Wow, you have to wonder if there is any money left over for Queen and Adam to pay themselves, based on this report. Promoter and venue take their cut, too. I understand there is merchandise also. But it is interesting how high the costs are.
Nah, it all works out. In fact, this Eric Church tour must make quite a bit of money, if those numbers are right.
The video talks about 19 million cost for the backstage work that discussed in the video (incl. 3 mill stage, 3.9 mill Vehicles, 2.5 mill LVA and 2 mill for 100 people crew).
If they tour 30 weeks (stage costs: 3 mill or 100K per week, so that is how I got that number 30), and if you assume they do 4 shows per week, then that is 120 shows.
Estimate revenue from an arena night to be 800K, if sold out, that makes $ 96,000,000. Plenty of money for promoter, the actual arenas, the own touring costs etc. ...they make tons of money. If they play to half full arenas, costs are the same, but revenue is only half. That is the risk of a promoter and the act booking the show.
Now for Queen, the situation was different, because they are not touring 120 shows. So most of the costs need to be carried by fewer shows. This was especially true, because initially they could not assume that the tour would go world wide and provide them such a prolonged revenue stream.
Right now, when the costs are fully understood, and it is pretty clear that the arenas can sell out anywhere in the world, this is a nice show to have for any promoter. But the initial US tour was still a risk. Nobody knew how well it would go.
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If you hear about any tours that cannot make money, this usually comes down to one of the following:
Shows not selling out - half empty venues
Extravagant production costs (i.e. House of Gaga)
Bad planning or management
or any combination of the above.
The actual stage costs are very well understood and easy to plan for. It is a big operation logistically, but its costs are pretty predictable, once the show's size and type of production is known.
The logistical side of all this including its challenges, the long hours, safety concerns, changes to setup at every arena, constant night shifts, strenuous and dangerous work, specialized work, the need for detailed work plans to move every pieces in the right sequence in and out of trucks, the engineering of all this, the whole packaging, loading and unloading logistic, that whole part is majorly impressive. These guys are worth every penny they make and then some. Tough business.
But QAL tour is all working out for all sides involved (except folks in BE,
). But everyone is in good spirits, because it is a great tour on every level, artistically, as well as logistically, and revenue wise.