[Presented exactly as received] Greetings from beautiful Costa Rica, I own an award winning four star hotel with several unique jungle venues for shows, Hotel Docelunas in lively Jaco, Costa Rica. We have done numerous shows ranging in size from as few as 100 people for Grammy nominated songwriters up to 2,000 people with artists such as Steel Pulse and Alpha Blondy. Hotel Docelunas is also the venue for Jungle Jam, our annual festival, most recently headlined by Slightly Stoopid. Jungle Jam Five will be announced soon for 2015.
Due to small size of the country and wage scale here, it is impossible for me to bring in a smaller/mid level band for a conventional show, But by building the show around a destination concert vacation package, we can pay as much $10,000 plus all expenses. I have had a band here several times, Midnight Spaghetti from Harrisonburg, Va. Basically, their fan club pays a small surcharge on their packages that covers the band’s expenses. In return, they get to see a couple of shows of their favorite band in a incredible rainforest venue, and have a week of sun and fun. I figured that other bands and fan clubs might want to do the same thing.
A band of five, coming with 34 fans for the five night stay, can have anywhere from an all expenses-paid “working holiday”(fan price-$999pp deluxe room/double occ) to going home with $10,000 (fan price-$1299pp deluxe room), or more. It depends on the package price to the fans and the number of fans who come. I’ve allocated a significant portion of the hotel’s normal profits from packages to cover a lot of the costs of bringing the artist down and producing the show, so the fan club does not have to pay the entire cost. Solo artists can bring a guest (perhaps their agent) for free along with 12 paying fans (at $999) for “working holiday”, no pay but all expenses paid. With 20 fans, the artist goes home with $2,500. Increase the package price or fan turn out and more pay is available for the artist.
The fan packages include: room for the five nights, all food ordered off our menu, airport transfers, two activities, and one unforgettable concert in our beautiful rain forest hotel. The two activities make it possible for the band and fans to interact outside of music. There’s a group day trip to spectacular Manuel Antonio National Park, Costa Rica’s first and most famous national park. The park is filled with all the birds and animals that make Costa Rica famous. They’re everywhere. The other activity is a choice of: Canopy Tour (zipline), Horseback riding, Surf lesson, Crocodile Tour, SUP, or a massage in our spa. If the band is willing, for added appeal, the fans can go with their favorite band member, for a great adventure they will talk about forever.
The band doesn’t need to do more than get the word out to the fans…. website, FB, mention at shows, fan club letter, etc. We’ll take care of everything else. All I need is folks contacting me about packages.
We can also discuss local show-only ticket sales to augment the band’s pay and help create a new local audience.
You can check out the hotel at our website – http:/www.docelunas.com and check out a video of the hotel here – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJEZQr-PF-g, and here’s aerial view of the hotel featuring Karl Denson playing Seven Nation Army at Jungle Jam 2014 at Docelunas http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufCohQTytZc. You can also check this link for concert videos from DoceLunas, zipline videos, surfing videos and more http://www.youtube.com/user/jacobeachcostarica/videos.
I hope that this might be of interest to some of the artists that you work with. Thank you for your time,
Please email me to discuss at chris@docelunas.com
Chris Danko, Hotel Docelunas, Jaco, CR