Thursday, August 27, 2015

Before One Complains About Ticket Prices, Consider Price Of Touring

By Cornelius Nunev


Next time one thinks seats to a concert tour show are too much, think about what the expenses of touring are. Bands practically go bankrupt taking their show on the road, which is something that must give one pause next time they think about illegally downloading songs.

Paying too much for a tour

Not everyone can just get on a fancy tour bus and begin touring their band. In fact, most band or artist tours do not contain groupies, partying and a lot of cash as you might assume.

It is quite intriguing whenever you think about what The Dresden Dolls, a Boston group, made on their tour, according to a 2007 NPR interview. The two in the group, Brian Viglione and Amanda Palmer, only made $1,500 a month from the tour each. That is not a lot of cash for spending time in a record deal and touring. They even opened from some pretty large gigs.

That's $18,000 per year, assuming they tour every month of the year.

They were given $1 of every CD sold also, so they may make some cash on CD sales.

Gets better for many people

Shane Blay, a member of the band Oh, Sleeper, a metalcore band that's existed for a number of years, posted costs of touring during a typical day on the road, on MetalInjection. Groups, he states, essentially make cash on tour from guaranties, a fee for playing which varies by location, and selling merchandise like T-shirts and so forth. What he'd observed was that an average for a "mid-level" group like his was $300 per each category, an income of $600 per night.

Of the $300, the band had to pay to print the shirts, which costs $7.50 per shirt that they sell at $15. The band's manager gets a 15 percent cut while the location charges about 25 percent. That means of the $300 in merchandise sales, the band really gets $63.75. Of the $300 for playing at the location, the band gets $225 before travel expenditures because the band manager gets 15 percent and the booking agent gets 10 percent. After all the travel expense, it is really only $78.75 total per night since it costs about $10 a day for food and $150 for fuel between gigs.

The band ends up getting $13.12 a night when divided six ways, which does not include extra emergency costs.

Stars get additional cash

Large time people are the only ones who can make a big buck off of touring. This includes Pink Floyd's Roger Waters who did a tour in 2010, according to the Daily Mail. According to Music Television, he grossed about $90 million on the tour and paid out $60 million to cover the lavish tour and production.

NBC News explained that most groups were close to having to cancel tours and quit because of fuel prices in 2008. Most young bands struggle more than you would know.

It also hurts a band when music is downloaded for free, so make sure you always stay away from doing that.



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