Touring & Performances :: 20/20 Vision

Hey everybody, how are you today? Touring! I want to talk about touring. Um, show money is usually the first money that artists see that come in. So, um, shows matter and getting paid for shows matters. When you look at, um, when you look at the— if you're signed to a record label and you look at the money that is coming in, The great thing about show money, even if you have a 360 deal, is it doesn't go towards recouping. And recouping is where you pay back the label for the money that they've spent. So if you're signed to a label or you're signed to a production company, or even if you have an investor where they get a percentage of all of your money, the great thing about your street— your, um, show money compared to your streaming money is that it doesn't go towards recouping your marketing budget or your recording budget or any advances that you got. So it's pretty much cash in your pocket, and that's why I say that the— that usually the first money that artists see is their show money. I also say that because For example, Spotify pays somewhere around $0.007 per stream. Apple pays around $0.004 per stream. And then depending on what your distribution deal is or what percentage you get from a label, you get a percentage of that, right? If you're your own investor, you're getting the whole thing. But do the math, like, you've got to stream 100,000 times at Spotify to make around $700. And these are, these are rough estimates of numbers. Everybody's deal is different. So, um, you have to stream 100,000 times on a song to make $700. You could build a buzz and start doing shows that would be probably more than that faster. So that's why I'm saying that, that touring or shows, um, is the first money that artists see. So in order to set up a show, a promoter will book you, but there has to be some sort of demand for you in the marketplace. Like, if nobody's gonna buy tickets to see you perform promoter's not going to give you money. They're not going to pay you to perform because they can't sell tickets. So you're going to start doing shows for free initially until you build up enough of a buzz that there's a demand for you in the marketplace. And you can do this twofold. You can either start networking with the promoters and get on shows where you're opening for larger artists. I don't recommend that you pay to do this, but if you build a relationship and you can open for somebody bigger that's coming into the marketplace, I think that's a really good use of your skill set. And then if you can build a buzz through your marketing and your promotion that's big enough where people will actually spend money to come see you perform, or if your single is so hot that it just takes off, you're going to start getting booked for shows. Um, when, when I, when I first started working with Little Donald, he wasn't getting any paid shows. We put out a song called Do Better, it took off, it had a ridiculous buzz, and then he started getting offered shows in the $1,500 to $3,000 range, and then it, it, it escalated from there. So if you think about like how many streams you have to have in order to make that same $1,500 or that same $3,000, it's pretty— it's pretty— a pretty high number, right? So not to say that you're not going to stream well, but just to say that it's going to take a minute for the streaming to start, and you're going to spend a lot of money on marketing and promotion to get to that point. So another way that you can sort of, um, get your touring happening a little bit quicker is to do door splits with promoters. So if taking some of the risk off of the back of the promoter. Like, instead of charging them, you know, $1,500 to perform or $3,000 to perform or whatever your going rate is, if you offer to split the door with them 50/50, you're, you're giving them the opportunity to spend the money that they were going to put into you and your fee to perform into marketing and promotion. So it reduces their risk exponentially. You split the door with them and it's kind of like everybody wins. And you have the opportunity, if more people come and the door makes, say, $10,000, you're going to get $5,000 instead of just getting $1,500 to $3,000. So it could really be to your benefit. Um, when you work out that deal, make sure that you have a minimum that you, that you're hoping to make. So if your again, getting paid $1,500 or $3,000 and your door split is less than that, you're going to lose. So you want to make sure that your buzz is big enough and the opportunity is big enough and the capacity at the club is large enough and you can sell enough tickets at the right price so that you can make back the money that you normally get paid when somebody does a guarantee. And, and by the way, when you, when you're when you're booked to do a show, the way that the guarantee works is if you're booked for $3,000, the promoter is going to send you $1,500 up front to hold that date. And then when you get there, before you go on stage, you're going to get the back end of your $1,500. Some artists include their travel in their price. Some artists charge additional monies for travel. So if you're going— let's say you're based in Atlanta and you have a show in Birmingham, Alabama, you want to make sure that you're getting travel expenses to cover the drive to Birmingham and a hotel room. And either you're going to roll that into your price, so instead of charging $3,000, you might charge $3,500 so that you can pay for the room and the, and the, and the, um, and the vehicle to get to Birmingham. Or you're going to charge $3,000 plus travel, which is another $500, so you're going to charge the promoter $3,500, $500 for travel, $3,000 for your guarantee. And again, they're going to send you the $1,500 in advance, they're going to send you the $500 for travel in advance, and then right before you go on stage, you're going to get the back end of $1,500. Or we hope you get the back end of the $1,500. There's a lot of janky promoters out here. There are times when you're going to show up to a venue and the promoter's going to tell you that they