Justin Ulysses Morse wrote:

Ask yourself this: What, for the sake of argument, would happen if you
refused to do the gig for free? Would they pony up? Would they get
some other hobbyist to do it for free? Would they hire some other
professional? Find somebody within their organization to do it
half-assed at no additional cost? Skip the recording entirely?

Probably one of the last two. I suspect that they'd ask one of their
student interns to record the shows direct to two-track. I've heard the
results when they take that approach, and I'd really rather not see it
come to that.

And yes, I've certainly considered many of the points that you make.
Basically, I decided long ago that I wanted to record this festival even
if it is as a volunteer. But I also see that they are trying to get the
festival's funding solidified, and I'd like them to put me into the mix
for getting paid. I've made sure that they paid me for each of the past
few years, but I've never asked them for anywhere near what I thought
the work was worth. My bill has been down in the range of your
"bare-ass minimum".

All that out of the way, I'll answer your question. The bare-ass
minimum you should get is probably about $500. There are a few
different ways you could arrive at that number, by counting only the
hours you're on site, or only paying yourself $10 an hour and clocking
conservatively, or whatever. And I can't imagine asking for any more
than about $4000. That's $50 per hour for all of your time. That's
probablt a bit much for someone who's not established as a professional
in the field, even if your results are spectacular. I think $25 per
hour for the most tangible hours is pretty realistic. That would be
about $1000. You should probably ask for about $2000.

Well, it seems that the estimates here are spread fairly evenly over a
range of $800 to $4000, with $2000 being an approximate arithmetic mean.
So I may use that as my target.

And you should probably ask for it this year rather than waiting til
next year to hope they think about you during the pledge drive. They
won't.

Maybe so, but I'm going to talk this through with the festival director.
It's not really a "pledge drive" question, rather it's a question of
finding a specific donor who is willing (as Mike says) to pay a few
bucks in exchange for underwriting announcements on the broadcast and a
mention in the festival program.