{"id":258467,"date":"2026-01-22T19:10:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T19:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/258467\/"},"modified":"2026-01-22T19:10:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T19:10:11","slug":"the-affordability-crisis-is-here-for-live-music-indie-tours-in-danger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/258467\/","title":{"rendered":"The Affordability Crisis Is Here for Live Music: Indie Tours in Danger"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tDry Cleaning<\/a> had big plans for January 2026. The English band spent much of the past two years making their third and best album, Secret Love<\/a>, which brings their uniquely beguiling mix of post-punk and art-rock styles to a new creative peak. Now, with the album\u2019s release set for early this month on 4AD, they were preparing to launch a 21-date tour of North America, historically a strong market for the band, with a Jan. 23 show in Chicago.<\/p>\n

\n\tTicket sales were looking good, and the band was feeling excited. But their U.S. visas hadn\u2019t come through yet, months after they got their applications in. Soon they were facing thousands of dollars in expediting fees, on top of the already high costs of mounting a tour of that size. \u201cI started to look at it and I was like, \u2018I\u2019m a little bit worried about cash flow,\u2019\u201d says their manager, Tim Hampson. \u201cThere were just too many variables starting to stack in a way that made me feel extremely uncomfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd so, around the middle of November 2025, Dry Cleaning made the agonizing decision to scratch the tour they\u2019d announced just a month earlier and postpone most of its dates to later in 2026. In the statement they released in early December, they cited \u201cthe increasingly hostile economic forces that govern touring<\/a> in the present day.\u201d It was a remarkably upfront acknowledgment of a growing concern in the music business<\/a>: According to many, it\u2019s harder than ever for bands to make ends meet by playing live music<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s a very brutal situation,\u201d says Dry Cleaning\u2019s lead vocalist, Florence Shaw. \u201cIt was definitely much, much, much more doable just a few years ago. Things have got nasty. It\u2019s not even about making a profit. It\u2019s about actually being able to do it at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s becoming more and more common,\u201d adds their bass player, Lewis Maynard. \u201cYou see lots of bands just canceling tours left, right, and center. And tours that are selling well, which is crazy!\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThat last point is particularly rankling for bands like Dry Cleaning, who have spent years working hard to develop their sound and build an audience for their unforgettable live shows. \u201cIt\u2019s not like there\u2019s no supply and demand,\u201d says their drummer, Nick Buxton. \u201cThere is demand and there is supply, and the revenue from doing a big tour is significant. It\u2019s a lot of money. It\u2019s just the flights, the tour buses, the hotels, even the food, are just exploding at the moment and making it unrealistic.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSomething\u2019s going to change, I hope soon,\u201d Maynard says. \u201cOtherwise a whole huge section of gigging is going to disappear. It\u2019s scary.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tDry Cleaning had to rethink their plans for touring the U.S. this year<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAmy E. Price\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\n\tIT\u2019S NEVER BEEN EASY to earn a living playing shows, as anyone who\u2019s spent more than a couple weeks in the music business will tell you. \u201cTo make it as an artist out there on the road takes a lot of timing, talent, luck \u2014 all those things,\u201d says Karl Morse, a partner agent at ROAM who books tours for popular acts including Goose<\/a>, Khruangbin<\/a>, and the Lumineers<\/a>. But there\u2019s a widespread consensus that it\u2019s gotten much more difficult in recent years, especially for developing and mid-size touring acts.<\/p>\n

\n\tEven some well-established bands are giving up on touring in the U.S., like Garbage<\/a>, who blamed \u201cthe economics of the music industry\u201d when they billed their most recent headlining tour as their last ever. \u201cWe\u2019re not complaining, we\u2019ve had a fucking great run,\u201d singer Shirley Manson told fans<\/a> at a Sept. 17 stop in Washington, D.C. \u201cMy concern is for young musicians who go out there and tour \u2014 they\u2019re holding down jobs, they take two weeks off their work and they go around the country. Sometimes they\u2019re sleeping in their van, sometimes they\u2019re staying in really, really dodgy so-called motels, and it\u2019s dangerous and it\u2019s really unacceptable and it really has to stop.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n

