It’s really difficult, the band are absolutely being exploited, but if they say no to the “opportunity” the festival organisers will just find somebody else to exploit.
Supply and demand tells us that there’s a lot of people in bands wanting to grow a fan base and not endless opportunities to...
A long time away from any form of music/gigging but it was absolutely standard practice for festivals to try and persuade you to play “for exposure”, which while I understand festival organisers have a budget, always seemed ethically dubious at best. Personally I’d be holding out for expenses...