Tour logistics and revenue allocation for an artist playing small venues

Cafe Society
1

I went to the Ingrid Michaelson concert last night in Houston at the House of Blues and became interested in the tour logistics and how the revenue is allocated for these size events.

Ingrid played in a city three hours away the night before Houston and will play five hours away in New Orleans today. She has six people total in her band, at least one sound/light person, and I saw at least three stage crew members. I also saw a large tour bus so I assume there is a driver and a few more people behind the scenes at every event so maybe there are 15 people total but could be more.

I assume she has a manager and an agent too.

[ul]
[li]For this size concert and band do they typically stay overnight at a local hotel or sleep in the tour bus? [/li]
[li]Do they immediately drive to the next city that night or wait until morning?[/li]
[li]I assume there must be a tour manager to coordinate the logistics or is this done by the manager?[/li]
[li]For a concert where the door opens at 7pm when do they arrive at the city to set up and how long does set up take? This is a small stage where they had their own stage props and lighting but used the house sound system on this night.[/li]
[li]There might be local personnel hired by the artist too instead of having to transport around an entire crew? The local people would not be familiar with the set up so I’m not sure if this is feasible.[/li][/ul]
The venue seats about 1,000 people and it looks like it was sold out. I think the average ticket would be $40 which does not include the convenience fees charged by the ticket sales company. So I think total revenue from the show was $40,000.

[ul]
[li]How much of this total revenue does the artist usually take home? My wild guess is Ingrid must make at least $5,000 per night some which gets allocated to her manager and agent.[/li]
[li]How much does the venue receive?[/li]
[li]How much do band members typically make and do they receive a salary or paid by the concert?[/li]
[li]I think merchandise sales for these types of artists are probably low but I could be wrong.[/li]
[li]The venue must get at least $10,000 (or about 25% of the ticket sales) but they also make money on alcohol and food sales which the artist probably would not receive a cut.[/li][/ul]
I realize all of this varies by artist, venue, and even individual tour but I’d be interested to know if anyone has insight into any of this or experience supporting a tour.

2

If the bus is setup for it they probably sleep on the bus to save money. They would probably leave right after the show in case they have any issues with the bus .

3

A lot of bands barely make enough to get to the next town.

4

I wouldn’t be surprised if they did much more than break even on a tour as you describe. The point of touring is to get your fans to buy your music; only a handful of bands (those the fill arenas) can actually make money on a tour.

The point is to make new fans and get the old ones to buy your new work. It’s not just sales as the concert, but sales of downloads and CDs.

Things like setup and teardown vary by band, depending on what it entails.

5

I have friends that tour, and it’s their living. They have had contracts with three different record companies, and according to my friends, have never made a dime from any of them. So the money is made touring.

Other than once, on a festival tour, they have never used a tour bus. Instead, they use a long passenger van behind which they haul a trailer.

The band is three people, and originally they were their own crew. At that point, they were sleeping on the couches of friends and fans, even recruiting fans to handle selling the merch during the show.

As they have built their fan base, they have added crew, starting with a road manager, then an instrument tech, then finally a full-time merch person. That’s probably as big as they’ll ever get.

The venue supplies the sound engineer, and (rarely) a lighting one.

The setup and sound check is scheduled for two hours, but in a hurry can be accomplished in one. For an 8 PM show, they show up at 3 PM, to get uploaded, set up and sound checked. At the same time, the merch table is set up and dinner is ordered.

After everything is set up, the opening bands get to set up in front of their gear, and if they’re lucky, get a sound check. The band and crew get to eat, visit with friends and journalists, do phone interviews and get showers and into show gear.

After the show, they pack up and go to the hotel, sleep, and get up early to travel to the next town. As they’ve become more successful, the venue pays for the hotel rooms.

The artist never gets a cut of the food or drink, and a number of bands tour for the gate - the entire ticket price. Out of that, 10% (usually) goes to the booking agency, and a further 15% to 20% goes to a manager. Some bands play for a fixed amount, and that is negotiated for every single venue by the booking agent, who obviously wants to get the biggest amount for their 10%.

For bands just starting out, the merch is everything. It’s how they eat on the road, and how they pay for gas to get to the next town.

6

Good point about leaving ASAP after the show to get to the next place in case they encounter travel issues.

I can’t imagine the main artist is making much money on each gig so gathering new fans would be the best investment here. This worked on me exactly like this for opening act, I’m a fan now.

7

Real good info here, thanks.

