Forum
Promoter/Band Financial Agreement
I've always wondered how it works with regards to who pays who, and who pays for what when a rock band plays a concert. I assume that it is the promoter that gets all the revenue from ticket sales, and that the promoter pays for all advertising and pays for the venue. I assume that he also pays for certain security at the venue (perhaps this is included in the cost of hiring the venue). Maybe the band has its own security/bodyguards which it pays directly. I also assume that the promoter pays the band an "appearance fee" for playing the concert. I recall reading that sometimes bands get a basic fee, plus a certain percentage based on the number of tickets that are sold. I assume that the band pays for all the transport costs of all their light and sound gear from city to city, pays for the costs of accomodation and wages of all their support crew, as well as their own travel and accomodation costs. This is where I get confused. Who pays the support bands? Is is the main band, or is it the promoter? Considering that the support bands quite often play support for the main band for every concert on a national tour (I'm thinking here of an AC/DC Australian tour) - they would also have considerably high travel and accomodation costs, as well as their equipment and support crew. I was wondering all of this while waiting for The Who to come on stage last week in Adelaide. Having travelled from the UK, there would obviously be considerable costs to get them, their crew and equipemnt to Aus/NZ for 6 concerts. The Adelaide concert had about 7,000 punters (capacity with that stage arrangement is 8,000) paying $130 + $4 booking fee. So that's revenue of around A$910,000 for that concert, which I assume goes to the promoter (based on what I've said above), but then what amounts get paid to who from then is anyone'e guess. The support band were the Counting Crows - which are something like 7 musicians themselves - and they travelled all the way from California. What's even more confusing, and I'll give an example that occured here a year ago, is when a concert is transferred to a smaller venue (generally due to) poor ticket sales. This happened with The Police, again here in Adelaide, when they toured Australia in early 2008. The original concert was scheduled to be played at an outdoor Aussie Rules stadium - Football Park - which can fit around 60,000 for concerts. However, after about 2 months of tickets sales, the concert was transferred to the Entertainment Centre, which is an indoor arena and fits around 8,000 people in normal concert arrangement. 2 concerts were held, with the first sold out (I believe) and the second had about 6,000. Generally concerts are only held at Football Park if they're likely to get above 30,000. So I am just confused as to how a promoter can pay a band to play twice as many shows to less than half as many people as he was originally expecting. So if there's any one out their with a bit more knowledge than me, it would be great to hear from you.