Budgeting is absolutely one of the most important things an artist or band can do to make a tour successful and profitable. By doing some simple planning and a little bit of math, you can figure out an estimated cost per day for you or your band on the road.

Figuring these numbers out will help guide you on your route and will inform you about how much you should be spending and saving while on the road.

There are tools online and apps that can help you figure out what your expenses will be. Of course, each tour will call for different expenses and will earn a varying amount depending on shows, cities, and timing.

For example, here are some variables that will affect your math:

•How many travelers there are with you

•How big of a car you’re driving and whether you’re pulling a trailer or not

•If you have to rent equipment

•If you’ll be staying with friends or at hotels

A lot of venues with kitchens/bars will feed bands who are playing.

Sometimes they will specify in the booking process, but sometimes you have to ask. Ask beforehand to be sure! This can save you a lot of money if you can find venues that will feed you, even if it’s something small.

A lot of hotels and motels will offer a free breakfast, take advantage of this where you can! A lot of times they have a lot of options and you can take stuff to go as well, like fruit or cereal that will last the whole day or longer.

When you begin to budget your upcoming tour expenses, figure out how many meals you’ll need per day. Then subtract the amount of dinners that venues will be feeding you and breakfasts you’ll get from the hotels you’ll stay at. Set an amount you are able to pay for the rest of your meals, and stick to it. For example, each meal that has to be bought, you could limit yourself to $10. Then you can multiply this number by however many meals you’ll have to buy, and you’ll arrive at your full expense for food for your tour. (Per-diems per day are different for every individual, but suggest $10 - $20 a day). This price/meal isn’t unreasonable at most places you’ll find.

You can also consider stocking up on healthy non-perishable items from the grocery store for snacks (also see our blog entry on eating healthy on the road). Even if you’re on a long drive, consider stopping at a grocery store in the morning before leaving town and purchasing some healthy food at a low cost that will last you until your show.

Another thing to account for in your budgeting is car tune-ups and oil changes ($15-35). If you’re on the road for a while you will need to service your car after every 3,000 miles or so.

Tip: Jiffy Lube often gives discount coupons through their website!

Once you figure out how much you’ll be spending on food, gas, tolls, lodgings, car servicing, etc., you can see if your guarantees will help cut away at these costs. It is a good idea to try to make more than you will be spending! Some of these numbers might be hard to find if you’re just starting out (you may just get door deals or bar %)... if you are - we suggest you have some money saved up before venturing out. Also, if you are leaving your regular job for a couple weeks to tour, consider saving up some extra money before you venture out for when you return home.

Having merchandise to sell and having earning goals for yourself will help a lot. Merch will save you! If it’s a slow night and no locals brought people out, but you sell three T-Shirts and two CDs to anyone who is at the venue, it could pay for a hotel and gas to get there!

Tips:

•Figure out how far it is from city to city by using Google Maps (http://maps.google.com) and this gas calculator https://www.fueleconomy.gov/trip/ to guesstimate how much you’ll be spending on gas with the specific car you will be driving.

•Don’t forget about tolls, some online calculators will also factor in toll roads and estimate a cost for you.

•Don’t be afraid to hustle and ask people to buy your merch - you will be relying on this money.

•When you choose food, don’t just go to 7-11s and buy as many cheap things you can find under $10 for a meal. Quality over quantity still applies here!

•It is better to know before venturing out if the tour will be a financial win or loss - although there will be variables that can always change and surprise you, having an idea of what to expect will make being on the road all that easier

Before you even consider going on the road touring, you might want to consider asking yourself who are you and what is your product? Aside from your amazing live show, what are you supporting? What is the product you’re selling? If you want to expand your fanbase and your connection to them - both show goers and fans on social media, you will want to have something to sell that they can buy. Once you start touring it’s going to be a MUST - especially because selling your merch product will help pay and sustain your life on the road. Your merch is so important!

