Can we make a living from prog?

Like many others on this site I imagine, I've worked in the music industry with a 6 year stint as a FOH sound engineer. The sad truth is CD's sales are not a source of any real income for bands. They depend on touring and royalties and to some extent merchandise. I can remember a time when a band released an album and had sales in the tens of thousands in the first weeks or month. Now I read articles that say that even todays most popular artists are having sales of three to five thousand copies in a month and that's good.
You can make a living as a working band even without "hits" but it's very hard on the body and soul depending on the career path and touring locations. Many fine musicians end up working at music stores or as teachers to supplement the inherent need to produce music.
To those who can live by their music I say ...kudos to you for sure.

I recently read a book named "Making Money in the Music Industry", and the author reveals how becoming famous (which happens to only a few and lasts only a few years) is not the key for most musicians, CD sales will hardly make an income, and advises to rely on residency in a specific club, having your band play different types of music under different names, diversifying your talents to recording, teaching, etc, to actually make a decent living within the industry. A very down to earth approach to life and living in an industry which is famous for sucking your life away,  for very little reward,.

Bands used to tour to promote new albums. Nowadays they release albums to promote tours.

Theriver wrote: Bands of the 90's sold less after the years 2000 because of more rival bands.

Nah....that was because of Walter's campaign

Well, for bands with as large a profile as Rush, no doubt touring is profitable.  But from what I've been told by "lesser" artists such as Roine Stolt and Andy Tillison (and at least a couple others I can't recall at the moment), touring is pretty much always a loss of money, not a gain.  The hope being to get more exposure to get more album and merchandise sales (and, these days, paid downloads).  Roine Stolt has said that back during probably their most popular time, early 2000's, the Flower Kings lost about $10,000 each time they toured the USA, less than that in Europe, though even then the best they could hope for was to break even on a tour.

Unless a band can play a LOT of shows (like Umphrey's McGee, for example, who play something like 250 + shows a year) and/or have strong financial backing (like Rush, again) they are going to be lucky to break even on a tour these days.  For prog bands without a profile like Rush's, they are not likely to get many shows and will not be able to pull in much money for the ones they do get.

Self producing CD's is actually the most profitable route for many of these bands, and even doing that will not make them enough money to live on (or barely enough to live cheaply).

Take a look at this:  http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/charts-articles/chart-alert/cake-scores-lowest-selling-no-1-in-soundscan-1004139369.story

The days of mega selling bands and artists appear to be over, in any case.

If studio music were legally free, the whole business would boom again. Suddenly, it wouldn't be immoral to download tracks without paying, so more people such as myself would be able to do it, and everyone would be into music again. Obviously, no money to be made from this, however, bands would get far greater publicity from the rapid distribution of their music (it's free!). Therefore their live concerts would sell out, and the demand for tickets would determine the price of tickets. The added bonus is that the price you pay REALLY IS based on how good the band are, not how well they are promoted.

Please, point of the flaws of this because I'm no businessman. But it sounds like it could work.

infandous wrote: Well, for bands with as large a profile as Rush, no doubt touring is profitable.  But from what I've been told by "lesser" artists such as Roine Stolt and Andy Tillison (and at least a couple others I can't recall at the moment), touring is pretty much always a loss of money, not a gain.  The hope being to get more exposure to get more album and merchandise sales (and, these days, paid downloads).  Roine Stolt has said that back during probably their most popular time, early 2000's, the Flower Kings lost about $10,000 each time they toured the USA, less than that in Europe, though even then the best they could hope for was to break even on a tour. Unless a band can play a LOT of shows (like Umphrey's McGee, for example, who play something like 250 + shows a year) and/or have strong financial backing (like Rush, again) they are going to be lucky to break even on a tour these days.  For prog bands without a profile like Rush's, they are not likely to get many shows and will not be able to pull in much money for the ones they do get. Self producing CD's is actually the most profitable route for many of these bands, and even doing that will not make them enough money to live on (or barely enough to live cheaply). Take a look at this:  http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/charts-articles/chart-alert/cake-scores-lowest-selling-no-1-in-soundscan-1004139369.story The days of mega selling bands and artists appear to be over, in any case.

Bypass the middle men and stick with those who are essential.

sleeper wrote: thehallway wrote: If studio music were legally free, the whole business would boom again. Suddenly, it wouldn't be immoral to download tracks without paying, so more people such as myself would be able to do it, and everyone would be into music again. Obviously, no money to be made from this, however, bands would get far greater publicity from the rapid distribution of their music (it's free!). Therefore their live concerts would sell out, and the demand for tickets would determine the price of tickets. The added bonus is that the price you pay REALLY IS based on how good the band are, not how well they are promoted. Please, point of the flaws of this because I'm no businessman. But it sounds like it could work. That is an incredibly naieve statement.   Increasingly bands are doing everything themselves these days, cutting out record companies all together. Most bands will not make a living out of prog for the simple reason that the audiance isnt big enough, the best hope for most is that CD/download sales and ticket sales will cover the costs of production and touring allowing the band to break even. A few may be able to make enough through CD sales (having a large discography helps here) and other merch plus ticket sales on a carefully planned tour to just about scrape by, but the likes of Dream Theater, Rush, Porcupine Tree, Mastodon, Radiohead and Opeth are about it for bands that can comfortably live making prog music, and notice how only two of them have always been prog bands and didnt come from another genre.

Kind of like lowering tax rates will generate more tax revenue.   The only way to generate more revenue is to cut out those who make money off the music while contributing nothing to it.

I don´t want to download music, I wanna see the cover and pictures, read  lyrics etc.. old fashioned maybe, I don´t have enough money to buy all music I want, but  I do my best to support artist! Spotify and youtube and PA are so good to seek new bands and if it hits me hard -I´ll buy cd/vinyl and see concerts!