How Do Musicians Make Money Touring?
Touring can be a tough source of revenue for independent artists. There are many upfront expenses that go into touring, and so it's important for an artist to creatively approach financial gain while tour on tour. The best way to do this is to start by not LOSING money. It’s a wise idea to calculate touring expenses before you approach your first tour. This will help you pre-determine how to stay away from losing money, and give you a better perspective on what you will need for the tour to be successful.
Here is a list of common upfront expenses that our artists have found that go along side touring.
- Renting a car, van, or bus
- Airline flight costs
- Airline bag costs
- Food
- Merch
- Lodging
After you've considered financial outgoings, let's look at some creative ways you can up your chances to make money while touring.
Make Connections Ahead Of Time.
The music industry is based around connections.
Contact and engage with local bands:
This could help you book gigs in bigger venues and may open the door to new gigs. Approach collaborating with other local bands to have a 50/50 set split or offer yourself as opening act for them. Working with a band that knows that area, brings a larger audience. In turn, you have the potential to grow your fan base and potentially make more money. Bands that have reoccurring performances in certain venues often have a relationship with the venue and are at more liberty to organize their opening acts. This could open opportunity for you to get your music in front of a promoter.
Engage with local radio stations:
Local radio is often underestimated and people still value connections within communities. Public or community radio stations usually work within niche styles of music. This gives you an opportunity to engage with purposeful listeners that are interested in your type of music. Try calling a radio station that is focused on your genre of music and ask if you can have a spot with them the day before or the morning of your gig. Offer an incentive for fans or potential fans to come. For example, first 10 people to arrive will receive free merchandise.
Look at the benefits of working with a booking agent:
Whether or not you should invest into a booking agent depends on where you are at in your music career. If you're only playing locally it might not be financially worth it to hire a booking agent until you're ready to take your shows out of town.
That said, here are the benefits of working with a booking agent:
- Using a booking agent can free up time for you up to work on your music. Booking your own tours can be time consuming with all the small details involved.
- Booking agents have connections with out of town venues and can have more knowledge and experience as to what venue would be appropriate for your audience.
- These connections could also help you get a better deal for your show. Remember that booking agents get a cut of your earnings so it is their goal to get you the best deal.
- Make sure your booking agent is bringing that “extra” to you. They should be aiding you in finding bigger deals, opening slots, higher profile gigs, and better shows.
Always Sell:
- Utilize your merchandise table at every concert and with every opportunity.
- Have your merchandise table manned before a fan walks through the door and have it manned while the last person walks out.
- There are many different creative options to engage with your fans through your merchandise. To hear more about making the most out of your merchandise, check out our article, Tackling your Merchandise.
So, Why A Membership?
Let’s face it — trying to create professional mixes without the correct knowledge, tools, services, and network is like playing a concert with a broken instrument to an audience of no one.
That’s where the Sage Audio membership comes in — the membership gives you everything you need to create professional mixes consistently.
The membership is the secret to your success — it’s the difference between the 1,929,999,999 of poor-sounding mixes and the .00000002% of mixes that make people say 'WOW!"
There are 7 unique value-points included in your Sage Audio membership.
Let’s go over each one so you can decide if the membership is right for you.
1. Sage Audio University
- SAU Flagship Mixing Course: 23-video in-depth mixing course that reveals the little-known secrets of mixing and matches the needs of the new music industry.
- SAU Flagship Mastering Course: 19-video in-depth modern mastering course that dives into every nuance of making professional-sounding masters.
- SAU Pre-Mastering Course: Concise pre-mastering course that details the latest industry standards for preparing your mixes for mastering.
- SAU is designed for every experience level, ranging from budding mixing engineers to advanced engineers. The techniques and concepts taught can be applied to any DAW to create industry-leading mixes without expensive software or plugins - and free plugin alternatives are suggested throughout each course.
- Each SAU course includes Start-to-Finish session walkthrough lessons for multiple genres so you can follow along with your preferred genre.
- SAU Certification Document, which can be downloaded and showcased on your website and social channels.
Yes, I want to join the membership now >
2. Private 1-on-1 Mentorship
- The Sage Audio private 1-on-1 Mentorship gives you direct access to us for advanced mixing feedback, in-depth discussions, and customized guidance that's tailored to your specific needs.
- Unlimited private access to us for advanced mixing feedback, where we provide detailed suggestions for improvement.
- Unlimited private access to us for in-depth discussions to help you improve every aspect of your mixes and masters.
- Customized guidance that’s tailored specifically to your needs.
- Fast communication so you can improve your skills quickly.
Yes, I want to join the membership now >
3. Unlimited Mixing Feedback
- Unlimited professional mixing feedback directly from us so you can consistently improve your skills and create professional mixes.
- Mixing feedback is invaluable, and the Sage Audio membership gives you continual direct access to us for real-world feedback so you can improve every aspect of each of your mixes while you're in the process of mixing.
Yes, I want to join the membership now >
4. 50 Free Mastered Songs Per Year
- 50 free mastered songs per year with your own dedicated professional mastering engineer so you can get all your mixes sounding like professional songs.
- You get your own dedicated Sage Audio mastering engineer to create custom masters that are specific to you and sound exactly how you want.
- Unlimited revisions with your dedicated mastering engineer. As a standard of our service, we are not happy until you are happy with the sound of your masters.
- All masters are delivered as commercial, industry-standard high-resolution 24-bit HD WAV masters so they will sound clean and clear on every platform.
Yes, I want to join the membership now >
5. Community
- The Sage Audio community is a tight-knit community of passionate audio engineers who can provide you with additional real-world mixing feedback, meaningful discussions, networking, collaborations, and more.
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6. 70+ GB of Curated Sage Audio Downloadable Content
- 36 multitrack sessions spanning multiple genres for mixing practice.
- 57 un-mastered mixes spanning multiple genres for mastering practice.
- 62 Recommended Free Plugins List (vetted, tested, and approved, so you don’t have to).
- 39 Recommended Paid Plugins List (vetted, tested, and approved, so you don’t have to).
- 71 Sage Audio custom plugin presets to improve your mixes and masters.
- Sage Audio Membership Badge to showcase on your website, social channels, and portfolio.
Yes, I want to join the membership now >
7. 800+ Video Catalog
- Access 700+ in-depth Sage Audio mixing and mastering videos - curated and organized into categories so you can easily take a deep dive into all aspects of audio engineering with thousands of hours of concise, expertly crafted Sage Audio videos to continually improve your skills at your own pace.
Yes, I want to join the membership now >
