The economics of travelling bands

The sad thing is you pretty much got it right. Anything you buy at the show goes into the band's pocket at a high profit, and bars tend to care more about selling drinks so bands pocket a good percentage of ticket sales, but to say most bands make a lot of money gigging is just not true. If you could line up a lot of shows ticket sales will cover expenses, but for mid level bands it usually just doesn't add up to a lot of profit. They need to play shows regularly to build up a fan base, which hopefully will translate to bigger venues in the future. 25 X 500 is not so good, but 25 X 5,000...well, you get the picture. Also, when people say no money is in the album sales they are generally referring to albums distributed by record companies. Independent bands who print their own albums make good profit off of each unit. In the case of albums bought at a retailer (Best Buy, etc.), the money is being split amongst all the people who put the CD together (a LOT of people work on every major release), and the artists make an average of 4% on each copy sold AFTER the recording costs are recouped by the record company. Again, that's not much.

The venue is in the business of filling the joint, and more importantly SELLING BOOZE. The bands, especially the best known band, likely are getting payed a flat fee, not a cut of ticket sales. While this is common, it's not completely true. I used to book bands at a large venue in the midwest a few years ago. This is totally dependent on who the band is, how popular they are, and who's touring with them. In a traditional lineup, you have one headlining band and two support bands. The touring bands choose the support bands. Promoters deal with agents and agree on a guarantee, let's say $7,500. Meaning no matter what -- even if no one shows up -- they get paid that much money. And then there's usually a separate, agreed upon price for support that works into a different budget -- let's say $1,000 for both bands. That's a total package of $8,500. And then there's usually a percentage agreed upon after the fact that, if the gross ticket sales goes over the agreed upon package rate, the bands and venue split the revenue -- something like 80/20. So if it sells out, they have a potential to make more money. But this is just an example, and I rarely worked the same deal twice. Sometimes, even with big bands, we'd do a straight up split, where the venue gets 20% of ticket sales, and the bands get the rest (after taking out fees, like hospitality). And yeah, support bands typically are paying for pocket change. But they're support bands, they're having their music thrusted upon thousands of fresh eyes, so it's worth it to them in the hopes that one day they can be the headlining act and pull in more money.

It doesn't seem all that bad to me. Here's how I look at it. Take for the night is $12,500. Venue gets half. Bands split the other half. Lets assume equally. That's $2000 for one night's work. Do that a few nights a week, and you're taking home some nice scratch. And that's before you sell CDs at the exits. If you can do that for more than a couple nights, you're also among the most popular bands in the world. Very few bands - maybe a few dozen - could do this. And if they can, you have to factor in all the things Xere mentions that you're leaving out - travel costs, crew, tour bus/van. Even if the band is netting $2000 a night after all those costs, splitting that four ways gives each of you $500. Take a look at mid-major band tour schedules and there are at most 30 dates or so. 30x$500 is $15,000 a year. You'd make better money working fast food. Selling the CDs at the door would also involve buying them from your label (whether major or indie) at about $10 each and thus fronting thousands of dollars that have to come from somewhere. Self-releasing would lower your unit cost and increase your return on the CDs, but still require fronting thousands of dollars that have to come from somewhere. My band once filled a decent-sized venue (100 people or so) and we netted $40 each. And that was our hometown, not being on the road with a gas-guzzling van and needing a place to sleep. The majority of the shows I've played, even when we filled places, we actually lost money. I knew people with what I thought of as far more successful bands than us and they swore that the only place they kept any money at all in the end was the merchandising.

...a mid-major band that can sell out a 1500-seat arena might be able to give each band member $50,000 THIS YEAR. And that's before health insurance!

el_lupino: I never once mentioned that bands are currently rich, or on their way to being rich. I was merely refuting your assumption that only "a few dozen" bands net maybe "$2,000 a night" which is completely wrong. And FWIW, we booked the Faint several times in the 2-3 years I was booking shows back in the early 00s. They were selling out shows then, and still are now. It's more common than you think.

Actually, speaking of damn dirty ape's mention of MBV: http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/145887-kevin-shields-talks-new-lp-old-sessions-price-of-noise

What? You're crazy. :) Okay, fine. We'll use your numbers. Let's say the the band had a $12,000 guarantee, plus a 50/50 split on top. That's $12,000 + 50% of the overage, which is another $8,000. $20,000 for one night. http://www.groundcontroltouring.com/tour/thefaint/ Let's assume that they sold out every single one of them and got deals just like you describe. (I'm leaving out the overseas dates b/c as others have said, they're more lucrative, but they're also far more expensive to get to, so too many unknown variables in play there.) That makes $400,000, but the whole point here is that they are GROSSING $400,000. The touring operation is at least as many people as are in the band over again, plus a bus and/or flights, plus gas, plus hotels, and so on. It would be remarkable if they were netting half of the gross there. So a mid-major band that can sell out a 1500-seat arena might be able to give each band member $50,000 THIS YEAR. If The Faint are like most bands even at this level, they won't be able to mount this big a tour a couple years down the road. And all of this is assuming they sell out venues three times the size that the original question actually posed. I think damn dirty ape and others have made the real point here - there's a tipping point after which you make scads of money and tons of bands fly well below this and skim along a little above break-even.

Interesting related anecdote, I think: Most every year I go see Lyle Lovett at Wolf Trap and I sit in the assigned seating at a price of about $38. They also sell lawn seats for about $22. With about 3,000 seats and another 3,000 lawn spots it's a total that is way above the $12,500 in an example above. Yet: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/03/01/040301fa_fact1?currentPage=all

Totally tangential, but if a band (especially one of the midlevel bands) gets a following/chance to tour in Japan, they're pretty much guaranteed to pull in some good cash, given the price of tickets here. I've paid 6,000 yen for Less than Jake, 4,000 for Ani Difranco, and over 10,000 for an arena concert where punk bands played half sets (roughly 7-8 songs), in addition to having other concerts arranged close to the big show (bands like Bad Religion, Zebrahead, and MxPx). From what I understand, the bands have absolutely nothing to do with ticket sales, and are guaranteed a flat rate, and then whatever merch they can sell (and in Japan, being a fan means buying absurd amounts). Some bands (Zebrahead, for instance, the my-god,-they're-still-together Color Me Badd for another) have rabid followings here. They come over once a year or so, play six or seven concerts, are mobbed by adoring fans, then go home a week later. Must be a pretty decent life.