Latest / The Price of Music / Artists' royalties for tracks featured on adverts, how much it costs to cancel a live tour

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Artists' royalties for tracks featured on adverts, how much it costs to cancel a live tour · The Price of Music

1:07
Hello and welcome to The Price of Music, the show that looks at
1:10
the money behind the music industry with me, Steve Lamack
1:12
and music allies head of inside Stuart Dredge, who was very
1:15
poorly last week because you had COVID and it turns out you still
1:20
have. I do.
1:22
It's the first time I've had it too.
1:24
And it's just going, you know what, I'm going to hang around
1:25
for the full 10 days just to make you, just to kind of make
1:29
up for not getting you before. So listeners, you can't see
1:33
this, but Stuart's not in his normal office because you are in
1:36
isolation in your bedroom, is that right?
1:40
Well, last year a bunch of my family got COVID and so this
1:42
year I'm, I'm determined not to give it to anyone else if I can
1:45
help it. So yeah, I've been, I've been
1:46
living like a, like a sort of like a monk in my bedroom for
1:49
the last week and 1/2. But it is, it's, it's an insight
1:53
though into your house. I can see just behind you
1:57
there's there's racks of CDs which what, what, what sort of
2:01
era of CD? Are they all albums?
2:03
Are they singles? There's quite a lot of singles.
2:06
So when I was a student journalist in the mid 90s, so I
2:09
got sent a lot of CD singles and that so I've got, you know,
2:11
every, even the the Brit pop bands that no one remembers, not
2:15
even you. I think I've probably got their
2:16
CD singles and yeah, a lot of we basically we I'd like what do
2:22
you do with your CDs? Because you know, I stream
2:24
things now, but they look quite nice when you put them in a, in
2:27
a, in a sort of rack, don't they?
2:29
So it's kind of it's really is decorative rather than
2:31
functional. All I'm thinking is that is an
2:34
absolute Woolworths bargain bin of Brit pop singles, which is
2:39
stacks be stacks behind you. Anyway, yes, Stuart's Stewart
2:44
came down with COVID. I've subsequently come down with
2:47
a rather nasty traditional headache cold, But we are, we
2:50
are back. That's why we weren't here last
2:52
week. But we're back because we didn't
2:53
want to leave you hanging for another week.
2:56
So we're going to attempt to cough and splutter our way
2:58
through this one. I expect much action with the
3:00
mute button in the next half an hour, but we wanted to bring you
3:04
this because we haven't done one of these episodes for ages.
3:07
It's one of our listeners question specials.
3:10
Thanks to everyone who's been in touch.
3:11
Keep your questions coming. We'll give you the e-mail
3:13
address at the end of the show. Where should we start?
3:16
Here's a question from Ian McKinnon on Wikipedia.
3:19
You can see what the budget was and what the box office return
3:23
was. For a lot of movies, the figures
3:27
are often quite precise, rather than rough estimates which would
3:30
indicate this information is publicly available.
3:33
Got me wondering whether the same information is available
3:36
for music, specifically the cost of albums now.
3:41
As far as I know, it's not. It's not generally something
3:45
which the music industry go in for.
3:47
I don't think that there may be, there may be a list on the
3:51
Internet somewhere of albums which I think you've been
3:54
looking up albums, the most expensive albums of all time.
3:58
But in general, yeah, it seems movie makers aren't secretive
4:02
about their budgets and just seem happier to show off how
4:06
much money they've spent on their latest blockbuster.
4:09
But not the music industry though in general, I don't
4:12
think, Stuart. No, no, it's not released as a
4:15
matter of course. And you have in the movie
4:16
industry all these tables you have, you know, box office
4:19
takings and costs and budgets. The one thing Wikipedia is good
4:23
at, there is actually Wikipedia page for the most expensive
4:26
albums ever. And what it's good at is it's it
4:28
rounds up reports in the past. So where where basically someone
4:33
at some point is given interview saying, yeah, the budget for
4:35
that album was this. We spent that much marketing
4:37
that album and it kind of aggregates that and then kind of
4:40
figures out what it's worth nowadays with inflation.
4:42
So I've been digging down that rabbit hole.
4:44
Well, you see, this is, I mean, this is the thing that sometimes
4:47
there are headline figures for particular albums.
