Singer-songwriter Rachel Chinouriri has pulled out of a number of festival appearances as well as support slots on Remi Wolf’s US tour because the financial strain of touring has become “too much”.
The announcement puts the spotlight back on the challenges that all but superstar artists face when planning tours and live shows, as well as the significant increase in visa costs that British artists now incur when performing in the US, with some artists facing a near four-fold increase in the cost of visas.
“I’m deeply saddened to announce that I have to withdraw from the Remi Wolf tour and several festivals”, Chinouriri announced on social media yesterday. “This year I’ve invested all my savings and earnings into my shows, styling and band to be able to tour”.
“While my debut album has opened many amazing opportunities”, she added, “the financial strain on touring has become too much. Despite my best efforts to secure funding for this incredible opportunity, it hasn’t been possible. This is the tough reality of the music industry, whether you’re signed or independent”.
The economics of touring have always been challenging up to a certain size of show and even more so for support slots, which are often positioned as being as much about getting in front of new audiences of potential fans as an opportunity to make money.
Indeed, ‘tour support’ from record labels used to be a big part of breaking new artists, offsetting touring costs to get a new band or artist in front of an established act’s live audiences.
The costs of touring
Surging travel and production costs since the COVID pandemic have made it even harder for artists to profit from tours, even when they are playing mid-tier venues.
A report from the UK Parliament’s Culture, Media & Sport Select Committee earlier this year observed that “performing artists are facing a ‘cost-of-touring crisis’, reducing the number who are out to tour across the UK and abroad by as much as 74% compared to pre-pandemic numbers”.
When it comes to British artists touring aboard, there are additional challenges relating to the costs and bureaucracy around visas and permits. In Europe, that aspect of touring has become more problematic for British artists because of Brexit.
As a ‘third country’, permit requirements for UK artists now differ from country to country around Europe, meaning that an artist touring in several EU states may need to make several different applications for work permits to allow touring. There are also additional restrictions when moving stuff around the EU - meaning carnet costs for some artists and new issues around merch sales.
Meanwhile with the US there have been increases in visa fees. The US Citizenship & Immigration Services first announced it was considering a massive 250% increase in visa fees in early 2023, so that with the P visa - which many artists rely on - the cost would go up from $460 to $1615. That resulted in a campaign from the music community, including in the UK, calling on USCIS to have a rethink.
The compromise, which went into effect earlier this year, is that cheaper rates are available if the ‘petitioner’ requesting a visa is a not-for-profit or small-scale organisation or company. So with the P visa, the cost for a not-for-profit organisation is now $510 and with a for-profit company with less than 25 employees it is $830. For larger companies, it is the originally proposed $1615. Since those rules went into effect, UK artists, and their managers and agents, have been figuring out how to best navigate the new system.
The cost-of-touring crisis
It’s all these factors together that have created the ‘cost-of-touring crisis’ referenced in the select committee’s report. The committee made a number of recommendations for how grassroots touring in the UK could be better supported, including through the introduction of a ticket levy scheme, whereby a one pound levy would be added to tickets to larger-scale shows, with the money raised supporting artists, venues and promoters operating at the grassroots.
Artist groups are putting pressure on the new UK government to implement that and other proposals to help the increasing number of artists who are finding the risks associated with touring just too high.
Chinouriri’s statement yesterday concluded, “I’ve explored every possible option to make this work because I adore Remi and her fanbase, and I was so excited to come to the States. However, I cannot justify the financial risk it would entail”.
The economics of touring: on the back of an envelope
According to Wolf’s website, Chinouriri was due to appear as support for ten shows over a nineteen day period, starting on 30 Sep in Brooklyn and wrapping up on 18 Oct in Stanford, California. With a band of five people accompanying her, as has been common for Chinouriri’s UK shows, this would mean visa costs alone could be $4980 for the musicians - before you factor in a tour manager or any other support personnel.
Add flights, hotel, travel and subsistence costs for musicians and a tour manager, alongside excess luggage allowances to transport instruments, medical cover, and other insurance and professional costs, and the total ‘back of an envelope’ bill for nineteen days on the road could easily be $50,000 or more - before anyone has even been paid.
Factor in even moderate wages for everyone involved - including rehearsals, travel days to the US and getting back to the UK - and you could easily double that or more.
With Wolf’s tour comprising venues with capacities varying from around 1500 people to as many as 8000, there’s potential for an approximate maximum of 37,900 ticket sales - if all those venues are operating at maximum capacity and all sell 100% of their potential capacity. However, that is rarely the case. For example, the Arizona Financial Theatre - one of the larger venues, with capacity of 5000 - appears only to be offering tickets at stage level, with balconies closed off.
With tickets apparently averaging $40-60 per person, those ten dates might represent a theoretical maximum of a couple of million dollars in ticket sales if all venues operate at full capacity and sell all their tickets. That sounds like a lot, but the reality is almost certainly far lower. With comped tickets, and after promoters, agents and other partners take their cut, it’s easy to see how touring can, from the outside, appear lucrative, when in reality many artists barely break even.
And that’s for headline artists, who will usually get a guarantee from the promoter and a share of the box office. Support acts will receive a more modest fixed fee, which is usually paid before the headliner’s share of the box office is calculated, and which is generally determined by the overall tour budget, rather than the support act’s costs for participating in the tour.
So, while even headline acts can find the economics of touring challenging, for support acts the harsh reality is that support slots on a tour of this scale can represent a huge investment of time and money with little chance of the artist breaking even.