The Economics Of Touring

Auntie Flo UK Tour BTS, financial breakdown and insights. Positives and negatives!

The dust has settled: last Saturday we finished a six date UK tour with the Auntie Flo band. Was it worth it? From a purely artistic and emotional perspective, I can say 100% ‘YES’. From a commercial perspective, I can say ‘Perhaps NOT’.

As ever, I thought I’d use this Substack as an opportunity to give readers a BTS insight into the various aspects of touring you perhaps don’t see, which may be useful if you are in a band and are looking to embark on a similar mission.

To set the scene: Over the past three years, I’ve been exploring the best way to perform my music as ‘Auntie Flo’. I come from a DJ background, but DJ gigs in my 40s are proving to be relatively thin on the ground compared to my pretty much full schedule pre-COVID. The late hours and regular travel aren’t necessarily compatible with the stage of life I’m in.

I’m producing so much music nowadays that I really wanted a way to perform it to an audience, so I set myself the goal of figuring out the best way to do this. In the last two years, I’ve tried DJ sets, solo live club shows, playing as a duo, an audio-visual live set, DJing using only my own tunes, and finally performing with a five-piece band when I was asked to play at Jazz Cafe in October last year.

During that gig, something clicked - the place was packed and the gig time and venue meant that many of my friends and family could come out (is that not a huge part of what it’s all about?). From a musical perspective, the band made a lot of sense: I was able to bring in many of the musicians I’d worked with to make the music - Sarathy Korwar, Ziggy Funk, Cyrus Atkinson, Andre Marmot and, more recently, Moncaya to represent the musicality of the songs.

The videos we shared of that gig led on to another: Magnetic Fields Nomads in India. A festival I’d always wanted to play at but never had the opportunity. Now, with the band, they suddenly wanted to book me.

The question was: what next? I’ve been speaking to one of my favourite labels (who will rename nameless for now) about a potential new album release and their first question was - “will you be able to tour it?” The was the exact same question that was asked by Brownswood before they signed Radio Highlife. These labels both felt like they needed me to be delivering a proper live show in order to push any releases - live music is key.

But could we pull it off? After blurting out a “yes”, I had to put our money where our mouth was and hence this UK tour was borne. My agent Jack did a great job of arranging the gigs with decent flat fees (instead of the alternative revenue share option) attached to each.

Tour Logistics

After much jostling with the dates, we ended up with four UK shows back-to-back, meaning the best way was to hire a car and drive between the venues.

After crunching the numbers, I realised we could make everything work with a five-piece band. Moncaya was along for the ride and up for supporting with her solo show, so a double bill was a stronger package for promoters to put on. She’d play solo for 30-mins and then join us as the singer in Auntie Flo later.

We invited Tim Doyle aka Chiminyo along to drum too, completing the line up up.

We got off to a rocky start when the car hire place was outside of the Lime parking zone!!

To keep costs low, we had no tour manager or driver. I had to act as both - hiring the car, organising logistics, doing all the driving and arranging everything with the venues.

Rising petrol prices due to the Iran War didn’t help us at all - Thanks Trump! And I didn’t realise how much it would be for parking at many of these city centre venues…

We booked cheap twin-room hotels with breakfast included. And the venues offered us dinner. This meant that we could drive to the venue, get fed, do the gig, check into the hotel and get breakfast the next day… keeping budgets low and us mostly fed until we arrived at the next venue.

Putting up with band member snoring was one of the downsides of this arrangement but it was a compromise we all had to make!

Of course, we couldn’t resist the odd services stop, esp if a farmshop like the legendary Tebay Services (IYKYK) was the option! Much of the daily budget went on sausage rolls … but was much needed from a morale point of view.

We even found the mighty Greggs OUTLET Mecca in Bristol!! So it goes…

We packed the car with merch, which was mostly vinyl records. I’d made sure to press a new single Havana Sessions in time for the shows - and we were lucky to be able to collect 100 copies direct from the pressing plant on the drive up to the first show in Leeds and most of those sold.

