Costs of touring around Europe?

[colonel_claypoo]

hey everbody,

i need some financial estimates for touring in europe.
this autumn we might play a total of 20 gigs ranging from portugal to scandinavia in 30 days. it's going to be our first tour ever and i'm seeing us running into serious financial problems if we don't calculate this through. therefore i could use some advice.
we have a promoter who gets his share and we're completeley on our own, only touring with another band and not in the same vehicle. so we'll have to organize transportation, accomodation and all the relevant things to survive by ourselves.
i guess we'll be playing clubs from 50-150 people and most clubs only pay door deal. i can't think of a way how to calculate the required budget. does anybody have some advice please?

your comments don't need to be based on the notion of touring europe per se but anywhere in the world. just looking for a cost estimate and what to take into account.

thanks!

[xilddx]

[quote name='colonel_claypoo' post='751962' date='Feb 20 2010, 05:27 PM']hey everbody,

i need some financial estimates for touring in europe.
this autumn we might play a total of 20 gigs ranging from portugal to scandinavia in 30 days. it's going to be our first tour ever and i'm seeing us running into serious financial problems if we don't calculate this through. therefore i could use some advice.
we have a promoter who gets his share and we're completeley on our own, only touring with another band and not in the same vehicle. so we'll have to organize transportation, accomodation and all the relevant things to survive by ourselves.
i guess we'll be playing clubs from 50-150 people and most clubs only pay door deal. i can't think of a way how to calculate the required budget. does anybody have some advice please?

your comments don't need to be based on the notion of touring europe per se but anywhere in the world. just looking for a cost estimate and what to take into account.

thanks![/quote]
Once you've done the planning, it's fairly simple to get the costs. But getting your revenue estimates in the right ballpark is critical so do some serious research and talk to venues and promoters about your likely net revenue from the gigs. You'll probably be selling CDs and other merchandise so factor in your costs/revenues for those too.

Once you have an idea of your budget plan, keep fine tuning it and ask for opinions of others in case they know of alternatives or point out things you've forgotten. You'll need to build in some contingency too, I would guess about 10 or 15%.

It will teach you loads, and probably be quite good fun!

EDIT: And for christ's sake make sure you get suitable travel insurance.

Edited February 20, 2010 by silddx

[Sibob]

I'd be very cautious about booking ANY tour that didn't have a band collecting a guaranteed fee each night.
If you're not collecting a set fee for each show, then I'd certainly assume you weren't getting paid at all, certainly from the point of view of writing a budget. That way, you know what it could cost you, and any payment is a bonus.
It's difficult to budget completely because you have to obviously factor in prices for fuel and food in Europe, which varies a great deal I should imagine.
If you're completely new to it, can I suggest touring in the UK first? Simply because if anything goes wrong on your learning curve.....you can get a bus home!!

Good luck anyway!
Si

[JTUK]

I have to say that this looks pretty dodgy.
The promoter or gig should provide a basic fee, BB, and everning meal and a small rider.
Any less is a mnefield as you have no garuanteed income and will end up with a huge bill.
The petrol alone will be huge with those distances..!!

You have a huge commitment in terms of outlay and could get next to nothing in return

I think you are being taken in and I wouldn't touch it.

Sorry for the downer.

[colonel_claypoo]

thanks so far for the comments.

no problem, it's not a downer for me, i'm a realist and i know that it's probably not a good idea to tour under such circmstances.
the problem is that the other bandmembers are not thinking ahead enough, i feel, and i wouldn't know how to aprach them wih my concern.

anyway, one thing i mixed up, sorry, is the fact that we don't have a promoter but a booking agency and they get their share each gig. i'm not sure if promoter and booking agency are the same???

bottom line is, where totally on our own and i our genre (metal) there's not much to harvest, money wise i think. furthermore, we don't even have any merch or a cd yet. that might change until autumn, tough.
as a result, i think that our income will only cover the travel expenses, i.e petrol and rental for the motor home.
everything else we'll need, which is plenty, will drag us into a negative balance in the end and i don't want that.

i don't know about the idea of touring your home country first. in our case, that would be germany and we feel that the market here is jaded, so to speak.

thanks for the help guys.

[Musicman69]

Does sound like a recipe for disaster Im afraid.
My advice would be to concentrate on putting together a good cd to sell at gigs and get tee-shirts done up to sell too. Some eye-catching posters to send ahead to the upcoming venues also.
Even fairly small gigs can be financially successful if well organised.. best of luck with it.

