cause" and I don't think it would have happened if I had charged. By "disrespect" I mean that the facilities they provided were terrible, promised sound system turned out to be worse than crap, and in one case I made the trip and found that another group had been booked (for pay) and nobody had bothered in inform me that I wouldn't be needed. That said, there've been a fair amount of the freebies that I felt I did benefit from in terms of becoming known, and other well paid bookings came out of them. But it seems to be true that the more you charge the better you are treated - at least that's been my experience. Other local musicians have confirmed this. Yes, the hooker analogy is accurate - you can't give it away for free too often. It's also true about people thinking it's easy and fun. I've had people come up to me when I was working a grueling weekend job as a strolling guitarist - five hours of playing and singing with no mic - pure acoustic. Believe me I had to come up with tons of songs. Anyway people would say things like "This sure is a cushy job you've got for yourself". My god - they had no idea how many hours I put into learning songs, rehearsing, etc., and how exhausted I was at the end of the evenings! Well, but I guess if I made it look easy I was doing a good job! And most of the time it was fun!