Merch is the music recorded onto CDs, vinyl, or cassettes that represent your brand. It’s download cards, t-shirts with your band or name, buttons, stickers and other thoughtful items with your art and logo. Things that someone who enjoys your music would want to purchase and bring home with them. At shows there will usually always (with the exception of some benefit shows) be a spot for you to sell your merch. If there isn’t, bring a table and make your own! Or at the venue ask someone who works there where you can set up your merch.

When it comes to creating merch, think about what would make the most sense for your band to sell. Do you have songs and have they been recorded? Putting them into a physical form would probably generate sales! Along with having your music easily accessible for sale in the digital form online (via digital distribution that can be released through Tunecore or CDBaby or http://Bandcamp.com for example). Shirts are another important part of merch displays as people love wearing them and buying new ones. Sometimes even if a person doesn’t know your music but the design is cool and it translates to them, they will buy it! If you have a band logo or image that represents your music, or even a saying, or a drawing, consider putting this on your product. You can screenprint, find local shirt printing companies, or even paint your own that you can sell (suggested price is somewhere between $10 and $20). You can even look into wholesale shirt companies to buy them in bulk at a cheaper price per unit.

*tip: the fashion / merchandise districts in cities often have wholesale t-shirt businesses. They might even work with local screen printers too, that they can put you intouch! Even consider going to thrift stores & getting cheap one-off tees & printing on them.

Think of some clever items that you could sell that wouldn’t be necessarily expected. Sometimes this can generate a lot of interest from people stopping by your merch table. Think: necklaces, bracelets, lighters, scarves, bigger buttons, patches, bags, sunglasses, hats, one of kind jackets etc.

*Tip: It is also helpful to have some form of merch that everyone can grab for free - in most cases this is either a sticker or a small button. These items don’t cost too much money to make, and everyone loves something free.

Once you’ve got a few physical merch items to sell, consider making an online merch store so people can order products online and have them shipped when there not able to make it to your shows. This is not difficult to set up!

*Tip: Squarespace.com offers great sites that you can customize and add a commerce section to. Facebook also offers a section on Music Pages and there are also a lot of other independent companies where you can sell merch. Once you have a site displaying your products, making posts about your online store can generate more sales and interest. Making one of kind or limited edition merch items can also get people excited to buy something that is unique and rare!

Helpful Tips:

-cost of a one color design t-shirt run of 32-40 shirts could cost you between $250-300. Sometimes there’s an additional screen fee for t-shirts added in the cost or on top of costs usually running $15-30

-cost of vinyl could run 200 LPs for close to $2000 & cost of 100 tapes could cost close to $200

-Some suggested for sale pricing (depending on design & cost to make): Buttons ($1-$5), Stickers (free or $1-5), CDS ($5-15), Tapes ($5-10), Vinyl ($20-30), 7” ($5-10), One of kind items $25-100 (like a jacket or bag), patches ($1-5)

⁃Keep your merch in line with your image, colors, and sound

⁃Keep an inventory of your merch so you know what you have and if you’ll need more

⁃Make note of the most popular items, and restock once it gets low

⁃When you’re setting up merch at a show, keep in mind other bands have merch too, so don’t take up all the space!

⁃Don’t be afraid to push your merch - at the end of the day, merch is what fuels and funds a lot of bands

⁃Don’t always go the cheapest way out if you don’t have to - invest in quality shirts and items, and people will be more likely interested

⁃Charge more than what it costs you to make the merch

⁃Keep the merch organized and know where everything is, where each size shirt is, so it makes selling quicker and easier

⁃Don’t leave vinyl in a hot car! They WILL warp

⁃If your vinyl does warp, consider making arts and crafts with it that you can sell (clocks, bowls, hats, be creative!)

⁃http://www.printrunner.com & http://www.stickerguy.com are great and cheap for quality stickers in bulk of various sizes and shapes

-http://www.halfpricebuttons.com offers great custom button