Royalties from Writing a Hit Song with Justin Bieber

Famous artists can yes. If you are a semi-known band with four people playing a twenty date tour playing 400 capacity venues with two local support acts you're probably not making so much.

That's 8,000 people who care enough to come out and see you. So let's say at least 100,000 people need to like you enough that they would at least consider buying the ticket.

$4000 dollars gross in ticket sales per night, 30% to the promoter. $2800 left. If you get 50% of that with 25% to each support act then after commissions to booking agent and manager you're left with maybe $950. You need to pay travel and accommodation costs out of that, and possibly a tour manager. For a four piece band plus tour manager you probably need $30 a head per diem for incidentals of living in the road. Add in food - another $30 per head and you've got $650 left. Hotel rooms aren't cheap. travel isn't cheap.

Sure you can sell 25 t-shirts a night at $20 each and make $15 a shirt. And throw in some CDs - maybe 30 at $10 a pop... you maybe net another $600 a night.

$1250 a day for your hotels and travel for 5 people - maybe you have $600 left after these costs. Oh and you have to pay your tour manager...

Each of the people in the band makes... what - $100 per show?

Can artists really make that respectable a living from touring and merch?

Sure, scale this up, play bigger venues - 2,000 capacity. But then your costs increase - people want a more impressive show, not just spit and sawdust. You need a set, lighting design, all the rest of it.

I completely agree with this solution being ideal, but I think it's a matter of engineering effort and memory. It's not worth the time investment to build a system more complex, and it's a lot easier memory-wise to just pool it all together for allocation.

I feel like this irony is horribly lost on about half of the commenters here. Creator's job is seen as worthless, but the deliveryman's job value is indisputable.

And yet if Spotify were to pay its engineers scraps, I doubt the voices here would be as supportive.

The only reason the engineers are paid as much is because the companies can't get away with paying less. And just because they can get away with paying musicians less, doesn't mean the musicians should "get with the times". I am not saying every musician should be a millionaire, but there are plenty who collectively carry the multi-billion dollar industry on their backs, but get scraps in return.

On a more general note, when a vulnerable part of the population gets shafted, they shouldn't "get with the times" either. It's a sign of our failure as a society.

I guess it is not surprising that people in a capitalistic society think that the value of an activity lies in how much profit it can generate to the performer of that activity. I guess it's beyond reasonable to expect people to think of externalities and understand them. I guess it's not at all surprising that a bunch of people who claim to be in STEM have a collective amnesia when it comes to understanding that M in STEM is an art akin to music, but with laughable ROI and a far more limited audience (and the number of corporations that hire mathematicians to do mathematics in the entire world is probably... 5? Go on ArXiV and see how many math papers there are by people outside academia, i.e. are the product of the "free" market system).

None of that is surprising. But that doesn't make victim-blaming any less tiring to see.

I've got a relative in the music/movie business. He was pretty successful at both, most people in the US over 40 would probably recognize him. He and his family live well, but he still tours; usually small venues, travels by tour bus instead of fancy planes. Small crew, just a manager, sound guy and his wife. I figure he might pull $5K a stop, maybe 2x that depending on the size of the venue. Not bad, but not FU money. He still acts in movies, even some that have not held up well over time. I doubt he makes a ton with those roles either. But he still does them. My mom asked why he still does it, at his age; he replied, "I've got kids to put through school."

I saw him perform for the first time in 40 years, and realized how much he lied to my mom. On stage, he was (as the kids these days say) lit. He clearly loved the music (he still writes and performs new material), but the light in his eyes showed that what he really loved was performing and sharing his music with the audience.

Most musicians can't count on a career lasting 50+ years. The era of singles is gone, and performances are where the next generation will have to make their living.

I am speaking from personal experience, so you can not believe me, but that's about it.