\n\tMany of the industry veterans who spoke for this story trace today\u2019s problems back to the existential challenge of 2020, when Covid shut down live music for months, putting countless crew members out of work<\/a> and closing numerous venues for good<\/a>. When mRNA vaccines rolled out and concerts resumed the following year, there was a huge surge in demand at all levels of the market, but it didn\u2019t last<\/a>. \u201cEveryone was ready to come back out, and when it was safe, we saw a really strong, let\u2019s call it six to 12 months there,\u201d Morse says. \u201cEverything was selling well at a premium. But then afterwards, it kind of leveled out. And it\u2019s gotten tougher.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe live music business is still dealing with the personnel shortage that resulted from that tumultuous period, which ultimately left fewer experienced crew members, promoters, and agents on hand as many transitioned to other careers. The bigger challenge, though, is rooted in the rapidly escalating affordability crisis<\/a> that defines so much of life in this country.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cFirst and foremost, we\u2019ve been dealt a tough hand with inflation and wage stagnation,\u201d Morse says. \u201cThe availability of inventory for tour buses, the cost of those tour buses, the fuel for those tour buses, accommodation, taxes, general production expenses \u2014 all of that has slimmed the margin. The bottom line is, it\u2019s more expensive to tour.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe cost of gas is crazy,\u201d adds Andrew Morgan, an agent at Wasserman who works with MJ Lenderman<\/a>, Wednesday<\/a>, and Angel Olsen<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s gone down a little bit, but it\u2019s still really high. Inflation is making groceries more expensive, so trying to eat reasonably on the road and not always eat fast food is tough. The cost of everything is going up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tShirley Manson of Garbage has spoken out about the economic challenges facing touring acts<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tNaomi Rahim\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\n\tThose same economic pressures lead to tough choices for fans who have less cash to spread around on the shows they want to see. \u201cIf you\u2019re Taylor Swift<\/a>, if you\u2019re Beyonc\u00e9<\/a>, your profit margins are going to be all right,\u201d Morse says. \u201cBut from a fan perspective, if you\u2019re a family of four going to one of those shows, that\u2019s a massive expenditure that might replace 10 concerts at the theater level throughout the year\u2026. How do you incentivize people to go when their bank account might be struggling right now?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMorgan makes a similar point about another of last year\u2019s biggest success stories: \u201cThe amount of money that it costs to go see Oasis<\/a> just sucks all this money out of the general showgoing public of any city that that tour hit,\u201d he says, admitting that he himself saw the Gallagher brothers\u2019 enormously lucrative reunion tour<\/a> twice. \u201cHow many shows at a smaller club are they going to have to not go to because they spent that money on Oasis?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAs those examples illustrate, the reality of touring in 2026 includes a stark class divide between the A-list acts playing stadiums and everyone else. \u201cThe disparity between artists that do well and artists that do less well is broadening,\u201d Morgan says. \u201cIt\u2019s getting bigger.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tEven artists who succeed at climbing the traditional ladder of live music \u2014 tiny unofficial venues to small clubs to bigger clubs to theaters and onward \u2014 often find they have to navigate new obstacles as their careers grow. In Dry Cleaning\u2019s case, the postponed tour will take them to some of the largest venues they\u2019ve ever headlined, including places that can accommodate more than 1,500 fans in cities like New York; that means higher crew costs for things like stage lighting. \u201cThey\u2019re on that cusp of being at the lower end of a bigger room. So the crew we need\u2026. We can\u2019t turn up at Brooklyn Steel without lights,\u201d explains Hampson, their manager.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere\u2019s this catch-22 where as you start to build momentum, the expectations rise,\u201d says Nik Soelter, who manages the buzzy New York acts Water From Your Eyes<\/a> and This Is Lorelei<\/a>. \u201cThe cost of the crew goes up so much, and the margins start to get even tighter. Maybe when you were at the DIY level and doing 200-cap rooms, things started to feel pretty good. All of a sudden you\u2019re in 500-cap rooms and you\u2019re like, \u2018Oh, my God, we\u2019re making even less money than before.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd since very few acts in any genre can count on significant income from streaming<\/a>, finding a way to turn a profit or at least break even on the road is even more crucial. \u201cIt\u2019s one of the last areas we could be potentially making money,\u201d Maynard, Dry Cleaning\u2019s bassist, adds. \u201cSo then if you\u2019re losing money all across the board, you\u2019re kind of fucked.