I think all artists that tour should have the album included with the tour tickets. It sucks how people go see someone legendary and then don't know the new material at all and will quickly forget about it. The artists taht have put out the new songs deserve to have fans that are feeling that stuff by the time they go to to the show, and what better way to do that than give away the album with the ticket? That way they can make money off the tour and the album and then total sales would be high again. The album could still be sold at stores too, but giving them away and including them with the tour price would solve a lot of problems.

The graphics in the sticky and sweet tour were related to the album concept, but that large bunch that didn't buy the album or don't know the name of it won't really get it or sing along and it's a damn good album IMO!
[Edited 1/12/09 14:41pm]

It's not a lie, it's just an old rule of showbiz that doesn't really apply anymore.

A young band touring for the first time is unlikely to be making ANY money on the road. They are lucky to be grossing a couple thousand bucks a night in big clubs, if they're even doing that well. If it's a new act the tickets are probably cheap, $10 to $20 a head. Once you figure in the cost of a road crew, a bus, hotel rooms and hot meals for all those people, it's pretty close to break-even money even if the shows sell out. If the shows DON'T sell out, the record label loses the money for tour support, another promotional expense like advertising. But everyone hopes the band will do well enough to break into bigger venues on the next tour. How will they do that? They'll have a hit record & get played on the radio.

It is possible to make money on a club tour if you keep your expenses low enough - keep a small crew and sleep at Day's Inn instead of Four Seasons - but most artists aren't thinking like that; they want to act like rock stars and convince people they are, so Four Seasons it is. Put it on the record label's tab and good luck recouping.

As for the big stars, yeah now the real money is in playing live, not making new records. Say Madonna's new album sells two million copies and she's getting about $1 a copy in royalties (probably a high figure), that's $2 million for about a year's creative work. By contrast, her tours gross more than that every week; not just cuz more people are going, but because she's charging ten or twenty times what a young band could get. Actually more - 20 x $20 is $400 and I know the best Madonna tix cost a lot more than that.