This year, everyone thought 2023 would be completely back to normal. Everything would be fine and it would be like 2020 never happened. Well, that’s not the case. Between inflation, skyrocketing prices, and gas, people can’t tour. There are a lot of many factors, but the main one is money.
There’s been a lot of talk in the industry that people are taking it really slow this year. Are they working on music, are they taking time off, or are there just stepping back and waiting to see what’s going on in the world. I can’t go into too many logistics but basically, it’s very expensive to tour for just a couple of days.
You have to rent the equipment, rent tour buses, get gas, get groceries, pay for the trucks, get hotel rooms, and possibly flights, did I mention you have to pay the crew? The crew includes as far and wide as TM, PM, PA, lighting, video, rigging, audio, truck drivers, and bus drivers. Then on top of it, as an artist, you have to pay your agent, your manager, your record label, and your publicist… you see where I’m getting at with this.
With the cost of everything going up, it doesn’t make sense to tour. Especially for the smaller/ just getting started artists. Let’s say you are an artist and you are going to about 500/2000 person venue(s). Right, so depending on your contract, you are either getting a set rate or you are getting a portion of the ticket sales. Now depending on the venue, these ticket sales can be anywhere from 5 dollars to 75 dollars. And that’s not including taxes and fees. Chances are, the ticket sales, or your rate, are not going to cover the amount to pay everyone, pay the expenses, and then pay yourself just to go out for the weekend.
So what’s next? As an industry, we need to think about new and inventive ways to make money. Will Las Vegas residency become a thing? Where an artist just stays in one city for a certain amount of time? Will venues have to start paying more for the acts to come to their city? It’s a real toss-up with what will happen next, but we just have to keep trucking and see what happens.
This is a great article about the harsh realities of our industry. I hope you take a read!
The Thein Way to Live 