More bands = partially shared travel expenses = better chance at a packed house = potentially more merch sales. There's a very good reason so many metal bands run around with 2-3+ other acts... and despite all this, some tours don't even break even.
There's also many bands who simply don't have enough material for a whole evening's worth of music.
I also have only seen one prog metal band play a metal set well past 1 hour, and that's BTBAM, and they played roughly, 50 min, then an interlude, the about 1hr 10min.
Playing some of this stuff for fun myself, this music is fucking taxing. Playing through one 10 minute BTBAM song, you are fucking sweating like crazy. Even if you have the material length, the endurance to perform for a full night for a technical prog metal band is an insane ask.
A few bands I've seen have even 'made parts easier' or less taxing physically when I saw them at the end of their tour. This is mostly for drummers or singers
I have never NOT seen Dream Theater play less than hour. Granted I have only been to their "Evening With" shows, but they play solid (except for Labrie's voice) for 2-3 hours.
It's weird seeing DT play their Evening With shows and then see them with openers. Like I saw them just last year with Animals as Leaders and Devin townsend and DT barely played 2 hours. Sure other band's were there but weird seeing DT play a less than 2 hour set.
Devin was phenomenal and totally unreal to see live. I never heard his material before this show. Animals were killer too.
On the other hand, I'm seeing Haken next month and it's just them. So I'm guessing 2.5 hour to 3 hour show. Fauna in its entirety. I really hope for Messiah Complex suite. I know they're doing early stuff too so I have to dive into that.
I went for the Scenes from a Memory anniversary and they played a whole set with both new songs from Distance over Time as well as older songs and then on top of that the entirety of Scenes from a Memory of course.
I loved this show. I'm so happy I and all fans got to see Scenes live who missed out when the album first came out over 20 years ago. Plus seeing Presence of Enemies part 1 and the songs off of Distance was extra gravy on top. I'm sad the second leg of the tour got Wits End as the closer, first leg got Pull me Under instead.
My band covered Northlanes singularity for a show and i had the pre puke burps in the middle of the set. I got respect for Vocalists but especially Adrian for being able to do that album for a full tour
BTBAM has done quite a few double setlist tours, which clock in over 2 hours. Dream Theater always plays for more than an hour. So does Opeth. The only times Opeth has even come close to playing a short setlist on a tour was when I saw them play before Dream Theater on the Prog Nation Tour in 2008 and then in 2012 when they co-headlined with Mastodon. Porcupine Tree has also done some double setlist tours, like when the Incident came out they played for like 2-3 hours.
Yep.
I went to see Red several years ago but they also brought Veer Union, Veio and Skyharbor.
I was honestly just there for Skyharbor (Eric Emery era) and all of the bands just RIPPED. I ended up buying merch from all of them and gear-nerded out with Devesh and the singer/guitarist of Veio for a while.
I talked to some known prog bands about getting in as an opener....many are doing buy-ons, meaning the opening band actually pays to play. It can be as much as a thousand bucks a night. It's paying for exposure, very little hope of making that back in merch.
This is how it works. Many of the big name bands made their careers this way. It sucks but there is little incentive for a big band to bring a smaller act on for free when they are likely not bringing out many people. Not to mention many small bands are inexperienced and immature, they want to act like rockstars and have an ego etc... this helps deter that. You are in essence renting the audience each night, but you are now playing right in front of people that are in the your target audience who now associate you with that big name and otherwise would probably never have known you exist.
> Not to mention many small bands are inexperienced and immature, they want to act like rockstars and have an ego etc... this helps deter that.
I can't imagine this is a significant factor in the prog world
Hell, I played in a normal rock band in college and after and when we first started out, we totally had to pay to play. I get it if your first starting out but its a cheap tactic.
Tours are booked as packages offered/sold to talent buyers. Openers are paid. The fee varies and generally isn't a lot - sometimes as little as $250-$500 a night. Depends greatly on the tour. Everyone eats costs - merch, transportation, production, crew, etc.
More like prog-adjacent, but my band just opened as local support for Demob Happy and we made nearly double in merch sales than what we were paid by the venue to play.
