Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Cost Of Touring Surprisingly High For Musicians

By Cornelius Nunev


A lot of people may think that the life of a touring music performer is glamorous and also lucrative, but it's anything but. The cost of touring for a rockband or whatever is actually fairly high and very few tours really make massive amounts of money, except for the very top tier of artists.

Hard to live as a rock band

Some people might imagine the life of a touring musician involves plush tour buses, groupies, endless partying and lots of cash. Maybe for some, but most bands or artists trying to make a living don't make much of one.

If you were touring, you would be ready to make more than $1,500 a month in a record deal starting for some pretty large groups. Unfortunately, that was incorrect for Amanda Palmer and Brian Viglione in The Dresden Dolls. They had a record deal and never made more than that, according to a 2007 NPR interview.

Supposing they tour regularly, they will make $18,000 a year.

They were given $1 of every CD sold as well, so they might make some cash on CD sales.

May get better with more supporters

Oh, Sleeper is a band that is known as "mid-level" since it has existed for a few years and has a following. Band member Shane Blay posted typical expenditures associated with touring. He said that groups make money depending on the amount of merchandise sold and the number of supporters who arrive. The bands have to pay the location for using the facility too. His band made about $600 per night for the venues on average due to $300 in merchandise sales and $300 in location profits.

The price of traveling is $10 per day for food and $150 in gasoline between gigs. The band also has to pay 15 percent to the manager and 10 percent to the booking agent out of the $300 venue cash. Of the merchandise cash, the manger gets $15 percent and the venue takes a 25 percent commission. On top of that, the band has to pay about $7.50 per t-shirt that they sell at $15, which already cuts that cost in half. Total per night, the band ends up with $78.75 after all the expenditures come out.

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

Stars get additional cash

The Daily Mail explained that the very best way to make cash while touring is to be big enough that enough tickets will sell to make the extra cash. Roger Waters toured in 2010 which made about $90 million. The costs were only $60 million, which means he made a lot of additional cash.

However, the struggling artist does struggle and likely pretty hard. NBC News, the news site formerly known as MSNBC, ran an article in 2008 about a number of groups that were an inch from having to get rid of tours and possibly quit their profession due to high gasoline costs.

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



No comments:

Post a Comment