Making a living as a touring musician can be a challenge, especially if you’re not a household name act who gets tens of thousands of fans out to every concert. Live Nation Entertainment, the parent company of Ticketmaster, recognizes this, and now they’re doing something about it.
Today (September 26), the company announced a program called “On The Road Again,” and if that reminds you of Willie Nelson, it should, as they’ve teamed with the country icon to launch the initiative. There are two major factors here that serve to help making touring a more viable commercial enterprise for musicians.
One is that at all of Live Nation’s club-sized venues (of which there are 77, as Consequence notes), artists will no longer have to pay fees to sell merchandise, which has been known to take as much as 30 percent of an artist’s merch sale income. The second is that Live Nation clubs are also “investing in developing artists by providing $1,500 in gas and travel cash per show to all headliners and support acts, on top of nightly performance compensation.”
They company notes, “By helping with these core expenses, we aim to make it easier for artists on the road so they can keep performing to their fans in more cities across the country.”
Nelson also said, “Touring is important to artists so whatever we can do to help other artists, I think we should do it. This program will impact thousands of artists this year and help make touring a little bit easier.”
The program will also provide “financial bonuses to local promoters that help execute at shows, tour reps that live life on a bus, as well as venue crew members that have worked over 500 hours in 2023.”
Learn more about “On The Road Again” here and watch the announcement video above.
