Being a musician professionally sounds like a fairly sweet concept for many individuals. Concerts, the open road and some think, a boatload of money. However, it isn't much of a living, even for bands that get a ton of interest, as the cost of touring is over the top.
Not inexpensive to tour
Most bands or artists do not have enough cash to pay for a tour. You imagine a tour for a musician to have a ton of cash with a lot of partying and tour busses. Unfortunately, that is not the case for all.
It is quite interesting when you consider 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 ton 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 as well, so they may make some cash on CD sales.
Working up the ladder
A mid-level group such as the band Oh, Sleeper, which is a metalcore band that has existed for a while, gets paid about $600 per night of playing, $300 for tickets and $300 for merchandise. Normally, groups only make cash depending on what they get paid for playing there and based on merchandise sales. Normally they have to pay the venue still. The typical costs of tour were posted by the band's member Shane Blay.
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 venue 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 expenses as 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 gasoline between gigs.
Divided six ways, that's $13.12 per night, per band member. That doesn't include whether or not their van breaks down or if they need to stay in a hotel or go to a doctor.
Not all costs bad
The Daily Mail explained that the best way to make cash while touring is to be large enough that enough tickets will sell to make the additional 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.
Being an artist means you will struggle a lot. According to NBC News, the 2008 gasoline price increases made it so most groups had to get rid of tours since they could not pay the additional price for fuel.
When you download music for free, the band ends up losing money there too.
Not inexpensive to tour
Most bands or artists do not have enough cash to pay for a tour. You imagine a tour for a musician to have a ton of cash with a lot of partying and tour busses. Unfortunately, that is not the case for all.
It is quite interesting when you consider 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 ton 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 as well, so they may make some cash on CD sales.
Working up the ladder
A mid-level group such as the band Oh, Sleeper, which is a metalcore band that has existed for a while, gets paid about $600 per night of playing, $300 for tickets and $300 for merchandise. Normally, groups only make cash depending on what they get paid for playing there and based on merchandise sales. Normally they have to pay the venue still. The typical costs of tour were posted by the band's member Shane Blay.
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 venue 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 expenses as 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 gasoline between gigs.
Divided six ways, that's $13.12 per night, per band member. That doesn't include whether or not their van breaks down or if they need to stay in a hotel or go to a doctor.
Not all costs bad
The Daily Mail explained that the best way to make cash while touring is to be large enough that enough tickets will sell to make the additional 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.
Being an artist means you will struggle a lot. According to NBC News, the 2008 gasoline price increases made it so most groups had to get rid of tours since they could not pay the additional price for fuel.
When you download music for free, the band ends up losing money there too.
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