[witterth]

everyone will say it all looks "dodgy" and they're most likley right,
but I'd say(and this is a VERY informed opinion)
GO ON MY SON!!!!!
Just make sure you have a good,maxed up credit card( and one keeper!)oh .. and travel insurance,med card for Europe is free (I think)... to fall back on if things go Tit$ up, but otherwise,..... Iv'e had some of the BEST times ever, doing what you propose,so...
Make sure everyone is aware that things may get tough(you'll fight and make up..ect)before you go,and then GO!!
done this type of thing many, many,many times and its allways been a blast!! yeah things go wrong!, but you'll laugh about that in the pub later....
go for it enjoy
rather than say "what if?"
god I'm jealous!!!
Please go, and regale us with stories, Jack kerouac(!) style
seriously DO IT
Witterth (45 wishing he was 19 again!!)

[JTUK]

Ok.. if I look at this correctly..the booking agent books you anywhere he can, and if the club makes door money and drinks, they pay you and the booking agency? do you know how much..? and how do you calculate this anyway?
So there is problem number one, you don't know who or if you can trust this arrangement.
It seems to me that this a one-sided agreement. You have running costs but no one is having to pay you anything...sure if the gig is well attended, the venue is happy and the booking agent gets cut. Ok work for a few phone calls. You have BB, petrol and hire costs of the van regardless of how the gigs pan out for you.

It sounds to me this is very early days for you and you band, and this offer is flattering and appealing but does not amount to much.
No one but your band has costs incurred up front.

If you want to back yourselves and go for it...it could indeed be great fun and an experience, then accept that you will have to pay this off yourselves most likely. And if you do that as a band, get the money put aside securely so no one is left with the bill. Bands have a habit of splitting up and the money gets forgotten by certain parties.

I am only trying to outline a few problems and urge you to be realistic. I think you are, but maybe some of the band don't think about how this is going to be paid for.

If no one has heard of you, then consider how many people at your home town would come to your gigs and consider that might be how it will be on this european tour.

Mechandise and CD's are one way to claw back some expenses... but unless you sell loads, they might amount to eating expenses for the day for the band.

What about the other band...are they popular or in the same situation as you, I assume you will share between you any door receipts?

[Musky]

I notice you're based in Germany, which probably makes what I was going to say about channel ferry charges redundant.

This is very much a how long is a piece of string type question. It rather depends on what you're doing in terms of type of transport, accommodation, etc. I've got to agree with Sibob and JTUK - you're walking a tightrope with a very long drop without any guarantees. In my experience even guarantees can disappear when you turn up on the night, and although you can be very pleasantly surprised with what you get from the door take it can also open another can of worms. Exactly how is your percentage being calculated - flyers on the door or a cut of total sales (gross or net, any deductions, etc).

Your talking about a lot of driving between Scandanavia and Portugal, and that cranks up the petrol costs. I've never toured Portugal, but you can cover a fair distance between gigs in Spain and for me it wasn't worth the effort.

Agents and Promoters are different jobs - the promoter puts on the gig, the agent acts as an intermediary between the band and promoter. Just like their are a lot of amateur promoters out there, there are plenty of amateur booking agents. And some of them will happily book you into inappropriate venues or for poor fees simply because it's little effort and they getting a cut anyway.

Personally I'd hold off until you've got a CD to promote and the merch to go with it. Sales of merch can make a huge difference to your finances, and the CD will hopefully be useful to promote the gigs. A lot of promoters for international tours won't even consider a band unless they've got a CD out.

Edited February 21, 2010 by Musky

[JTUK]

Here is what I would do.

Add up all the foreseen costs.

Van hire
Accomodation
Food
Petrol
Tolls
Insurance
CD costs
Merchandise

and what ever else you can come up with.

Have a band meeting and tell them that the final figure is what the whole band will owe as a result of this tour.
You may also want to add a contingency fund as well for unforeseen costs...

Say the figure is 5000eu split between a 5 piece band, so 1000eu each.

Any monies from gigs will probably get eaten up on the road anyway, but if it doesn't then you can put that against the 5000 eu or whatever figure you arrived at.

