Lindsey Buckingham Gives Some Inside Dope On The Finances Of Big Tours

Lindsey Buckingham has sued Fleetwood Mac accusing his ex band of seven offenses, including breach of fiduciary duty, breach of oral contract and intentional interference with prospective economic advantage. OK, that doesn’t interest us, this does: Buckingham claims that he had signed on for a 2-year run of 60 shows with Fleetwood Mac, for a fee of $14 million… Ok, now we have a figure from a major rock band to work on.

So in 2015 the Mac made $125.1 million from 78 shows, according to Pollster. Now it is four years later and prices have gone up so let’s say Mac gross $120M for 60 shows, and let’s go with $14M per musician and there are five musicians SO… when the band grosses $120 they get $70M and the rest goes to the producers, in this case Live Nation… who are booking bands in their huts and rooms across the States and making money from every aspect of their performances.It means if the Macs deal with Live Nation is not untypical, Live nation get 40% of gross revenue plus all merch and upgrades.

Touring has always been big business but now it is an integrated whole that has taken U2 and Madonna’s 360 degrees contracts from the early 00s and sucked in everything around it. Live Nation own Ticketmaster so:

1 – They get 40% of the artists money in a straight salary deal.

2 – They get all ticket sales commission.

3 – They get more commission on resales (and are so greedy they taught scalpers how to game their bots)

4 – They get all merchandise sales.

5 – They own many venues which means they get all food and drink revenue ibn the venues they own.

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