4:50
But in, in general, I think there are only, there are
4:52
probably 2 reasons why the amount of money that was spent
4:57
on an album becomes public. And particularly there's one
5:00
where the music industry are very keen to tell you when
5:03
they've made a terrific massive, you know, big selling album for
5:09
a, a very small amount of money. And then on the other side, you
5:14
have journalists who are very keen to tell you how much money
5:17
the music industry have wasted on an absolute howler.
5:22
So 2 examples. So Nirvana's album, I think the
5:25
stats are out there or the figures are out there for
5:27
Nevermind, which was done on a budget, which for the time, I
5:31
know this sounds like a lot of money.
5:33
The budget for Nevermind was $65,000, which as I say sound
5:38
might sound like a lot of money these days to some musicians,
5:41
but not compared to other albums which were being recorded at the
5:44
time. 65K was pretty tight and they famously I think only had
5:49
£5000 to make the Smells Like Teen Spirit video.
5:53
And then on the other hand, just Fast forward a year after that,
5:56
a year later, Factory Records gave Happy Mondays a maximum
5:59
budget of £150,000 to make what turned out to be the album.
6:05
Yes Please. Although if you're familiar with
6:08
the Happy Mondays, some of you will know they did spend rather
6:11
a lot of that money attempting and failing to make the record
6:15
in Barbados, and the album reportedly ended up costing
6:20
somewhere in the region of 380,000 lbs, which is eye
6:24
watering now. But that's that's not, I don't
6:27
think, one of the costliest albums of all the time, given
6:31
your research. No, it's not.
6:33
So I mean, the, the and it is a lot of this is from a certain
6:36
era, which is kind of the mid 90s height of CD.
6:40
But yeah, so I don't think it'll be a surprise to me for the most
6:43
expensive album recorded cost ever was Michael Jackson's
6:46
Invincible, which took I think 4 years to record.
6:49
So it came out in 2001 and that was 30 to $40 million at the
6:55
time, which if you adjust for inflation now is sort of 51
6:58
million to $68 million. And then you've done this.
7:01
He's got three of the top five S history and Dangerous, which are
7:04
not like, you know, the the the later Michael Jackson albums
7:07
budget seems to just balloon Guns and Roses.
7:10
Chinese Democracy is number 2, which I think there's a function
7:13
of how long that took. And there's like a little column
7:16
in this table. It's like how when it was
7:18
recorded and it's like 1998 to 2007.
7:21
So like if you have that, I mean, that was a famous problem
7:25
like re recording and going back in scrapping things.
7:28
And so that was about thing, but #5 surprised me.
7:31
So what do you think the 5th? This is a really horrible
7:33
question. What do you think the fifth most
7:35
expensive album ever is? What sort of era are we talking?
7:38
Eighties. 90s. We're talking it came out in
7:41
2001. Oh, came out in 2001, yeah.
7:46
I don't think I was listening to many big albums in 2001 because
7:49
I just had the Strikes EP on repeat.
7:51
Probably by that I don't. Think you listen to this one?
7:53
It's fair to say. What?
7:55
What? What was it?
7:58
Victoria Beckham by Victoria Beckham.
8:00
Are you joking 5? £1,000,000 apparently, which is
8:03
justification is like 10.4 million and for that price I was
8:06
I want for the obvious calculation for that price you
8:10
could have recorded ACDC's. For those about to rock, we
8:12
salute you, Fleetwood Mac's Tusk and Metallica's Metallica.
8:18
Dear the record industry, what on earth were you thinking?
8:24
I mean, this is one of the reasons why no one really wants
8:26
to to go public on the insanity of these figures and what you
8:32
know what happens and you know, there will be artists who are
8:36
demanding astonishing amounts of money, or at least there were at
8:40
that point to make an album. And no one wants to tell you how
8:43
much money an LP has cost, particularly in the run up to
8:47
the release, because most people will be then doing their own
8:50
sons thinking how many copies will they need to sell to break
8:54
even. And it'll turn out to be, you
8:56
know, with a Victoria Beckham out, who knows?
8:58
But you'll have to go triple platinum to get anywhere close
9:02
to recouping. And so I think that's one of the
9:05
things, there's an embarrassment factor.
9:07
I'll tell you the other thing which off the back of that which
9:10
I think may also come into play, it's just musicians jealousy.
9:16
Because there is a reason a lot of these figures possibly are
9:19
kept private. Because if you've got a roster
9:22
of artists or even if you're looking across at another label,
9:25
say your band A. And you're negotiating how much
9:29
time you can spend in the studio and what sort of studio you can
9:32
afford to record in and who's going to produce it and how much
9:35
you're going to pay the producer.
