Lorde: “Touring Has Become a Demented Struggle to Break Even or Face Debt”
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The post Lorde: “Touring Has Become a Demented Struggle to Break Even or Face Debt” appeared first on Consequence.
Lorde offered a “five minute explainer” on the “demented struggle” facing touring musicians in the latest edition of her newsletter.
Via Stereogum, she wrote that “for artists, promoters and crews, things are at an almost unprecedented level of difficulty. It’s a storm of factors. Let’s start with three years’ worth of shows happening in one. Add global economic downturn, and then add the totally understandable wariness for concertgoers around health risks.”
She also looked at “the logistical side,” with “immense crew shortages… overbooked trucks and tour buses and venues, inflated flight and accommodation costs, ongoing general COVID costs, and truly mindboggling freight costs. To freight a stage set across the world can cost up to three times the pre-pandemic price right now.” Lorde added, “Ticket prices would have to increase to start accommodating even a little of this, but absolutely no one wants to charge their harried and extremely-compassionate-and-flexible audience any more fucking money.”
Lorde continued, “Profits being down across the board is fine for an artist like me. I’m lucky. But for pretty much every artist selling less tickets than I am, touring has become a demented struggle to break even or face debt. For some, touring is completely out of the question, even if they were to sell the whole thing out! The math doesn’t make sense. Understandably, all of this takes a toll — on crews, on promoters, and on artists. You’ll notice a ton of artists cancelling shows citing mental health concerns in the past year, and I really think the stress of this stuff is a factor — we’re a collection of the world’s most sensitive flowers who also spent the last two years inside, and maybe the task of creating a space where people’s pain and grief and jubilation can be held night after night with a razor thin profit margin and dozens of people to pay is feeling like a teeny bit much.”
She ended the newsletter by thanking fans who came to her shows “in such mammoth numbers,” and said, “I wanted to put all of this in your minds to illustrate that nothing’s simple when it comes to touring at the moment, and if your faves are confusing you with their erratic moves, some of this could be playing a part.”
Many artists have cancelled tours this year while citing rising costs and mental health, including Animal Collective, Santigold, Anthrax, Arlo Parks, Shawn Mendes, and Sam Fender. Revisit our recent essay, “Touring Has a Mental Health Problem. How Do We Fix It?”
As for Lorde, in February and March she’ll take “The Solar Power Tour” to New Zealand and Australia. Tickets are available here.
Lorde: “Touring Has Become a Demented Struggle to Break Even or Face Debt”
Wren Graves
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