Craft
The live music glossary
Forty words used daily on tour that appear in no dictionary. What they actually mean, not what they look like.
The vocabulary of live music mixes English, Spanish and jargon inherited from when all of this was four people and a van. Almost none of these words appear in a dictionary, and anyone new takes months to follow a production conversation.
Here is what they mean in practice, which is not always what they look like.
The money
Fee. What the promoter pays for the show. Not what the artist earns: agency commission, production, crew, transport and withholding all come out of it.
Guarantee. A fixed fee, whatever sells. Carried by the promoter.
Percentage. The artist takes a share of net box office, usually 60 to 80 % after expenses.
Guarantee versus percentage. The most common structure in mid-size rooms: whichever is higher.
Break-even. The box office figure at which the promoter covers costs. Below it, they lose.
Approved expenses. The promoter's costs deducted from the box office before splitting. Agreed in writing before the show, or new items appear on settlement night.
Settlement. Closing the accounts at the end of the night: tickets counted, expenses checked, signature.
Deposit. The part of the fee paid in advance, usually 50 % on signing. The rest is paid on the night.
Per head. Merch sales divided by attendance. The figure that lets you compare nights.
Rebate. Part of the ticketing commission returned to the promoter. On no rate card: it gets negotiated.
The paperwork
Formal offer. The offer a promoter sends the agency: date, venue, fee, terms. Not yet a contract, but already a commitment.
Rider. What the artist asks for. It splits in two, and mixing them causes trouble:
- Technical rider: sound, lights, stage, power, backline.
- Hospitality rider: dressing rooms, catering, towels, water.
Advance. The round of confirmation between production and venue in the days before. It is where show day is won or lost.
Radius clause. Territorial exclusivity: no playing within X kilometres for Y days around the festival.
Billing. Position on the poster, written into the contract: which line, how many names above, what type size relative to the headliner.
Guest list. Complimentary tickets. 🚨 They do not count towards takings and so do not enter percentage calculations, though they do occupy capacity.
Box office statement. The sales return filed with the collecting society: tickets put on sale, sold, prices and takings net of VAT.
The stage
Backline. The instruments and amplification behind the band: amps, drums, keys. Where this magazine takes its name from.
FOH (front of house). The mixing desk out among the audience, and the person running it.
Monitors. What the musicians hear on stage, different from what the audience hears. Either wedges on the floor or in-ears.
Line check. A quick pass confirming each channel arrives where it should, without a full soundcheck. What a support act gets.
Soundcheck. The full check, 45 to 90 minutes.
Patch. The map of what comes in on each desk channel.
Truss. The aluminium structure lights and sound hang from.
Rigging. Everything flown, and whoever calculates that it holds. The most heavily regulated part of the job.
Riser. The raised platform the drums or keys sit on.
Stagebox. The box where stage microphones connect, feeding a single cable to the desk.
The day
Load-in. Getting the equipment in. It is first, and it is what bends the day most when it goes badly.
Load-out. The reverse, in the small hours, with everyone tired.
Get-in. The time the crew is allowed into the venue. Not always when they arrive.
Doors. When the audience comes in. The one thing in the day that cannot move, because it is already announced.
Curfew. When you have to stop, by licence or agreement. Going over usually costs money.
Changeover. The turnaround between one band and the next.
Runner. The person doing errands all day: collecting someone, buying what is missing, hotel runs.
Day off. A day without a show. It costs money and earns none.
Routing. The order of the cities. Where much of the budget is decided.
The people
Tour manager. Runs the tour: schedules, money, hotels, everyone where they should be.
Production manager. Runs the technical side: that stage, sound and lights exist and work.
Booker. Closes the dates.
Promoter. Organises the show, puts up the money, carries the risk.
Local crew. Staff hired in the city to load and build.
Stage manager. In charge on stage during the show.
Five false friends
Words that mean something other than they look:
"Fee" is not what the artist earns.
"Sold out" does not always mean full capacity: it refers to tickets put on sale, which can be fewer because of production or comps.
"Rider" is not a list of whims. Most of it is technical and non-negotiable if you want it to sound like anything.
"Backline" is not the back of the stage: it is the instruments.
"Advance" is not an advance payment. The money is the deposit; the advance is the pre-production round.
Missing a word, or do you use one differently in your market? Write to hello@onroad.live — this glossary grows with what the industry tells us.
What this article answers
- What is an artist's fee in live music?
- What the promoter pays the artist to perform, before agency commission, production, transport and withholding tax come out. It is not what the artist takes home: on a mid-size club tour they end up with 25 to 40 per cent of the gross fee.
- What is the difference between the advance and the deposit on tour?
- They are unrelated, though they get confused constantly. The deposit is money: the part of the fee paid up front, usually 50 per cent on signing. The advance is not a payment at all — it is the round of confirmation between the artist's production and the venue in the days before, settling schedule, power, stage, backline and catering.
- What is backline at a concert?
- The instruments and amplification that sit behind the band on stage: guitar and bass amps, drums, keyboards and their stands. It can be carried by the artist or supplied by the venue, and who provides what is settled in the advance.
- What does per head mean in tour merchandising?
- Merch sales divided by the number of people who came through the door. It is the only figure that lets you compare different nights and decide how much stock to carry. In a mid-size Spanish venue it runs €2 to €6 depending on genre.
- What is a concert settlement?
- The closing of accounts at the end of the night: tickets counted, the promoter's approved expenses checked, and the artist's share signed off. When the contract was properly closed it takes fifteen minutes; when it was not, it is an hour of argument at one in the morning.
- What is a radius clause in a festival contract?
- A territorial exclusivity clause preventing the artist from playing within a geographic radius and a window around the festival, typically 150 to 300 kilometres and 60 to 90 days before and after. It is one of the most argued points in the negotiation, because it can affect an artist's entire national tour.
Where these numbers come from
The figures here are ranges used in the Spanish market, not official statistics. They are checked against people working in the industry and corrected when someone tells us they are off.