| Well first of all the tour we just did was only partly in the UK, we also played in Switzerland, two cities in Norway, and Spain..... so the flight are pretty crazy for a trip like that.
Normally for an artist who's very established a tour will be book around 1 or more festival dates. Festivals normally have the bread to pay for flights for the band which gets them to Europe for instance, then once the festival is played the band can stay a couple of more weeks and tour "locally" meaning anywhere in Europe, fairly easily.
For me it's not like that at all. I have to front all the money for flights, additional hotels in certain places where the venue doesn't provide them, I have to take care of all expenses for the four of us for the duration of the tour. just do the math on three meals a day for four people for fourteen days..... not to mention bar tabs and incidentals..... etc etc
Some artists pay their musicians a per dium stipend and let the band fend for themselves... but I'm not the biggest fan of doing that. If I'm taking care of everything I can keep the band together for the most part and not have anyone getting lost or missing flights.
I also factor in being a very frequent flyer with the Star Alliance network which gives me some perks. I can normally take the band into the star alliance lounges all over the world and eat and drink for free. So when you have to fly almost every day like we did on the last tour that saves a lot of money over the course of two weeks.
The bottom line is you have to be really good at planning ahead and covering all your bases so you don't get screwed at the end of the tour.
I have to make sure I have at least +/- $2000 in the budget for emergencies (maybe a lot more depending on the length and scope of the tour, but for two weeks say...) I have to try and lock in the gigs as far ahead of time as possible so that the flights aren't crazy expensive, same goes for any hotels I'll need. Then I have to factor in the wages for the band, and negotiate that with the cats and make sure they're cool with what I'm projecting to make and pay them. Then a huge help on the tour is Merch. I sell CD's at the shows and will generally average 10-20 per night. so at $15 a pop you can take down an extra $150-$300 per night from CD's. This might sound like a nice chunk of change, but it actually is peanuts compared to what the overall budget of the tour costs. But it does help with the day to day expenses, train tickets, coffee with the band, maybe seeing a movie on a day off or something. It's really important to treat the band well, and have everyone as relaxed and jovial as possible.
Then there are clinics and private lessons which I do some of on the road. I'm honestly getting to the point where I actually just want to sleep when I have spare time in the day, but right now at I need to be making up the numbers any way I can so I take as many students as possible. I totally dig the teaching aspect, but I'm just getting to the point where I'm really fried when I show up at a show if I've been teaching all day long. I'm going to to see how it goes on the next tour and maybe limit myself to a certain number of students to try and balance it out.
So once you add up all these aspects of the tour you then need to make sure you make at least $2000 a night as an average fee for a show. I can't take a show for any less than that with these guys in my band. I know a lot of people are going to come out and see the band, and the cats need to get paid well, so I have to set a standard which I'm hoping will increase over time as the group gains momentum in different territories across the world.
To give you an idea of what it takes to do a world tour like the one I'm doing in November it's looking like somewhere between $35,000 and $40,000 to execute. that's before I've taken a single penny for myself. So i have to totally pack the schedule, have very few if any off days, and really do some work.
It boils down to this. If you want to tour as a leader with no manager, booking agent, record label, or outside support.... you have to simply work harder than anyone else out there. I'm doing it now while I'm young. I can't spend this amount of time on the phone or at the email for the rest of my life, but I do understand that if I want to be successful at what I do I have to just bite the bullet and work my ass of for a few years until it turns around and people actually want to work this stuff for me. And I honestly enjoy it. When I do have a manager, an assistant, tour manager, booking agent and all of that.... I'm going to know exactly what is up, what's going on, what's being done, what's not being done, and what needs to be done. So although I won't be on the front line of the business end so much, I'll be able to keep track of it all and make sure I'm not being screwed over.
And on a flight note..... I may actually go to Europe, South East Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and then mexico on the way back meaning that we'll be traveling west the entire time.... Star Alliance do these round the world tickets if you keep traveling the same direction so I may well get everyone in the band a round the world ticket which comes out at around $3000 per person depending on how many stops you have on it. it ends up saving a bunch of money in the long run. It's all the small things like that that you have to be aware of so you can actually balance the budget and make a profit at the end of the day.
There are a thousand other things of course that go into a tour, but I guess those are some of the important ones.
I actually find that unless I write it down in big letters on the notice board in my office, I forget about the music! which is the most important thing at the end of the day. It's totally pointless doing all the legwork for a massive tour and then not presenting a really amazing show for your audience. You want to make sure you blow the audience away so they talk about your show to everyone, and are totally stoked when you come back to play in their city. I'm an audience member myself! and when I see an amazing show I want to make sure I go back and check out that artist the next time around, or buy their CD or whatever it might be. Very important to present something that people are going to respond to positively. Have a concept, be well rehearsed if possible, and make sure you're not dying half way through the tour cos the schedule is too rough on the cats in the band.
Easy,
Janek | 