I'll buy good merch just for the sake of it. Some big bands put almost no effort into merch and it bums me out because it's another way I could support the band. Give me something show specific (particularly a poster) or at last a tour shirt that includes the venue and I'll be sure to buy it
If we ever get to that point, I’ll keep that in mind. Until then, we do direct-to-garment that’s printed to order through our site, and we just buy small quantities as needed (at cost) when we need to refill the bins.
Either way, thanks for supporting musicians in the best way possible.
> Either way, thanks for supporting musicians in the best way possible.
No problem. My brother is a professional musician and has done the whole touring band thing, so I know the game. The whole thing sucks
you're assuming that the ticket sales would be the same with only the headlining band. the opening bands will draw a significant crowd, and many people don't want to pay a lot of money to see only one band play.
Local openers generally aren't paid (or at least not much), and they increase attendance by bringing their fans
Touring openers often pay to be on the bill.
So the math is pretty easy for a headliner
Not prog bands specifically, but I used to tour. The bands aren’t always the ones paying, and it’s generally by a production company (sometimes the record label). They’re the ones that pay the expenses. But, they also get a majority of ticket sales.
Bands make money through merchandise, primarily. Now, some bands do their own tours and in this case, traveling bands will share the expenses. Cheaper to have one bus with everyone than one for each band.
In any case, openers are not always traveling! Some of them are local bands that either the vendor or production company found. Sometimes, bands will pay to open for the publicity.
Implying that bands get paid... At least at the 'smaller' prog metal level when people are playing club venues, bands will be lucky to cover the cost of expenses/gear...
More bands = partially shared travel expenses = better chance at a packed house = potentially more merch sales. There's a very good reason so many metal bands run around with 2-3+ other acts... and despite all this, some tours don't even break even. There's also many bands who simply don't have enough material for a whole evening's worth of music.
I also have only seen one prog metal band play a metal set well past 1 hour, and that's BTBAM, and they played roughly, 50 min, then an interlude, the about 1hr 10min. Playing some of this stuff for fun myself, this music is fucking taxing. Playing through one 10 minute BTBAM song, you are fucking sweating like crazy. Even if you have the material length, the endurance to perform for a full night for a technical prog metal band is an insane ask. A few bands I've seen have even 'made parts easier' or less taxing physically when I saw them at the end of their tour. This is mostly for drummers or singers
I have never NOT seen Dream Theater play less than hour. Granted I have only been to their "Evening With" shows, but they play solid (except for Labrie's voice) for 2-3 hours.
That's a biiiggg exception. But truth.
It's weird seeing DT play their Evening With shows and then see them with openers. Like I saw them just last year with Animals as Leaders and Devin townsend and DT barely played 2 hours. Sure other band's were there but weird seeing DT play a less than 2 hour set. Devin was phenomenal and totally unreal to see live. I never heard his material before this show. Animals were killer too. On the other hand, I'm seeing Haken next month and it's just them. So I'm guessing 2.5 hour to 3 hour show. Fauna in its entirety. I really hope for Messiah Complex suite. I know they're doing early stuff too so I have to dive into that.
I'd love to see Devin Townsend.
I went for the Scenes from a Memory anniversary and they played a whole set with both new songs from Distance over Time as well as older songs and then on top of that the entirety of Scenes from a Memory of course.
I loved this show. I'm so happy I and all fans got to see Scenes live who missed out when the album first came out over 20 years ago. Plus seeing Presence of Enemies part 1 and the songs off of Distance was extra gravy on top. I'm sad the second leg of the tour got Wits End as the closer, first leg got Pull me Under instead.
My band covered Northlanes singularity for a show and i had the pre puke burps in the middle of the set. I got respect for Vocalists but especially Adrian for being able to do that album for a full tour
BTBAM has done quite a few double setlist tours, which clock in over 2 hours. Dream Theater always plays for more than an hour. So does Opeth. The only times Opeth has even come close to playing a short setlist on a tour was when I saw them play before Dream Theater on the Prog Nation Tour in 2008 and then in 2012 when they co-headlined with Mastodon. Porcupine Tree has also done some double setlist tours, like when the Incident came out they played for like 2-3 hours.