9:37
If somebody comes back these days and says you've got 20,000
9:41
lbs to play with and then you're out on tour somewhere, you bump
9:46
into someone from another band and Band B have been given
9:49
50,000 lbs either by the same label or a rival label, then you
9:54
know there's going to, there's going to be irate phone calls to
9:57
the record label as to why. Why aren't we getting the sort
10:02
of attention that this other band is?
10:04
So I think the other thing's part of it.
10:06
Yeah. And the other thing to say is
10:07
we're talking about just recording costs so far, but
10:09
there's a separate chart on Wikipedia of promotional costs.
10:12
So once you get to actually marketing it, and to give you an
10:15
idea, Michael Jackson's history, this reckons it costs $10
10:18
million to make, but $30 million to promote.
10:22
That was the marketing budget. Which was that the one where he
10:24
floated a giant statue down the Thames Room himself?
10:27
Or was that a different album? But like, this is where you
10:30
spend the money. You should know by now I think
10:32
you might be asking the wrong man when it comes to Michael
10:34
Jackson trivia. It's weird, like it, it feels
10:38
like I, I for a couple of reasons.
10:40
I was thinking about the those days are gone because I think
10:42
now budgets have got shrunk on both sides, marketing budgets,
10:48
making, but also in terms of making music.
10:51
I think when you're recording a new album, there's a lot of work
10:53
you do before you go into an expensive studio, whether it's
10:56
kind of preparing the beats or so.
10:58
I think it's it's probably quite hard for anyone to ever match
11:02
any of those costs, even the biggest stars thinking about, I
11:05
don't know, the Drakes of this world, the weekends.
11:07
Like, the cost of making a Drake album now will be a lot less, I
11:12
think, comparatively than some of those big 80s and 90's rock
11:17
or pop albums because just the technology has changed.
11:21
So yeah, I mean, my favorite anecdoter about cheap albums was
11:24
Black Sabbath. Have you heard this one?
11:26
How much they got to make Black Sabbath the debut?
11:28
Album. I don't know.
11:30
They got £1000 but each member used £100 to pay off their
11:34
debts, so they had £600 and left to make the album and the rest
11:38
is sludge metal history. Right, so 600 quid.
11:43
I hope that's sort of at least gives you the background as to
11:47
why some of these figures aren't readily available.
11:49
And I kind of think that given how the music industry operates,
11:52
I don't expect we'll see any more transparency anytime soon.
11:57
Question from Jack Wormsley, I was wondering if you'd be able
12:00
to explain the rights performers have to remuneration under UK
12:05
laws. I understand that performers
12:07
have a right to equitable remuneration when a commercially
12:12
published sound recording of music is played in public.
12:15
Does this mean though, that every time music is played in
12:18
public, any session musicians who performed on the track are
12:23
due a fee? Because what if they did
12:25
something minuscule, like they played one note or only sung one
12:29
word? This might be one for you,
12:31
Stuart. We sort of touched on this a
12:32
little bit before, but performers, payments and in this
12:35
case particularly session musicians.
12:38
Yeah. So I mean going back to basics,
12:40
there are two types of performers, aren't there?
12:42
So it's featured and non featured.
12:44
So feature performers are the ones who are credited in the
12:46
record release. You know, the artists and non
12:49
featured artists or the session musicians were the backing
12:51
vocals or session musicians. And as far as I understand it,
12:55
though, they're generally paid on a work for higher basis.
12:57
So they'll get paid a fee, but they for going into the studio
12:59
and doing the work. Yeah.
13:02
And to step up to being a featured artist, maybe if you're
13:05
a guest collaborator, if you've done something, if you've come
13:07
in and played a guitar solo. Talking of the great Michael
13:10
Jackson days when he got Slash in, you know, Slash was a
13:12
featured artist when he did a guitar search for Michael
13:14
Jackson. And so for So the when you get
13:19
into things like equitable nomination and performance,
13:23
yeah, it's equitable. So the featured artists will
13:25
get, I believe it's 50% the royalties from the song being
13:28
played on the radio, in public, via collection society PPL.
13:33
So it's very much about whether you are a featured artist.
13:36
Will you earn ongoing royalties? But is that right?
13:40
I mean, that's that's that's my. Understanding and yeah, I mean
13:42
session musicians, as you say, I think particularly they they
13:46
are, they are, they are guitars for hire.
