Numbers
What it actually costs to move a tour across Spain
Twelve shows, five people and a van. The numbers nobody publishes, and why the fee is never the money you take home.
Ask anyone outside the business how much a band makes when they sell out a thousand-capacity room at twenty-five euros a ticket. Almost everyone does the same maths: twenty-five thousand euros.
The real number is something else entirely, and it starts long before that night.
The fee is not the money
The first thing to separate is the fee — what the promoter pays for the show — from what actually ends up in anyone's pocket. Between one and the other sits a long list:
- Agency commission: 10 to 15 % of the gross fee.
- Crew: sound engineer, lighting, and backline tech if the artist carries one.
- Transport: van, fuel, tolls, specific insurance.
- Accommodation: five people, twelve nights, with and without a show.
- Per diems: €30 to €45 per person per day, depending on the agreement.
- Withholding tax: in Spain 15 % as a general rule, though since Royal Decree 31/2023 there is a 2 % rate for the special artistic employment relationship and a 7 % rate for those who billed under €15,000 the previous year and for whom that was over 75 % of their income.
On a mid-size venue tour the artist ends up with between 25 and 40 % of the gross fee. That wide a range is almost always the difference between a well-planned route and a bad one.
The days with no show
Here is the number that surprises people from outside: the days without a show are the ones that break the budget.
A dead day between Madrid and Vigo means five people sleeping, eating and earning nothing. At €35 per diem and €55 a head for a room, that blank day costs around €450 — and if the van has to move as well, €600.
Twelve badly sequenced dates can leave six dead days. That is €3,600 that appears in no forecast, because nobody writes it down: it is not a tour expense, it is the gap between two tour expenses.
A well-routed tour and a badly routed one, same twelve dates and same fee, end up six to eight thousand euros apart. It is all in the order of the cities.
The breakdown, with numbers
For a typical tour — twelve dates, five people, rooms between 400 and 1,200 capacity — these are the ranges the Spanish market works with today. All figures excluding VAT:
| Item | Range | % of total |
|---|---|---|
| Transport (van, fuel, tolls, insurance) | €9,000 – 14,000 | 22 – 28 % |
| Accommodation | €8,500 – 12,000 | 20 – 24 % |
| Per diems and catering | €6,300 – 8,100 | 15 – 17 % |
| Crew (2 people) | €7,200 – 10,800 | 18 – 21 % |
| Backline and rentals | €3,000 – 5,500 | 7 – 11 % |
| Insurance, permits, admin | €1,800 – 3,000 | 4 – 6 % |
| Total production | €38,000 – 52,000 | 100 % |
On top of that sits the artist fee, the agency commission, and whatever merch brings in — which on a tour this size can be €8,000 to €20,000 gross, and is very often the difference between closing in the black or not.
What almost nobody writes down
Three items show up on nearly every tour and on almost no budget:
Cancellations. A date that falls through three weeks out leaves the hole but does not always release the costs: the hotel is booked, the van is hired as a block, and the engineer is contracted for the whole run.
Last-minute changes. A promoter who moves soundcheck can force a five-hour earlier departure — and that is one more hotel night.
Fines and parking. Sounds minor. Across twelve city-centre dates, between van parking and the odd loading fine, it runs €400 to €900.
Why this matters
Because almost all of this money is decided before the first show, when the order of the cities gets locked in. And because the industry still keeps these accounts in spreadsheets only their author understands.
A promoter who can see the real cost of a dead day before closing the route negotiates differently. A tour manager who knows what transport eats stops arguing about per diems.
The numbers are not secret. They are just badly distributed.
Do you tour and your figures do not match these? Write to hello@onroad.live — this article gets updated with real data from the industry.
What this article answers
- How much does it cost to produce a twelve-date tour in Spain?
- Between €38,000 and €52,000 in production costs, not counting the artist fee. The range depends mostly on how many days off sit between shows: each dead day costs around €600 in per diems and hotels while generating no income.
- How much of a touring budget goes to transport?
- Between 22 and 28 per cent on a national tour with a van and trailer, including fuel, tolls, insurance and wear. On tours covering more than 4,000 kilometres, it goes above 30 per cent.
- Why is the fee not what the artist earns?
- The fee has to cover the agency commission, production, crew, transport, accommodation and withholding tax. On a mid-size venue tour, the artist ends up with between 25 and 40 per cent of the gross fee.
Where these numbers come from
This article mixes official data — each with its source — with ranges used in the market. Anything without a source is the latter.
- Boletín Oficial del Estado (Spanish official gazette), Royal Decree 31/2023, lowering withholding to 2 % for the special artistic employment relationship and to 7 % for certain artistic economic activities · data from 2023