didn't sell enough tickets or they didn't make enough money. To give you your back end. And at that point, you need to figure out what you're going to do. Are you going to go on stage, um, and perform so that you don't disappoint the people that are in the venue? Um, and that's problematic because then you kind of get the reputation for being somebody that a promoter can short. Or are you going to chase the promoter down and get the rest of your money? Or are you going to not go on stage and disappoint your fans? It's, you know, it's your call. You know, maybe you go on and just do one or two songs, tell the crowd you weren't paid properly, and bounce. But again, you've got people in the venue that paid full price to see you, and they're kind of the ones that are losing if you don't perform. So every artist has a different way that they handle it. It's up to you. I'm not going to sit here and tell you how to best handle it because I'm not in your shoes. I'm not in this situation. But I do suggest that you do some research, talk to other artists that are making money in the marketplace, and be aware of which promoters are shady and which ones aren't, because the ones who aren't paying you your full guarantee to perform, your full price to perform, probably aren't paying Lil Baby his full price, or DaBaby, or Megan Thee Stallion, or whoever. It's probably a pattern of bad business practices, so you can certainly ask around. You may also want to have somebody on your team that can book you, somebody that has the relationships with the promoters in like a 5-state area around you, so that that person could be brought on board to, to book you. Um, when you're brand new, it's very hard to secure a booking agent. Booking agents usually get paid around 10% of your booking fee, and if you're only booking for $1,000, that means they're only making $100. So it's going to be very difficult for you to get somebody from Paradigm or CAA CAA or William Morris or, or, you know, whoever, um, to book you when your rate, your going rate is so low. So you may want to just have somebody in-house that has a little bit of experience and that has booked other artists, not only so that they know who's janky and who's not, but if you've got somebody actively booking you, if you get a show on a Saturday night in Birmingham, that person can call promoters promoters in Montgomery, for example, um, which is only a 45-minute drive, and try to book you for either Friday night or Sunday night in that marketplace at a reduced rate. So if you're getting $3,000 to perform in Birmingham, the person booking you could certainly call promoters in Montgomery and even, you know, Mobile, like surrounding areas, areas where the drive isn't too far out of the way, and see if they would take you for $2,000 or $2,500. It's just a really great way to maximize your efforts. And then while you're in that city doing your show, there's no reason why you couldn't go a little bit early and do some promotional work while you're in the city. You know, hit the, um— I wouldn't hit other clubs because I think that would be really offensive to where you're booked, but you could certainly hit any barbershops or flea markets or college campuses. Or if it's a weekday, you can hit the high schools, you could hit the malls. You can do some work while you're in the city and it's like you're getting paid to be on promo tour. And to me, that's like the best of both worlds. So touring is where you're gonna make some money. As you get a little bit bigger, you can book out an entire tour. You'll probably drop your price a little bit. So let's say you're getting $15,000 a show and you can book out a tour where you're going out on tour with Lil Baby or DaBaby or somebody whose fan base is similar to yours. Not only will it benefit you, to be performing every night in a different city because you're making steady money. But you can also, you know, for the same example, go through and do promotional work in each city and you're getting paid for it. I don't believe in paying to go out on tour. I've just not seen where that's beneficial because if you're paying, it means your buzz isn't strong enough. And I just don't believe that fans go to clubs to see opening acts. I don't think they pay attention to opening acts. And I think if you're at a point in your career where you're paying to get on somebody else's tour, there's just not enough demand for you to make it worthwhile at that point. And again, that's just a personal opinion. I've got a lot of friends who do do that and do try to get on people's tours. You know, maybe it works, maybe it doesn't. It just— I don't see the value. I just think there's better ways to spend that money in order to build a buzz so that my artist can either get out there doing a promo tour where they're in the markets that matter most to us and it's a planned promotional opportunity, or they're actually getting paid to touch the stage. Okay guys, I hope this was helpful. I know you guys ask me a lot of questions about touring. Make sure you have a great accountant set up because when you're paid to do shows, you're paying state taxes wherever you're performing, if there are state taxes, um, due in those different states. So if you're performing in Georgia, you're going to pay Georgia state taxes. If you're performing in Alabama, you're going to pay Alabama state taxes. And a seasoned touring accountant or, um, entertainment accountant is going to know exactly how to handle that and exactly what needs to be done. They're going to— they're going to be able to write off all of your travel expenses, um, that, you know, the cost that you incurred, sometimes the outfit that you bought in order to perform. But, um, an accountant is going to be better, um, to advise you than I can in that situation. Okay guys, thanks for tuning in. I hope this was helpful. Go do more research, learn how to tour, ask other artists that have come before you about promoters, ask them for tips about how to tour, how to save money on tour, how to make money on tour, and how to maximize opportunities for yourself. Okay guys, take care.