13:48
So they come in, they play the guitar we need, we need someone
13:51
to play sax on this particular track.
13:54
You will be contacted and say can you come and play sax on
13:57
this song and we will pay you X amount of money.
14:00
There is a brilliant story, isn't there?
14:02
And I can't remember for the life of me now whether it was
14:04
Rick Whiteman or Elton John, but one of them was skint and bumped
14:07
into Mark Bolan, who said, yeah, I'm recording some tracks in the
14:10
studio tomorrow come down. And they went and did literally
14:15
like one piano line and Mark Bowen said, right, we'll put you
14:20
on the session payments is £50 and off they off they went.
14:24
But obviously they wouldn't be paid in perpetuity every time
14:28
that particular single gets gets played.
14:31
But yes, you unless you are, I guess, quite famous.
14:35
I'm sort of speculating here whether, you know, the Top of
14:37
the Rain session musicians can negotiate their own split then,
14:42
which I suppose particularly if you are say in the hip hop
14:47
community, if if you are bringing something to the song
14:51
which will help sell the song, then you will want a part of
14:55
that one. It's it's like support bands
14:57
saying we'll come on your tour but we need a decent fee because
15:00
we know we're of a statue that will help you sell the tickets.
15:06
We have one more act for you this evening.
15:09
I don't even need to say his name, Mr. Bob Dylan.
15:13
From the director of Walk the Line and Ford versus Ferrari.
15:15
If anyone is going to hold your attention on stage, it's kind of
15:18
be a freak. And starring Timothy Chalamet as
15:20
Bob Dylan. Are you a freak?
15:22
Once Upon. A time you're just.
15:25
So inspired by the true story. I want to know which side he's
15:28
on. This Christmas.
15:31
They just want me singing, blowing in the wind for the rest
15:34
of my life. Bobby, what do you want to be?
15:37
Whatever it is they don't want me to be.
15:41
He defied everyone. Turn it down.
15:46
To change everything. He's our Elvis.
15:51
Timothy Chalamet, Edward Norton, L Fanny, Monica Barbaro.
15:55
Make some noise BD. Track some.
15:57
Mud on the carpet. A complete unknown.
16:01
Only in theaters Christmas Day. Rated R under 1790.
16:04
Middle without parent. It's all a negotiation really, I
16:36
think. And and at the same point, if
16:37
someone comes into studio to play sax and does something that
16:41
the person the artist feels has kind of helped them help the
16:44
song become better, they might give them, you know, a
16:46
songwriting credit. They might say, look, actually
16:48
your contribution is more than just coming in and playing the
16:50
notes. So.
16:52
So it's all it's all to do with relationships, people, I think
16:55
as well. But yeah.
16:56
And then this is one that when we, I won't get into this whole
16:58
debate again, but when we talk about whether streaming should
17:01
be paid a bit more like radio, this is what people are talking
17:04
about. Should, should 50% of the money
17:07
from streaming go to the artists directly rather than via their
17:10
labels and publishers? So that's that's the whole
17:12
debate there. Question from David Reed a few
17:15
years ago. We seem to have a lot of
17:17
contemporary songs in adverts, but this seems to have shifted
17:21
again to classic sixties, 70s and 80s songs.
17:24
What do artists typically get paid for the use of their music
17:28
in adverts? This, I'm afraid, David, I think
17:31
this might be one of those how long is a piece of string
17:34
questions. And also again, when this leads
17:37
back to what we were saying about the money spent on
17:39
records, I think, you know, there was quite a lot of money
17:42
flowing around during the 90s. And you could get yourself, you
17:47
could get yourself 40,000 lbs for a, for a fizzy drink TV
17:52
advert for a sample of your track being used on that.
17:55
I don't know what the figure is these days.
17:57
Have you you got anything on this, Stuart?
18:00
I mean, literally how like you say, how long is a piece of
18:02
string? I mean, it's always negotiated.
18:03
That's the main thing to say. So if you are a brand, a company
18:07
and you want to license someone's music, you have to
18:09
say, right, we want to use this and you have to get permission.
18:12
You have to pay them what they asked for or agree it.
18:14
So it's always a negotiation and it will depend on what the
18:18
adverts for, where you're going to use it, how big the campaign
18:21
is, how prominent the song is, how in demand a song is and
18:24
whether the people license. I mean, if you want to go and
18:26
get a Beatles song, The Beatles don't.
