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The True Costs of Going on a DIY Tour Part 2: Car Stats and Calculations

by Alyx

Over the last year there has been a slew of articles about “independent”, and DIY musicians going on tour. Most of the articles focus around the economics and opportunity cost of taking on the open road as a “middle class”/”working class”/“creative class”/“insert-buzzword-here” musician. While some people brought good dialog and introspection to the table, like Spoonboy, other people were trying to launch some marketing stunts and promote their internet start up. Anyhow, here is part two of my series about the true costs of going on a DIY tour. If you’d like to read the whole preface, check it out here! Read Part 1 here!

I’m a big fan on taking statistics about your own life- sometimes its really enlightening and sometimes its really depressing. While you should always be keeping track on tour, I think a lot of people get lackadasical because they know they are gonna lose a bunch of money or they are doing so well that they are thinking about how to spend money on things besides gas. In the spirit of being responsible I decided to project and keep track of our gas expenditures and mileage to the best of my abilities. I ended up with some pretty cool statistics and had some interesting numbers, taking into account the relative stature of these bands. (One has less than 200 likes on fb and one released song; the other doesn't have a fb page but finally got an instagram and an album ready for tour).

Here is the kicker of all of this cost analysis. We we’re only “on tour” for five days. We played five shows. Most bands want to tour for longer than a weekend, and to develop a national fanbase you have to tour for more than a weekend. That means more money on merchandise and more money on gas.

We went from Central Orange County —> Dublin, CA —> Berkeley/Oakland, CA —> San Francisco —> Santa Cruz, CA —> Van Nuys, CA —> Central Orange County. Here is the predicted and actual mileage we traveled as well as project gas costs and potential per member expenditures.

We we’re lucky enough to pay for all our gas on tour. This was a function of a few factors: we played 3 shows in close proximity in the Bay Area, a lot of band members means a lot of friends to come out to shows, and two bands worth of merch sales. Multiple people in the band used to live in the bay area as well. We were also able to plan our drives to hit cheap gas stations off the 5 Fwy like in Lost Hills and Santa Nella because me and my mom marked up a California highway map with restaurants and relative gas prices when I was in college. We used to drive between the Bay and Orange County many times a year. (When you pay $0.40 cents cheaper per gallon than at home you “save” a significant amount of money over about 100 gallons of gasoline.) Having an app like GasBuddy helped but maybe some sort of aggregator for consistently cheap gas stations off major touring routes (like the 5 Fwy) would be a cool resource for bands.

Of course we did not factor in wear and tear on the cars, and we didn't factor in repairs that had to be done to get the vehicles ready for tour. The Pilot was borrowed from someone’s parents so it was in good condition. The Santa Fe had an oil change, and new tires put on for tour. Things were a bit cramped in the Santa Fe because we had to put a seat down to accommodate a long keyboard, light bars, and multiple guitars. Both cars still had gas left in them after dropping the band members off and the Santa Fe needs a new battery.

If we add up the cost of merch with the cost of gasoline: $150 + $256 = $406. This is just to make merchandise and to get around to our shows. Everyone pays for their own food and drink out of pocket. Well almost completely out of pocket (as you’ll see in part 3).

#the cost of tour #diy #diy tour #real cost of going on a diy tour #galactacat #diy4lyfe #cosmic harmony #cosmic harmony tour #space crime collective #gas #calculations #statistics #tour

Bobby Vu came and filmed one of the recording sessions for our album back in August! Check out this live video to see Galactacat in action! Filmed August 12th, 2015 at the Tririlla Bunker in Orange, CA.

#video #galactacat #video session #funk #hip hop #jazz #jazz funk #jam band #spacecrimecollective #space crime collective #bobby vu

Galactatour: The “True” Costs of Going on a DIY Tour

by Alyx

Over the last year there has been a slew of recent articles about independent, and DIY musicians going on tour. Most of the articles focus around the economics and opportunity cost of taking on the open road as a “middle class”/”working class”/“creative class”/"insert-buzzword-here” musician. While some people brought good dialog and introspection to the table, like Spoonboy, other people were trying to launch some marketing stunts and promote their internet start up.

At a level even smaller than those two respective artists, sits local bands who are active in their local music scene and dream of hitting the road to play in new towns every night. Almost every local band dreams of touring but it is not something every local band should do. Small DIY tours are a huge financial risk and are not easy to predict, unlike tours for bands who flirt with popular genres and non-alternative venues like bars. Most DIY bands, and bands with people who are under 21, don’t or can’t play bars. If you want your music to be enjoyed by everyone, you should probably play where people of all ages can see you anyway..

Bearing in mind the risks, expenses, time, wear and tear it would take to put together a tour, it’s hard to know the true cost of touring as a DIY/independent musician. Lots of people talk about the money musicians make on the internet but not a lot of people are detailing their revenue or losses. It’s tough to paint a picture of a musician or band’s income/expenses, especially when having multiple sources, some untaxed or under the table, as well as freebies, communal property, and borrowed gear/borrowed time.

All of that in mind, my purpose here is to present an example, albeit an outlier example, of the “true cost of touring as a DIY musician”. This feature will be in three parts and feature stats, mileage, expenses, income, merch sales, manufacturing costs and, surprisingly, profit. I will explain why this isn’t very good data for other people to use when gauging their interest in touring, nor is it applicable to the typical cultural assumption of a “band going on tour” in the punk/rock’n’roll sense. We weren’t a four-piece band and a manager/roadie packed in a cargo van- the typical DIY/punk/low-level-indie-band touring format. We were a nine-piece touring squadron, spread out across two vehicles. Way-too-over-the-top-detailed-posts to follow. It’s in three parts: Tour Prep & Merch, Car Stats & Calculations, and On the Road. Full coverage will be over at @diy4lyfe over the course of the week!