The Arab worlds singers are applying the ‘milk them for all they’re worth’ approach quite successfully and using the fact that Ramadan is in the summer to raise their fees dramatically. As usual in first place with a fee of half a million E.P is Amr Diab who demands this fee for singing in one Ramadan tent for no more than two hours. Tamer Hosny charges 250,000 E.P for one performance and insists that he either sings alone or is allowed to choose who joins him in performing.

Although many can argue Shereen is doing a lot better than Tamer music-wise, she didn’t raise her fee this year and so it stays at 150,000 E.P. The numbers continue to get lower for singers like Hamada Helal and Ramy Sabry. Many say its greed that leads these people to ask so much especially that an increase in performance fees will always mean scarily high ticket prices for the public. However, no matter how high Amr Diab’s performance fees are and how expensive the tickets are he always has an amazing turnout so why shouldn’t he take all he can?

By Karim