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How Touring Really Pays: Settlements, Merch, and Deal Math · Clone Wars: The Spinoff

• 0:00
  Welcome back to Clone Wars: The Spinoff.
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  I'm DJ Universe, and today we're getting into one of the most misunderstood revenue
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  streams in this game -- touring.
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  People see an artist sell out a venue and think they're eating,
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  but there's a whole science to what you actually keep when the night is done.
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  Facts.
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  I been on the road since the jump.
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  You'd be surprised how many artists come home from a two-week run with less than
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  they left with.
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  And that ain't no exaggeration.
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  The road will humble you if you don't understand the numbers going in.
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  I learned that lesson the hard way doing regional runs through the South.
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  Me and my team were driving from New Orleans to Atlanta, hitting Baton Rouge,
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  Jackson, Birmingham -- and by the time I broke down what we actually cleared versus
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  what we spent on gas, hotels, food, and all that, I was like...
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  we basically worked for free.
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  That's the real curriculum right there.
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  The road is school.
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  And the tuition is expensive if you don't study first.
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  From a financial standpoint, touring is the most operationally complex revenue
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  stream artists have.
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  You're running a small business every single night -- variable revenue,
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  fixed costs, and fourteen line items between the gross ticket number and what hits
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  your pocket.
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  Break it down.
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  Walk us through the settlement sheet, because that's where most artists get lost.
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  So a settlement sheet is the accounting document the venue produces at the end of
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  the night.
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  It starts with gross box office -- the total dollars from ticket sales.
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  From there, you deduct the venue's percentage, ticketing fees,
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  production costs, the promoter's cut if there is one, sound and lights if they're
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  not included, any rider costs, security, staffing, merchandise commission if the
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  venue takes a percentage -- and that's before you pay your band,
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  your crew, your travel, and your per diems.
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  And most artists don't even see that paper until after the show.
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  They're signing things in a back room without understanding what they agreed to up
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  front.
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  That's the game.
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  They're counting on your excitement.
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  What's a realistic number for an indie artist to expect after all that?
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  Like, if I'm playing a 500-cap room at a fifteen-dollar ticket-- So five hundred
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  tickets at fifteen dollars is seventy-five hundred gross.
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  Let's say you sell eighty percent capacity -- that's six thousand dollars.
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  Venue takes twenty to thirty percent -- you're at four to five thousand.
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  You paid your booking agent ten to fifteen percent -- now you're at thirty-five to
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  forty-five hundred.
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  You've got a sound tech, a tour manager, travel, hotel, food -- now you're looking
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  at maybe five hundred to a thousand in your pocket on a good night.
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  And that's if merch is treated as a separate revenue line.
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  This is why I always say: know your floor before you book.
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  What is the minimum that makes this show worth doing?
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  Not just financially, but strategically.
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  Are you building in a new market?
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  Is there a fanbase you're converting to die-hards?
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  Is it positioning you for something bigger on the next run?
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  That's real.
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  Not every show has to be profitable on paper.
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  Sometimes the investment is the audience.
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  But merch -- that's where I stopped operating from a deficit.
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  I started treating the merch table like a store, not an afterthought.
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  Real inventory, multiple price points, a dedicated merch person,
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  and proper positioning at the venue.
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  When people come to the table after the show and I've got a shirt,
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  a hoodie, a signed EP, a hat -- I'm capturing money at the emotional peak of the
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  night.
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  And the math on merch is completely different from ticket revenue.
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  Night and day.
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  A shirt that costs you eight to twelve dollars to produce retails for twenty-five to
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  forty.
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  Your margin is fifty to sixty-five percent.
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  There's no promoter cut, no ticketing fee.
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  The only consideration is whether the venue takes a merch percentage.
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  On smaller indie shows at clubs and bars, you usually keep everything.
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  At a 500-cap room with eighty percent capacity, if your merch-per-head average is
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  ten dollars, that's four thousand dollars in additional revenue on top of your door
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  money.
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  That's the real bag.
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  Artists that tour consistently and build merch into their business model are the
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  ones who actually build wealth from the road.
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  And it compounds.
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  When people are walking around your city in your shirt, that's marketing.
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  Every piece of merch you sell is a moving billboard.
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  Let's talk about deal structures.
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  A lot of younger artists don't know the difference between a guarantee and a door
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  deal, and which one to take in what situation.
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  A guarantee means the promoter pays you a fixed number regardless of ticket sales.
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  A door deal means you get a percentage of what comes in at the door.
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  Each has its place depending on your leverage.
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  If you don't have strong ticket-moving power in a market yet,
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  take the guarantee -- you know your floor.
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  If you're developing real draw, a percentage deal can pay more than any guarantee
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  would.
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  And a hybrid -- that's where you want to be as you grow.
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  A guarantee against a percentage.
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  You get the floor no matter what, plus upside if the show overperforms.
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  That protects your downside while letting you capture the upside.
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  I had a show in Memphis where the promoter was offering me fifteen hundred
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  guarantee.
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  I knew I had movement in that market from my streaming numbers.
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  I negotiated a hybrid -- eight hundred guarantee against seventy percent of ticket
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  sales over twelve hundred gross.
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  We sold over two grand in tickets.
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  I walked with more than the original guarantee.
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  That's knowing your worth and knowing your market.
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  And that's the financial literacy piece.
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  You can't just be a great performer.
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  You have to understand deal structures, read the settlement,
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  track your advances, and know when to push back.
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  Every dollar that leaks from a tour without being accounted for is a dollar that
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  never reaches your balance sheet.
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  This connects directly to something deeper in our culture.
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  In the Supreme Mathematics, the number one is Knowledge.
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  You cannot build anything without knowing what you have, what you're owed,
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  and where your energy is being applied.
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  The knowledge of self on the road means knowing your value,
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  knowing your costs, and not letting anybody hand you a number without understanding
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  how they got there.
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  And two is Wisdom -- applying that knowledge with action.
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  You can know everything about settlement sheets but if you don't negotiate,
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  don't read the contract, don't send your representative to the settlement -- the
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  knowledge is worthless without application.
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  And three is Understanding -- that synthesis.
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  When you understand the full picture of the road as a business,
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  you stop feeling like you're grinding for nothing and start seeing every tour as
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  infrastructure.
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  Every market, every merch drop, every stage you step on is building equity.
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  That's generational wealth language right there.
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  Most artists tour to survive.
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  The ones who build legacy tour to invest -- brand equity, audience data,
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  regional power, and cash they reinvest into catalog, into real estate,
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  into the next generation.
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  I've seen artists come up from playing twenty-dollar shows to owning the venue.
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  That journey starts with taking the road seriously as a business instead of just a
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  hustle.
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  So what's the homework for artists tuning in right now?
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  First step?
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  Get a tour budget template before you book a single show.
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  Know what every night costs before you agree to any deal.
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  Set up a separate bank account for tour revenue.
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  Don't let road money mix with personal money.
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  Treat the tour like a business entity, even if it's just you and two people in a van
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  driving between cities.
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  Know your worth in every market.
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  Pull your streaming data, look at where your listeners are concentrated
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  geographically, and target those cities first.
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  Don't book a tour in markets where nobody knows your name yet.
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  And study your settlement sheet after every show -- make it a habit,
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  not a chore.
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  Knowledge, Wisdom, Understanding.
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  That's the blueprint whether you're talking about the road,
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  publishing, or any other pillar of this business.
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  Clone Wars.
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  The Spinoff.
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  Stay sovereign.
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  That's the show.
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  We'll catch you on the next one.