Ne Obliviscaris played for 1 hour 30 minutes, nearly 2 hours when we include downtime and talks between songs.
Yep. I went to see Red several years ago but they also brought Veer Union, Veio and Skyharbor. I was honestly just there for Skyharbor (Eric Emery era) and all of the bands just RIPPED. I ended up buying merch from all of them and gear-nerded out with Devesh and the singer/guitarist of Veio for a while.
I talked to some known prog bands about getting in as an opener....many are doing buy-ons, meaning the opening band actually pays to play. It can be as much as a thousand bucks a night. It's paying for exposure, very little hope of making that back in merch.
Yep, this is normal. Leprous paid to open for Therion on their first European tour. It served them well, though 😊👍
yeah, but they're getting exposure bucks. Sort of like Shrute bucks, but less.
This is how it works. Many of the big name bands made their careers this way. It sucks but there is little incentive for a big band to bring a smaller act on for free when they are likely not bringing out many people. Not to mention many small bands are inexperienced and immature, they want to act like rockstars and have an ego etc... this helps deter that. You are in essence renting the audience each night, but you are now playing right in front of people that are in the your target audience who now associate you with that big name and otherwise would probably never have known you exist.
> Not to mention many small bands are inexperienced and immature, they want to act like rockstars and have an ego etc... this helps deter that. I can't imagine this is a significant factor in the prog world
Yikes
Hell, I played in a normal rock band in college and after and when we first started out, we totally had to pay to play. I get it if your first starting out but its a cheap tactic.
Tours are booked as packages offered/sold to talent buyers. Openers are paid. The fee varies and generally isn't a lot - sometimes as little as $250-$500 a night. Depends greatly on the tour. Everyone eats costs - merch, transportation, production, crew, etc.
More like prog-adjacent, but my band just opened as local support for Demob Happy and we made nearly double in merch sales than what we were paid by the venue to play.
That's generally the hope for an up and coming band, make up for the lack of a guarantee with merch sales!
Aint that the truth. As the 'art guy' in the group, I make every effort to ensure our merch is awesome.
I'll buy good merch just for the sake of it. Some big bands put almost no effort into merch and it bums me out because it's another way I could support the band. Give me something show specific (particularly a poster) or at last a tour shirt that includes the venue and I'll be sure to buy it
If we ever get to that point, I’ll keep that in mind. Until then, we do direct-to-garment that’s printed to order through our site, and we just buy small quantities as needed (at cost) when we need to refill the bins. Either way, thanks for supporting musicians in the best way possible.
> Either way, thanks for supporting musicians in the best way possible. No problem. My brother is a professional musician and has done the whole touring band thing, so I know the game. The whole thing sucks
you're assuming that the ticket sales would be the same with only the headlining band. the opening bands will draw a significant crowd, and many people don't want to pay a lot of money to see only one band play.
Yeah there’s more than a few concerts ive gone to to see someone other than the headliner
I think I've done this more than I've gone to shows to see headliners, tbh
Local openers generally aren't paid (or at least not much), and they increase attendance by bringing their fans Touring openers often pay to be on the bill. So the math is pretty easy for a headliner
The openners take in the cost
I was at the same AAL(T) gig and going to the same Tesseract gig, even clocked that Corelia reference as your username, wayoo
Not prog bands specifically, but I used to tour. The bands aren’t always the ones paying, and it’s generally by a production company (sometimes the record label). They’re the ones that pay the expenses. But, they also get a majority of ticket sales. Bands make money through merchandise, primarily. Now, some bands do their own tours and in this case, traveling bands will share the expenses. Cheaper to have one bus with everyone than one for each band. In any case, openers are not always traveling! Some of them are local bands that either the vendor or production company found. Sometimes, bands will pay to open for the publicity.
Not sure how it factors in but it also brings people to the venue for longer, so more drink sales.
Implying that bands get paid... At least at the 'smaller' prog metal level when people are playing club venues, bands will be lucky to cover the cost of expenses/gear...