Music Biz Economics – How does the money flow when music bands tour? Do they “rent” out the theatre/stadium, or does the facility “hire” the band? Who takes the hit if tickets don’t sell?
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Everything is negotiable but here is a reasonable breakdown
The headliner gets a share of the tickets. Sometimes a flat fee or fee + share. But really it’s Usually a share of tickets. The bigger the act you are the better share you can negotiate. Lots of specific details can change in this about how much they get and what share. The venue makes their money on ticket sales and concessions. To a degree, some venues basically operate as bars with the ticket acting as “door fee” to get in.
The headliner though has to pay all its costs, people, transport, etc. this adds up to a lot they can even lose money in really big expensive productions. So the headliner takes a part of ticket sales, pays all their expenses, then get whatever is left over and divide it up between the band, manager, etc and anyone else who gets a piece. Since it’s split so many ways, individual band members may end up with a lot less than you’d expect.
The opening bands are either hired by the headliner (generally at a flat fee) or by the promoter. There’s some leniency in that a big time band taking non-headline spot may get part of tickets or a bigger fee. This band also needs to pay its expenses too.
Your local opening band playing first just that one gig in your city is probably getting little to nothing in payment.
Oddly enough one of the side things negotiated hard is how many free “comp” tickets bands get as they always have people clamoring for free tickets and the venue does not want to give them out.
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