18:29
So I mean, there's a really good case study that I read actually
18:32
in the research for this. So famously, Microsoft paid The
18:36
Rolling Stones a reported $3,000,000 to use Start Me Up
18:41
for their Windows 95 ads back in 1995.
18:44
And one of the guys who worked on that from Microsoft written
18:46
this blog post. So you can find, if you search
18:48
for Brad Chase, Start Me Up, you can find this kind of horse's
18:52
mouth blog post on the process of persuading the Stones to
18:56
license this song for this campaign and how they initially
18:59
wanted $10 million and have sponsored their tour.
19:01
And they had to kind of took them down, negotiate.
19:03
And all the while this advert was being created with the song
19:06
in the hope they get the deal done by the end.
19:10
So it really is, you know, if someone doesn't want to, if
19:13
someone wants to play hardball, you have to kind of negotiate
19:15
with them. But like, hey, at the, at the,
19:18
the kind of the, the less superstore end of the market, I
19:21
think it is the 10s of thousands.
19:24
And nowadays, of course, it's not just adverts on TV, It's
19:28
brands doing social posts, you know, brands doing ads on
19:30
Instagram. They want to use music, they
19:32
have to license that too. But that is smaller than TV.
19:36
And, and the deals, as I understand it, though, there
19:39
will, there will be a deal signed for a length of time.
19:43
And then if the company using the advert decides that they're
19:48
going to extend the run of the advert, then you renegotiate and
19:52
you get a second or even third payment.
19:55
As I remember it, that's, that's what happened with eat my goal,
19:59
collapse lungs. Eat My goal was it was used by
20:02
Coca-Cola. And then Coca-Cola extended the
20:04
contract so there was an additional payments once again,
20:08
but not in the millions of pounds.
20:10
I will hasten to it. That's why I collapsed longer.
20:13
Not all living in mansions around the edges, the outskirts
20:18
of the M25. But there was, what's it Billy?
20:21
While Billy Childish, Billy Childish recorded a version of
20:25
the Dad's Army theme. Do you remember that?
20:27
And that was used in an advert. And so they got paid a bit of
20:30
money for that. And then again, whoever was
20:32
using the advert extended the contract.
20:35
And they were making, you know, a reasonable for for Billy
20:39
Childish is however much it is. Let's just say it's 10 grand or
20:43
something. And here's another 10 grand.
20:45
And then I think they posted somewhere the a picture of the
20:50
cassette which he'd recorded the original on.
20:53
It had cost absolutely, you know, peanuts to make.
20:57
But just it captures the imagination.
20:59
It's interesting. I mean, we should get into the
21:03
whole adverts and syncing music for adverts.
21:08
So how, how does that work for an artist?
21:11
How do you get your music on an advert?
21:12
Because it's handy income. And what are the advertisers
21:16
looking for? The other thing about sync deals
21:18
is obviously the money is paid to your rights holders, the
21:20
label and publishers. So how much money the artist
21:23
makes depends on the deal they have with those like anything
21:25
else. But I like, I mean, there are
21:27
some good tales like like you say from that, that that time
21:30
when there were big money. So I was reading about the the
21:32
Dandy Warhols and when Vodafone used bohemian like you in a
21:36
really prominent ad campaign. And there was an interview with
21:39
Courtney Taylor Taylor from the band when he said, I think he
21:41
got about one and a half, $1,000,000 because he's a
21:43
songwriter too. And he used that money to buy a
21:46
quarter of a city block in Portland where they live and
21:49
turned it into a recording studio and film editing complex
21:51
and kind of basically made the band self sustainable.
21:54
So the reason they can kind of carry on recording albums now is
21:57
because they they put this money they made from sync back in the
22:00
day into place to music. So there's a lot of stories like
22:03
I think that time of, of artists getting money and then then
22:06
investing it wisely or or not so wisely in in other cases, I'm
22:09
sure. Yeah, okay, Philip Landvo and
22:15
I'm I'm probably probably mispronounced your name Phillip.
22:19
I apologise if I have, but Phillips question is, it's about
22:23
how much it costs a band to cancel a tour.
22:26
I live in Australia, says Phillip, and was eagerly
22:29
awaiting the Catfish and the Bottlemen tour only to have it
22:32
cancelled on the day of the Sydney show.
