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from the getting-by-while-getting-started dept.
medium.com has an article from musician Jack Conte on the economics of a recent tour with the band Pomplamoose.
Being in an indie band is running a never-ending, rewarding, scary, low-margin small business. In order to plan and execute our Fall tour, we had to prepare for months, slowly gathering risk and debt before selling a single ticket. We had to rent lights. And book hotel rooms. And rent a van. And assemble a crew. And buy road cases for our instruments. And rent a trailer. And….
Pomplamoose is a musical duo, featuring Jack Conte and Nataly Dawn, who primarily distribute their music online, and the article covers the recent 28 day tour and highlights the new economics of the emerging music business away from the traditional major labels, and although the band actually lost money overall on the tour (despite the success of the shows) they view this as the cost of investment in building a fanbase for future tours, and the current model they have of making music as viable.
The point of publishing all the scary stats is not to dissuade people from being professional musicians. It’s simply an attempt to shine light on a new paradigm for professional artistry.
We’re entering a new era in history: the space between “starving artist” and “rich and famous” is beginning to collapse. YouTube has signed up over a million partners (people who agree to run ads over their videos to make money from their content). The “creative class” is no longer emerging: it’s here, now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 30 2014, @04:16PM
They did 24 shows in 28, in front of what looked like pack houses for at least some of them (four photos in the story). And the commentaries where like "You should've done Motel-6 instead of Best Western... why did you rent such a high end van... $10 per diem instead of $20 maybe wouldn't have been enough, but that would've saved $80 per day" etc. I'd say the duo made a pretty good case.
(Score: 2) by pnkwarhall on Sunday November 30 2014, @04:49PM
ha! if someone's idea to cut costs is to make a miserable per diem, I'd be finding a new tour manager.
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