Indie stalwarts Los Campesinos! have done something radical: they opened their books.
In a recent Substack post, the band shared a line-by-line breakdown of their North American tour finances. While the "gross" figure looks like a dream for many indie acts, the "net" provides a sobering look at the cost of doing business in the modern music industry.
"In June 2024 we embarked on a North American tour, between the announcement and the release of our 7th studio album, All Hell," wrote the band. "Below is our itinerary for the trip, alongside a number denoting the amount of people in attendance at the show. All shows were sold out except for Boston."
The Los Campesinos! Tour
June 14, 2024: Fly/Arrive in NY, 15 - Warsaw, Brooklyn NY (capacity 1,000), 16 -Paradise Rock Club, Boston MA (853)17 - Union Transfer, Philadelphia PA (800), 18 - Black Cat, Washington DC (800), 19 - Day off, 20 - The Opera House, Toronto ON (890), 21 - The Roxy, Cleveland OH (700), 22 - Thalia Hall, Chicago IL (914), 23 - Travel Day, 24 - The Crocodile, Seattle WA (750), 25 - Aladdin Theater, Portland OR (630), 26 - Travel/Day off, 27 - Great American Music Hall, San Francisco CA (650), 28 - The Regent Theater, Los Angeles CA (1,300), 29 - Fly home
Here is what Los Campesinos! earned on tour, where it went, and what every artist can learn from their transparency.
The Numbers at a Glance
Guarantees varied from a high of $17,100 to a low of $5,500. Across the 11 gigs all but Boston sold out, meaning 12,687 of 12,787 available tickets were sold (99.2%).
On this 15-date North American run, the band grossed $257,000. After paying commissions (Management and Booking), US withholding taxes (a massive 30%), travel, crew, and production, the "profit" to be split among the seven band members was a small fraction of the headline number.
There's a very detailed breakdown here, but the bottom line is that before profits from merch sales, the tour lost $28oo.oo
4 Lessons For All Touring Musicians
1. The Withholding Tax Trap
For international artists, the tax system is a major hurdle. The band highlighted the 30% CWA (Central Withholding Agreement) or flat withholding tax.
U.S. artists performing overseas often see similar tax withholding.
Taxes take a massive bite out of gross income before a single hotel room is paid for. Artists must factor in the cost of specialized tax accountants to reduce or eventually claw some of this back—a process that can take years.
2. The Mid-Sized Squeeze
The budget highlights the difficulty of being a "mid-sized" band.
You are too big to pile into a single van and sleep on floors, but not big enough to command the massive guarantees that make tour buses and high-end production an easy expense. Every choice—from the number of crew members to the size of the trailer—has a compounding effect on the bottom line.
3. Commissions Add Up Fast
Standard industry rates (10-15% for booking agents, 10–20% for management) are calculated on the gross or adjusted gross, not the profit.
When expenses rise, the band’s take-home pay shrinks, but the commissions stay fixed. The Los Campesinos! breakdown shows how top-line success often benefits everyone except the performers.
4. Merch is the Lifeblood (Not an Extra)
Los Campesinos! were blunt: without merchandise sales, the tour would likely have been a financial failure.
After merch sale profits the band netted about $51,000 to split between 7 band members.
$51,000 or $7200 each for for a couple of weeks work. Not bad, right ? Not so fast. As the band wrote: "Viewing this merch income solely as a tour profit is a little tricky."
"That money goes on to funding the next tour or project... the vast majority of outgoings listed above are paid before a penny of income has been received, and that’s the same for most projects," the wrote. "Meaning a band needs to have access to capital long before the tour (or album recording, or anything else) is going to take place in order to be able to afford to embark on it at all. And who has access to capital? Major label acts that still choose to rip off their fans with exorbitant ticket pricing, and rich kid bands that can always return home to their parents."
Los Campesinos! is none of those things. And there's more.
"We can sell a large amount of t-shirts without travelling to the US, as fans can (and do) purchase from our web store... we could have made a large chunk of that without ever going on tour in the first place."
Hypebot's Bottom Line
For all musicians, the lesson is to be strategic about touring and know all your costs in advance.
Touring has become a high-stakes gamble. As Los Campesinos! proved, you can sell out venues, gross a quarter of a million dollars and still walk away with a very modest "salary" for weeks of grueling work.
For new and mid-tier indie bands, merch isn’t just "gas money" anymore—it is the primary profit center that subsidizes the actual performance. If you aren't optimizing your merch and accounting for venue cuts, you aren't touring sustainably.
Don't book a tour based on a gross guarantee. Book it based on a realistic projection of net income after the "hidden" costs of visas, insurance, travel, crew and commissions.
Los Campesinos! 2026 Tour Dates
MAY 28 — Camden, United Kingdom @ Electric Ballroom
MAY 29 — Norwich, United Kingdom @ Epic Studios
MAY 30 — Exeter, United Kingdom @ Exeter Phoenix
MAY 31 — Nottingham, United Kingdom @ Rescue Rooms
JUN 04 — Leeds, United Kingdom @ Project House
JUN 05 — Newcastle, United Kingdom @ Northumbria Students Union
JUN 06 — Edinburgh, United Kingdom @ Liquid Room
JUN 07 — Liverpool, United Kingdom @ Arts Club Theatre
JUL 11 — York, United Kingdom @ Museum Gardens