22:36
And if you look elsewhere, the doubling gig was cancelled just
22:39
10 minutes before doors open. They have since cancelled all
22:43
their Australian and American shows.
22:45
How much would this have cost the band in venue deposits,
22:49
ticketing costs, etcetera? Thank you for this is, I mean,
22:53
this is one of those questions where there's quite a lot to it.
22:56
So we'll try and break it down bit by bit.
22:59
But the first thing, and we have to thank once again our secret
23:03
agent who helped us out with this.
23:06
By the way, if there are any promoters listening who would
23:09
like to come on board with this pod anonymously if you wish, we
23:14
always have plenty of questions that we we could do with a
23:17
little bit of help with and guidance.
23:19
But according to our secret agents at at this level, at
23:23
catfish level, both band and promoter will have some
23:26
insurance in case of cancellations to offset the
23:30
costs of having to cancel the show.
23:33
Although .2 here what you claim will depend on the reasons
23:39
behind the cancellation. So why are the shows being
23:43
called off? I think in Catfish's case the
23:45
Australian gigs were cancelled due to I quote a band member's
23:49
illness, in which case I'm presuming they would almost
23:53
certainly need a doctor's certificate, which sounds
23:56
ridiculous. But only insuring tools is like
23:59
any sort of insurance. You have to prove to the
24:01
insurance companies that you haven't just made your claim up.
24:04
So you get a, you get a doctor out or you, you go to a doctor.
24:08
And I think that's probably why, you know, every time you see a
24:11
band pulling out of a gig for health reasons, you know, they,
24:16
they always have a line, don't they, which says something.
24:19
There's always a quote which says something like doctors have
24:22
advised them that they shouldn't attempt to sing for the next
24:25
month or so, which I think is partly an explanation to fans.
24:29
But I also suspect it's publicly telling the insurance company
24:32
that the, you know, the singer was definitely ill and was not
24:36
just too hungover to get to the venue on time.
24:39
That's why they cancelled. So you can get some money
24:43
through insurance if the if the insurers are satisfied with the
24:48
situation. I then had an e-mail exchange
24:51
with a new recruit, our secret insurer who we can at least call
24:56
Tim, who added the bands hopefully have insurance so that
25:03
any unrecoverable costs of which there are likely to be lots,
25:06
particularly when shows are cancelled at the last minute.
25:11
So they should have insurance to cover these costs.
25:14
They may also have bought a policy to protect against their
25:17
fees and also their expected net profit from the tour.
25:21
Lots of caveats here though, says Tim, as the band will be
25:26
required by the policy to try and mitigate the claim.
25:30
Which means if there's an option to reschedule the tour, then
25:35
apparently insurers would much rather there was.
25:38
The dates were rescheduled and they would cover the cost.
25:43
If, if the costs are cheaper, rescheduling the dates, they'll
25:45
do that. They'd much prefer rather than
25:48
calling off the geeks entirely, rather than cancelling them,
25:51
simply postponing them and putting them on at another time.
25:54
The general intention of an insurance policy like this, says
25:58
Tim, is, is on an indemnity basis.
26:02
So it's to put the bands back in the same position financially as
26:06
if the tour had actually gone ahead.
26:09
And then there's the the specific part of the question on
26:11
ticketing, which I mean, technically you might remember
26:15
still, we talked about when bands get paid and I was saying
26:19
some bands will get money upfront or at least the agent
26:22
will take money from the promoter and hold on to it.
26:25
So if this has happened, then of course any of so all the the
26:30
fees held by the live agent, they would all be returned to
26:34
the promoter who in turn returns ticket money to the customers.
26:40
So and then As for venues, Philip talking about venue
26:44
deposits, this I think there's a discussion here between the
26:48
promoter and the venue. And I think some of this is down
26:53
to when the gig was cancelled because if the gig is cancelled
26:57
two weeks in advance, then the venue possibly hasn't had to pay
27:01
out as much, it hasn't employed the staff on the day.
27:05
It's cost, if the venue cost will be less.
27:08
I mean, obviously they'll be sitting there with an empty
27:09
venue rather than one which is making money for them through
27:12
venue hire and other, other avenues.
27:15
But so they will have incurred some costs, but not as much as
27:20
if, you know, you'd, you'd basically had to go outside and
27:24
tell the queue that this gig isn't happening.
27:27
So venues would, I think they would want some compensation.
27:30
But again, it would depend probably on the relationship
27:33
between the venue and the promoter.