What I didn’t consider here is the record company may either pay for entirely or subsidize the tour out of their promotional budget. This way Ingrid gets a fixed amount for the entire tour and is not concerned with the day to day revenue matters. Prior to the artist crossing over to this status, the artist and team have to scrape by gig to gig trying to collect as many new fans as possible without being subsidized by a record company.

I would really find it fascinating to watch the inner workings of organizing one of these tours.

8

From what I understand, the days of record companies paying for a tour are long past, except in the case of so-called “360 deals” where the artist gets a fixed amount, and the record company takes all merch, publicity - basically getting exclusive rights to market the product.

Any “promotional budget” comes out of the artists royalties, so most of them have figured out that it’s better to spend their own money to tour. For instance, if you have a record deal, you’re forced to buy copies of your own album at nearly retail to re-sell to your fans. Many artists have discovered their albums selling at record stores for less.

My friends had been offered a record deal early on. They had been recording and releasing their own CDs via Discmasters, where you can get 500 Digipack CDs for less than $1 each. They are fairly savvy folks, so they read the industry trade magazines like Cashbox, and discovered that they had managed to sell more copies of their self-made CD to fans at shows than the label had managed to sell of the latest release of their top name. So they turned them down. By the time they got another offer, they decided that any record label contract was essentially a “loss leader” - that they wouldn’t make any money on it, but they’d benefit from the label’s promotional work. Again, any royalties were eaten by promotional costs and accounting tricks, but it would bring new fans to the shows, where the money was made.

My friends have an answer for any aspiring band - “Get in the van.” Play shows, even if you have to sleep on couches and live on ramen noodles, because shows are all about. You have to find out if people enjoy your music, and if they’re willing to pay to hear it.

Specifically, I’m sure an artist at the level of Ingrid Michaelson has someone who is very concerned with making money from touring. She also has fewer people than you might imagine.

For instance, Dweezil Zappa is touring. He has a total of three crew members plus a road manager/merch person, and the house sound engineer and the monitor sound engineer double as instrument techs. I saw Todd Rundgren, and the monitor engineer doubled as his guitar tech. One of his sons was the merch person. These are people who have been doing this for decades.

In Ingrid’s case, they may be bringing in their own monitors and house mixer, but all the lighting and speakers are the venue’s. I just shot a show by The Security Project, a Peter Gabriel tribute band, and they do that, buttheir mixer is a Behringer X32 Rack - and the “mixing board” is a pair of iPads. No monitor speakers at all, everyone on “in ear monitors”.

Anyway, everyone has to make the road pay. There is no other reliable source of income.

9

Spells of intense touring also tend to make bands better (and to expose any faultlines between members).

10

It’s pretty boring. Lots of phone calls. Then lots of emails so that you have stuff in writing. It’s like being a travel agent only less “foreign exotic destinations” and more “cities you didn’t even know had that kind of night life”.

11

Here’s a fairly decent short documentary about road managers. They follow a tiny band called Hippo Campus and their two employees doing a van and trailer tour, and the road manager for Pearl Jam, who is a hoot, decorating her temporary office on the road with huge dildos, including one with googly eyes.

12

Coincidentally I just got back yesterday from my first tour, and yes, this.

The tour was all DIY and this:

is completely, totally accurate.

First couple nights we played to 3 people. Next few to about 30-40 (though we expected that based on the nature of the contact with the venues when we booked them). Most of the venues provided a meal and a place to sleep which sometimes was in our sleeping bags on the floor of the venue. One time we stayed in a big beautiful house on the Germany-France border with an awesome guy who partied with us all night and took us around town.

We did it in 2 passenger vans (2 bands) which was by far our biggest expense (it was pretty much our only expense). We had a guaranteed payment from the venue in I think 2 cases, and took the door in the others (although one awesome guy in Munich gave us 300 bucks at the end without prior agreement).

We almost broke even, but lost a bit due to a horrible experience in Frankfurt. (seriously, hate that f@#king city).

It was an amazing experience and definitely worth it from the new fans and contacts we got out of it.

At the same time we have a tour coming up in January being done through an agent, 20 shows, all with (albeit small) guarantees. So I’ll have more info to contribute then I think.

13

A step below bands are comics. And a bunch of steps below that are the unknown comics who push the limits. To see what touring is like for them, I suggest watching The Unbookables. Available on Amazon Prime. The underbelly of life on the road from the very bottom.

14

Let’s go to the quarry and throw stuff down there that was cool; I know some of the people in that film.

15

on the other extreme in 2009 U2 flew in for the show, and then after the show flew back to NYC. I assume for west coast shows they were based in LA .