With the costs of everything, I personally didn’t make much from the fees but we did sell a bunch of merch… I joked that this tour was really just a mobile car boot sale.

Hiring a merch seller (or roping in friends to help) at the gigs was crucial. I still had to jump on and help pre and post gig, but meeting happy punters after the show was a nice little buzz and confirmation of a job well done.

So what about the gigs?

In my twenty years of doing this, these were some of the best shows I’ve ever been involved with. Every one was a memorable experience and every one exceeded my expectations. The band really gelled together and each gig we did we became tighter as a group. This is important to bare in mind!!!

1. We had FUN. We all got on really well: such a crucial thing when you are stuck in a car with someone for five days back-to-back. Banter levels were high and everyone in the band enjoyed being part of it. Not just a paid gig, it gave each member something more than that. And it needed to with the fees everyone took in order to make it all work. It can’t all be about the money…

2. The gigs were BUSY. We’re not talking sold out shows at every venue, but each being busier than expected. The feedback we had was immense - when individuals come up and say ‘that was the best gig I’ve been to in a long time’ you always have to take it with a pinch of salt, but when that happens dozens of times, it starts to give you a good feeling. So thank you to everyone who came to see us!

3. Closing with a sold out Ronnie Scott’s we managed to get everyone dancing, which rarely happens in that venue. Various staff members told us they’ve ‘never seen an energy like that in the room or a response from the crowd like that’… It felt like one for the memory banks…

4. Big thanks to all the independent venues who stick their necks out to book bands like us. The economics of running a small venue is much the same as running a small band. By working together we can scrap by but it’s truly a team effort.

The videos we shared are a testament to that (more to come!).

Financial Breakdown

We managed to add a sixth show last week as a last-minute replacement for Balimaya Project at the House Of Koko members club. This proved to be a great warm up for Ronnie Scott’s and a brilliant gig in its own right.

Financially, this last minute well paid gig helped the tour break even and gave me a little fee to take home. With merch included, I can say it was just about financially worthwhile - but just remember: breaking even was the mission and we did it!

Tour Fees: £8475 (after booking agent fees)

Musician Fees: £5200

Travel Costs: £1094.35 (petrol/car hire)

Accommodation Costs: £690.12 (sometimes this was covered by the venue)

Instagram ads: £300

Food/Misc/Parking: £708.36

PROFIT/ BRIAN TAKE HOME: +£382.17

MERCH SALES: +£1131.68 (although most of that isn’t profit, the margin on vinyl records is small, and 10% goes to Earth Percent).

As you can see, the tour broke even! And we all walked away with a fee. Is that success? I’m pretty sure that all venues broke even (perhaps with the exceptions of Leeds and Manchester :( ). So do the economics work? Can the independent music sector run on these numbers?

I’m reminded of Kate Nash’s insight into the loses (£26,000!) of her touring and that helps put things into perspective.

For me - we did six dates, and it probably took around ten days of time. The hard reality is that I walk away with a payment of £38.12 per day. Obviously massively under minimum wage!

And the brutal reality is for the next time, we’ll definitely need a tour manager/driver. Doing everything myself was tough. It took me four days to recover!

We didn’t have a photographer - much needed in this social media age. We got lucky with some of the audience footage and venues hiring their own, but next time it would be amazing to document the trip.

I’m not complaining though - this tour was always meant be a test: to draw a line in the sand. It was an experiment to ask -

• Could ‘Auntie Flo’ be a band?

• Could we draw a crowd in cities outside of London (and my home town of Glasgow)?

• Has all the music that I’ve been releasing on A State Of Flo as a 100% independent artist had any meaningful reach?

• Has the relentless social media posts been worth it?

My answer is a resounding ‘YES’ but with much still work to be done. I’m excited for what happens next.

To everyone who came to see us: Thank you! We’re all in this together.

Hopefully this has been useful if you are in a band and are looking to tour. Let me know your experiences!