Most first tours lose money. That's fine if you planned for it and not fine if you find out in a gas station in Utah. Here's the math, in plain terms.
The costs
Gas. Total miles ÷ your van's real MPG × current gas price. A full van gets worse mileage than you think; use 12–14 mpg for a loaded passenger van and 8–10 for anything towing a trailer. Add 15% for detours and in-town driving.
Lodging. Count the nights. Price them honestly: $0 for a friend's floor, $90–140 for a cheap motel room split four ways. If you don't have a floor lined up, budget the motel.
Food. $15–25 per person per day if you're disciplined. $40 if you're not. Grocery store runs beat drive-throughs on both cost and how you feel on day nine.
Merch to sell. The upfront order. This is an investment, not a loss, but it comes out of the bank account before the tour starts.
Vehicle. Oil change before you leave. Budget $200–300 as a "something breaks" cushion. Something breaks.
Misc. Tolls, parking, guitar strings, drum heads, gaffer tape, that one toll road in Colorado.
The income
Guarantees. Only count what's in writing. A booker saying "we'll take care of you" is $0 on the spreadsheet.
Door splits. Estimate low. If you don't know the room, assume 15 people at $10 split across 3 bands.
Merch. Take your average per-show merch sales at home and cut it in half for out-of-town rooms where nobody knows you. Then multiply by shows.
The sheet
| Per day | Days | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gas | |||
| Lodging | |||
| Food (× people) | |||
| Vehicle cushion | |||
| Misc | |||
| Costs | |||
| Guarantees | |||
| Door estimate | |||
| Merch estimate | |||
| Income | |||
| Net |
If the net is negative, you have three levers: fewer days, shorter drives (routing!), or more merch. You usually can't fix it by hoping for bigger crowds.
Routing is a cost
Every tour has a drive that's too long. One. Not four. Plot the cities on a map before you confirm anything and reject any day over 6 hours unless the show is worth it. The gas you save by routing well is often the whole profit margin.
Pay the band last
Set the rule before you leave: gas and lodging come off the top from a shared envelope or card, then merch costs get recouped, then whatever's left splits. Agreeing on this in the driveway prevents the argument in the parking lot.
Coming soon
We're building a tour budget tool that does this math for you. Until then, a phone spreadsheet with the table above works fine.