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDRY CLEANING ENDED UP salvaging their 2026 U.S. tour<\/a> by pushing most of the dates to this spring, cobbling together some new shows to replace the handful they had to cancel, and rerouting their travel around a festival booking at Kilby Block Party in Salt Lake City. As the year began, Hampson was still working on securing a grant in the U.K. to help make up any shortfall in funds.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIf we get that, happy days,\u201d he says. \u201cBut it is quite a crazy scenario where you\u2019re relying on funding for a band that\u2019s three critically acclaimed albums in, that have appeared on Jimmy Fallon a couple of times, going \u2018How do we make this work?\u2019 A mad place to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSome artists from outside the U.S. have decided the costly, time-consuming visa application<\/a> process is simply not worth it, and opted not to tour here at all.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019ve got some international artists who say it\u2019s too damn expensive to apply without knowing if it\u2019s just going to get caught in limbo,\u201d Morse says. \u201cI personally book a lot of foreign artists who are taking a very cautious approach right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThose that do tour here, wherever they\u2019re from, know they can\u2019t take fans for granted. \u201cIt\u2019s a really hard ask to get somebody to not only spend money out of their pocket, but spend an evening of their life,\u201d says Josh Stern, an agent at Ground Control Touring who works with acts including post-hardcore band Show Me the Body, independent Brooklyn rapper MIKE<\/a>, and enigmatic British producer Vegyn<\/a>. \u201cYou have to figure out how to make the shows unmissable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSome acts are trying to do that by putting together super-stacked bills combining multiple artists, or by scaling down to smaller rooms for a more intimate experience. Others talk about developing alternate revenue streams, like tour-exclusive merch \u2014 though the still-common practice of venues taking a cut<\/a> of merch sales remains a source of consternation, especially since those same venues are reluctant to share their alcohol sales with the bands who get fans in the doors. \u201cEverybody\u2019s here to see this artist; they\u2019re not here because you\u2019re a bar, they\u2019re here because you\u2019re a venue,\u201d Soelter says. \u201cAnd I understand that running a venue is also a tight-margins game, and keeping the bar sales helps these venues stay afloat. But I think if you\u2019re going to take a cut of merch sales, then you need to give a cut of bar sales.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOne artist looking for another way forward is Colleen Green<\/a>. She broke through as an indie fave in the mid-2010s, performing sharp, catchy pop-punk songs backed only by her guitar and a drum machine at long-gone venues like Brooklyn\u2019s Shea Stadium<\/a>. Over the years, the tours got bigger, but not necessarily more profitable. \u201cI did a Europe tour a couple years ago with a full band for the first time ever and ended up losing $5,000,\u201d she says. (Sadly, that\u2019s not an uncommon tale. \u201cI think breaking even in Europe is the ultimate goal for everybody \u2014 just not being in the red on a European tour,\u201d Soelter says.)<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tColleen Green<\/a> at a 2025 show with Rozwell Kid<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGrant Kimura*<\/p>\n

\n\tLast year, Green toured North America with the band Rozwell Kid<\/a> to mark the 10th anniversary of her cult-classic 2015 album I Want to Grow Up<\/a>. It was fun to revisit the old songs, but also harder than she expected, as she added up the costs of travel, lodgings, and paying her backing band. \u201cThe most stressful part about it was, are we going to make any money?\u201d she says. \u201cAnd I hate that it comes down to that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\tSo this winter, she\u2019s trying something different: a fully DIY solo tour that she booked herself, just like the old days, playing record stores and pizza shops with her friend Cassie Ramone of Vivian Girls<\/a>. When we spoke, shortly before the tour began on Jan. 20, Green was looking forward to workshopping some new songs in small venues like the ones she came up in.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMan, maybe it won\u2019t work,\u201d she says. \u201cBut hopefully it does.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dry Cleaning had big plans for January 2026. The English band spent much of the past two years…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":258468,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[128436,128437,93,61,10928,60,13349,278,128438,11440],"class_list":{"0":"post-258467","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-colleen-green","9":"tag-dry-cleaning","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-indie-rock","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-live-music","15":"tag-music","16":"tag-music-business","17":"tag-touring"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}