Once everyone agrees on that, and you want to go for it...it could be a major life experience for a young band

All the best

[discreet]

[quote name='colonel_claypoo' post='752679' date='Feb 21 2010, 11:57 AM']I think that our income will only cover the travel expenses, i.e. petrol and rental for the motor home.
Everything else we'll need, which is plenty, will drag us into a negative balance and I don't want that.[/quote]

Three points:

1. If you don't know in advance what your income will be, it's prudent to assume it won't cover anything at all.
2. If you can't afford to pay outright for everything you'll need, the outcome [i]will[/i] be a negative balance situation.

and

3. Do it anyway. What the f*ck, it's only money. You'll be dead soon. Go nuts!

Edited February 21, 2010 by discreet

[geilerbass]

I love the pragmatic, borderline-cynical response from the bass playing community! That once again goes to illustrate who, generally, are the sensible members of a band...

I have to agree with what most people have said. I'm also in a metal band and have had limited experience playing over in Europe - usually it's a been a few days or a weekend and never really across multiple countries.

Original metal bands who do not have a drawing name are immediately at a disadvantage because it relies heavily on there being a local scene to draw in a paying audience. And even where there is, that's not even the slightest guarantee.

It could be a fun and enjoyable experience for the band but, as everyone has said, assume you will have no income whatsover. If you can pull together the capital to pay for everything up-front and can treat the tour as, essentially, a working holiday, it could prove worthwhile as you could gain some valuable exposure. Though if you can't afford it as you are, probably best avoided. The fact that there is a 'booking agent' involved, makes alarm bells ring - sounds a bit of a rip-off, but without knowing the full details, I wouldn't want to cast judgement.

As suggested by others, a smaller scale venture to 'test the waters' would probably be advisable before heading straight into a 20-date tour, particularly if you've never toured abroad before.

[attackbass]

I wouldn't go do a tour without a basic fee for each show - support fees are usually 100 euros upwards from my experience. This way you'll have a starting budget to work with as you will be able to calculate how much money your band is definitelty going to generate. You'll be able then to look at hotel/petrol costs etc

Next thing you'll need to do if you want to at least break even is do the hard sell with your merch. Don't just rely on a merch guy to sell during the gig, get outside the venue after the gig with your cds and t-shirts and sell. I know from experience that this definitely helps, it also helps your band being remembered and gives you a connection with your fans.

Who is your booking agent.. they should be negotiating a fee with the promoters of the shows. If your agent is not securing fees and taking a cut of money then you really need to take a serious look at your agent.

My overall advice would be don't do it. If there are no guaranteed fees then you might end up in a situation that will financialy cripple your band.

The prospect of touring around europe is awesome, but when you don't have any money coming in, playing poorly attended shows and you're hungry it isn't good. You should think how better the money could be spent, than touring europe and only playing to 100 -150 people a night. Perhaps touring your home country first would be a better idea, maybe supporting a bigger act to play to more people, this might require a buy-on. But my advice would be to establish yourself in one country first before going anywhere else.

[robocorpse]

If you desperately want to do this, and the band are good enough friends to get through any bad times, then go for it, but BE PREPARED to lose a load of money. You are very likely to get ripped off, and left with nothing, or just some beer, so make sure 2 of you are carrying credit cards with a big limit, as you might find yourself living from them.
One thing though, if you are playing venues as far away as Portugal and Scandinavia, it seems logical there will be breaks in between each area of the tour (20 gigs in 30 days = 10 days off for travel, right?), so if things are going very bad after the first 5-10 days, make sure you have a way to drop out if you feel you have to. This makes it even more important to get paid for each gig ON THE NIGHT, and NEVER, EVER, EVER, NEVER, EVER et a promoter or booking agent EVER owe you money. EVER. NEVER NEVER EVER.

[Sibob]

[quote name='colonel_claypoo' post='752679' date='Feb 21 2010, 11:57 AM']the problem is that the other bandmembers are not thinking ahead enough, i feel, and i wouldn't know how to aprach them wih my concern.[/quote]


For me, this is a reason not to tour with this band yet.
Everyone needs to be on the same page, with their wits about them

Si

[urbanx]

I think we're all looking at it from the wrong angle.

How much would it cost for you to have a 30 day road trip with a bunch of mates?
If you happen to rock out a few times along the way, bonus.

I'd think of it more of a trip than a money making scheme

Otherwise: Don't buy fuel from Holland, stay in hostels, drink where the locals drink and you'll be 'reet. Have fun!

[whimsy23]

I concur with what others have said. I've done 1 tour and drove for a friend's band in Europe as well and every gig the band was guaranteed money, got food, drinks and accomodation as well.

The sh*t thing is, you're lucky to get a bloody pizza in the UK.