27:34
Because if promoter A so you've got a big promoter, an AEG or an
27:39
SJM, say, say they use your venue quite a lot, Then although
27:47
you want something out of this, some, as I say, some
27:52
compensation, you also won't want to damage your relationship
27:55
with the promoter because it's the promoter who puts the bands
27:59
you know on who hires your venue on a regular basis.
28:02
So if you don't have an in house Booker, promoters coming in and
28:05
using your spaces, how you make money, so you won't want to, if
28:09
you'll, excuse me, piss them off by asking for too much.
28:13
Does that does that make? Does that make sense?
28:17
That does, Yeah. I was reading an interesting
28:18
article in the Wall Street Journal about all this stuff as
28:20
well. Now that I'm going to say right
28:22
ahead, this is not about catfish and the bottle man, because
28:25
these are not the kind of cancellations that happen 10
28:26
minutes before a show goes on. So to be very clear for any
28:30
lawyers listening, But there was a thing and it's been saying
28:32
one, one thing that some insurance policies don't cover
28:35
is low ticket sales. You can't.
28:39
And that's that's maybe why you'd surmise in some other
28:41
cases when you hear about an artist reportedly having bought
28:44
poor ticket sales, then they suddenly go down with a bug that
28:47
keeps them out for the next few months.
28:49
That's why there's often people kind of going.
28:51
Oh, yeah, really. So there is, like you say, it's
28:54
all about the caveats, isn't it? What what does your insurance
28:56
cover? Would it not cover?
28:58
And if it doesn't cover, what is making you cancel some gigs?
29:01
How do you, you know, how do you go forward?
29:05
But yeah, it's, it's it's fussing.
29:07
I mean, I'm fascinated by that whole area.
29:08
I'm not so fascinated how you calculate the risks of something
29:12
like a tour and what do you look at and how do you what's the
29:15
formula? Well, here's here's a, here's a
30:20
question for you then, Peter Feldon.
30:22
Thank you. Peter, It says, do you have any
30:24
idea what the insurance costs might be for the Oasis tour?
30:28
Surely the chances of them not going ahead these gigs are
30:31
pretty high. We, I mean, obviously the Oasis
30:34
camp is very tight and there's very little leaking from it.
30:37
But so this is partly speculation.
30:40
I mean, expensive. According to our secret insurer,
30:44
the costs are going to be quite high.
30:46
I'll get to that in a second. But I mean, there were stories
30:49
in the press weren't though, that it had been written into
30:51
the contract that they wouldn't get paid until, you know, they'd
30:54
reached the end of various sections on the tour.
30:57
I'm not sure if that's true entirely, 100% true, but it's
31:00
certainly very plausible, isn't it?
31:02
Because if you're and for insurance as well, imagine
31:06
taking out insurance with, with Oasis.
31:11
I mean, if I was involved, I mean, I'd want some sort of, you
31:14
know, some sort of clause that covered me against them
31:17
splitting up after 4 shows, wouldn't you?
31:20
I think. Well, there's a history, isn't
31:22
there, I suppose with races that they have cancelled, concerts
31:25
and tours in the past, all the stuff that insurers will look at
31:28
and say, right? What's the past evidence of this
31:30
going going smoothly? But then, well, I doubt this is
31:35
how insurance think. But you know, this is almost too
31:37
big to risk it, it falling apart in the same way.
31:41
So there is that argument. I think as you know, they're
31:43
these these gigs have to go ahead.
31:44
It would be a it'd be huge, huge, not just an embarrassment,
31:48
but also a huge financial hit if they if they went wrong.
31:50
So there. Is Tim was saying, sorry, Tim
31:54
was saying just to finish off that point, about how much it
31:57
potentially cost that the spend on insurance for this tour will
32:03
be, and I think this is understatement, will be high.
32:06
But that's also it's not just because of Oasis and the risk, I
32:09
guess, but it's because the, you know, the tour costs are going
32:12
to be high and the guaranteed fees are high as well.
32:16
But you know, the brothers, they're not old.
32:17
So they're not the Stones or Paul McCartney.
32:20
You know, they've got a recent history of touring or, you know,
32:23
albeit not together, they've been out on the road and they
32:26
they surely are keen to do the shows because they're going to
32:31
well be iconic and will no doubt make decent money, says Tim.
32:36
So there'll be some some trepidation I think that inputs
32:42
it with amongst underwriters about their willingness to work
32:47
together. But the policy, what it won't
32:49
cover is, and this is the legal phrase that I love.
