how much would it cost to book a band?

[boobiebutt]

just curious but in multiple threads people always say it costs so much for a band to tour such as plane tickets for the band and the crew and housing all he crew and things like that....how much does it actually cost though...estimating....to bring a band to the states...

i better start saving up

 

[Jent]

:smiles: What a nice idea. I hope you are a millionaire.

I'm curious what average concert costs are.

 

[boobiebutt]

i wish i was a millionair....haha who doesnt... but yeah im just curious how much it costs to bring them over and the average cost of a concert....like a quote or something

 

[Lucky_Birdie]

ok, here's a list.. this is what I have done at school, planning the whole festival..
this is a BIG venue (5000 people).. and its a festival, and a charity thing, so we didn't want to give the artist a lot of money for their performance,
but just so you can see, cuz you'll probably need these kind of things anyway.. like the venue and electricity.. and don't forget the catering, security, light, sound, toiletpaper, meeting costs.. ect ect..

Venue 22,500.00
Electricity 2500.00
Artists 40,000.00
pre production promotional costs 10.000,00
promotional costs
tv campaign 5,000
other media 5,000
crew (many volunteers) 8,500
extra indirect costs 1,300.00

plus a few other costs, lets say about €106.000,00

excluding hotel and the plane tickets.. you'll probably get some discount when you book many hotel rooms at the same time, and when you buy many plane tickets.. but I've no idea how much that will be..

 

[boobiebutt]

i was thinking of a small show....5000 is a lot of people T_T i was thinking like....a personal show hahahaha x_x

 

[POISONxIVY]

Boobiebutt, hopefully I can give you kind of an idea as to how things go.

Most bands have a certain contract wrote out for every tour. I have booked shows in my area, not for huge acts or anything, but even small bands that are on indie labels usually have some sort of contract worked out before booking a tour. For example a band could state they want $1000 for the show, and $20 per band member for food, or food provided for them at a venue. Sometimes a hotel room will be worked into the deal depending on where the next show is.

As far as a band from over seas goes, you might have to provide the cost of flying them, and their equipment unless their record label covers that. Which a lot of times record labels will because coming to another country will help the band make decent money on record and merchandise sales. A label will sink money into flying a band somewhere cause they will eventually make more money from it. (if the band is on a good label that is)

Usually a band hires their own lighting people, sound and guitar techs, and all that jazz so the price given in the contract usually includes everything. Then the label and band will work out who gets paid what. From my own experience being in bands, bands don't make a ton of money touring, unless you are a huge act playing large arenas or sold out shows. Even being the headlining act, you really make more money on merchandise and other things.

The biggest and most important part of booking a show is promotion. If you don't get enough people to the show to cover the bands contracted price, you have to pay it out of your pocket (or the companies funds) If you do it right, you will have enough money to pay the bands, and keep money for yourself (or the promotion company) and if you are nice you might even throw some extra money to the opening acts haha.

There is definitely a lot more planning and money sunk into a huge festival than just planning a month long tour that's for sure! I hope that helps you some what, if you have any other questions on something I left out I might be able to help.

 

[boobiebutt]

i dont know....i wanna see mucc in the states really bad....just curious as to how much they would have to spend.....thats all...

and when and if i ever get married....i wanna have mucc or despairsray as my wedding band T_T laugh if u must......but i want it and ill aim for it!!

 

[POISONxIVY]

haha that's funny cause hopefully my wedding will be with one of the members of D'espairsray HAHAHA Okay well, I have no idea how much MUCC or other bands would charge. I'd have to talk to Harry about it cause he obviously knows haha!

 

[Kinsao]

Now that is an interesting and ambitious idea! I salute you and wish you well!

 

[boobiebutt]

lol my friends think im crazy....just because none of them listen to jrock.... losers..... x_x lol they think my wife wont like the wedding band but i was like if shes willing to marry me......she will know shes gonna be married to my obsession with jrock and visual kei too haha

i hope its not gonna be too much to book them for my wedding.....or maybe we can have a small wedding and pool all the money just for the band haha

 

[Kinsao]

You wanna watch out - you'll have women queuing up to marry you just so's they can get the chance to run off with one of the band members!

 

[Jent]

I would love to do that for a wedding. ^_^ Awesome idea.

I watched MTV this one time, and this rich girl got Ciara to play at her sixteenth birthday. After reading POISONxIVY's post, I can now see why only people like her (rich) can do it.

I always thought, that if I ever got horribly sick, I would beg for my friends and family to find a way to get Gackt to come play a private concert, so I can atleast see him in concert before I die. Which, is still how I feel anyway. If he retires before I get to go to one of his concerts, I'll be fuming.

 

[POISONxIVY]

Hmm, thathas me thinking haha. The make a wish foundation could be a good idea! haha when I was 11 I always would say if I got terminally ill or something I would use the Make a Wish Foundation to meet the band Silverchair (they were my favorite back then, I still like them a lot though, but would rather do it to meet a japanese band now ha)

I saw that episode. If you are rich enough you sure can pay a band to play an event. Perhaps if they never played a wedding before they would do it for less because it'd be an interesting experience haha.

 

[Nana007]

Well yea, you can get artists to play at private events for my dad's wedding they booked Jesse Powell and Kem (R&B).

 

[boobiebutt]

lmao kinsao....even if my wedding is small because we can only afford the band and a little stuff only......i bet u people invited or not will be stalking and scoping out the wedding waiting for the chance to jump at the bands HAHAHA

 

[boobiebutt]

i saw despairsray in nyc on the 23rd......they only had 2 stage guys.....and if they had a sound|light guy thats only 2 other people....and u can scratch off the advertizment cost because jrock spreads best through the word of mouth or on forums anyways......

i still dont get how its so expensive...thats 4 band members and 4 other people.....lets be on the safe side and make it 10 people total.....thats 10 air plan tickets and places to stay with food and stuff....and the cost of the place they r playing at....and im not talking some huge place but a small|medium size club or something

how did they manage to pull that off without all the things u guys listed? :\

 

[Kinsao]

Well, maybe it didn't cost them so much as we estimated? :?

It's true that the fewer staff members there are, the cheaper it would be. Although I bet there were staff backstage that weren't seen.

Also, for the show you went to, there were advertisement costs... I mean, when you think about it they even need to employ someone to keep their website updated (this would probably be taken care of by the record company, but they would still recoup the cost from money earned by the band).

There are all sorts of hidden costs in the entertainment industry.

On the other hand, if a concert was to be played in 'private', it's true that there would be no advertising costs, you are quite right.