32:54
So the insurance will cover some reasons for the tour and all the
32:58
dates not going ahead. One thing it will not cover, the
33:01
policy won't cover disinclination to perform,
33:06
disinclination to perform. So the insurers are protected by
33:11
this. But yeah, and will, you know,
33:14
some, some, some insurers will be interested in doing this
33:17
deal. But yeah, it won't cover a hissy
33:20
fit backstage at Wembley. That's that's the point.
33:22
The last time, last time I saw Oasis, they were disinclined to
33:25
perform and they were on stage the whole set.
33:27
So, you know, but I mean, I thought it was interesting in in
33:29
in October, there was some it was actually a flurry of media
33:32
reports talking about how the two is being organised.
33:35
And the gist was it's about keeping Noel and Liam apart
33:38
except for when they're on stage and they were saying they're
33:40
going to be separate travel, the girls, you know, they'll come
33:43
together. I think the phrase was necessary
33:44
promotional work and the gigs. Other than that, they'll be a
33:47
part for much of this reunion, which but I think there's and
33:52
that's not just about insurance, is it?
33:54
That's about, you know, making it happen and making, you know,
33:56
I think when you when brothers realise what they need to do to
34:00
kind of go onto it together, that's it.
34:03
But it's yeah, I mean, I'd be I mean, you would imagine if
34:07
you're involved, everything is going to be geared towards
34:09
right. What could possibly throw this
34:12
off course? Let's mitigate against that.
34:14
But the I mean, the other thing, and this is where Tim might have
34:16
more information. There's a lot of factors aren't
34:19
nothing to do with the artists playing.
34:21
I mean, there's there's weather. I mean, like the most side Derby
34:24
was called off because of Storm Darrow the other day.
34:26
So can't just agree with that. There's kind of the threat,
34:28
terrorist threats. So the recent Taylor Swift gigs
34:31
that got cancer. Was it Vienna?
34:32
I think of we had to cancel gigs because there were.
34:36
So there's all kinds of factors involved in any of these big
34:39
gigs that'll affect it as well, isn't it?
34:40
It's not just about Oasis and their past history.
34:44
Thank you very much for that question, Peter.
34:46
In fact, thank you very much for all your questions.
34:49
We still have a few more in the pile, but keep them coming.
34:51
This is the address if you'd like to send us a query about
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anything which baffles you about the finances of the music
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of Music Patreon subscribers. I guess you will be hearing from
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us shortly, if you haven't already, about details of our
35:48
first ever festive pop quiz. Come enjoy it.
35:51
Come spend some time with myself and Stuart online.
35:54
I don't know who's going to be question master.
35:57
Who's who's asking? Who's asking the question?
35:59
Who's keeping the score? Well, I mean, have you done a
36:02
pop quiz before? Which was, I mean, I've, I've,
36:04
I've been in them, haven't run 1.
36:06
So I'm I'm already at a disadvantage.
36:08
We, we, we did a pop quiz actually for the launch of I did
36:11
a compilation album with Demon Records and we had a, we did a
36:14
pop cup quiz as as the launch, which was, you know, it was
36:18
quite, quite good fun. I'm not saying that's me in the
36:22
in the, you know, necessarily in the prime position to be the
36:27
host of our quiz. But you know we have a.
36:31
We have a fat yeah, we have a fat dog round, a black crows
36:34
round. It's going to be, it's going to
36:35
be impossible for anyone apart from us to win.
36:38
Have I ever told you my Norwich punk bands anecdote?
36:40
I can't. For you, you're not.
36:42
No, go on, we got some of you. Go on, tell us, tell us your
36:44
this better be good now your Norwich punk bands anecdote.
36:48
When I was a student at UEA in Norwich, we went to into a pop
36:51
quiz at the arts Centre there and there was around Norwich
36:54
punk bands and every time they played a clip of a band One of
36:59
the tables went Ray and you realise that the entire rest of
37:02
the room was Norwich punk bands and we still won.
37:05
We still managed to win. So they only remembered the band
37:09
that they were in themselves. That's it, yeah.
37:11
Typical musicians, narrow knowledge.
37:14
Anyway, we shall work all this out I'm sure.
37:16
For now though. Thank you very much once again
37:19
for your support. Take care of yourselves
37:21
everybody. Bye for now.
37:53
Music.