Rock 'n' rolling in it
19 June 2005 By Paul T Colgan
“All I got is a red guitar, three chords and the truth,” sang U2 frontman Bono at the Embarcadero Centre in San Francisco in 1987.
The line - made famous in the Rattle and Hum rockumentary - certainly makes for better rock 'n' roll than: “All I got is €164 million, 19 companies and a trust.”
As U2 takes to the stage at Croke Park, Dublin, next weekend for three sold-out performances as part of their latest world tour, the band that spawned a corporation to rival some of the largest businesses in the country shows no signs of slowing down.
When Bono, the Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jnr sit down to check their coffers at the end of the year, they will probably find that concert takings, associated merchandise, record sales and royalties will have taken their combined musical income to the €175 million mark.
Touring is considered essential to U2's continued financial success. With more than three million people expected to have attended a U2 show by the end of its current world tour, the band's only real competition on the global circuit is the Rolling Stones.
Observers believe U2 can expect to make between €120 million and €150 million this year from touring alone.
The band's huge concert receipts are down to the fact that when it decides to tour, it does so mercilessly. In 2001 it topped the worldwide concert-grossing charts, raking in €118 million during its Elevation Tour.
Despite stiff competition from boy-band favourites at the height of their fame - such as N-SYNC and the Backstreet Boys - the aging rockers simply overwhelmed the competition with a punishing tour itinerary that took in 113 arena performances in a mere 12 months.
The boybands accumulated €74.4million and €74.1million respectively, while Madonna's Drowned World tour could only muster €61.1 million.
According to U2's management team, the current world tour is well on course to top 2001's Elevation roadtrip.
Speaking to The Sunday Business Post as U2 prepared to take the stage in Manchester last Wednesday, manager Paul McGuinness said: “Demand forU2 is higher than ever. This tour will be much bigger financially than the previous one.”
McGuinness estimated that the band would play to about 3.3 million people on the current Vertigo tour. Taking merchandising and ticket prices into account, it makes for a staggering income.
The U2 manager said the band had broken “building records'‘ on its first American leg of the tour earlier this year.
“Merchandising is very important, and it tends to be an integer of how hot the band are,” said McGuinness.
“In the States, we're breaking building records - gross sales of merchandise at one event on a single night. In the US, we're talking roughly $10-$12 a head per night.”
U2 has decided to play only indoor arenas in the US this year. McGuinness said this had helped to keep down overheads and had enhanced the band's sound and appearance.
“We haven't played outdoors in the States this year, as in a way it suits the music and this production. In Europe, we have to perform in daylight and it's a real pain in the neck.
“It's impossible to escape from daylight now we're into the summer. For example, the band are going on stage in Manchester tonight at 8.45, and it won't even start getting dark until after half nine. “
As you go further north, to Oslo and Copenhagen, it just doesn't get dark at all, he said.
“The logistics are completely different in this European tour, as we're playing outdoors. We need to build the stage from the ground up at every venue. In arenas in the US, the stage is suspended from the roof.
“The overheads are much, much higher in Europe. The type of arenas we play in the States, with up to 20,000 seats, just don't exist here - I wish they did.”
Some 1.4million people will have seen the band perform in the US this year.
The tour's first North American leg involved 30 dates, and U2 returns to the States in the autumn for an additional 45 performances. The band can expect to make almost €13 million on merchandising alone in the US.
On its European leg, merchandising receipts are expected to reach the €11 million mark.
“When you get to Europe, merchandising tends to get a bit lower, and when you play outdoors figures drop yet again,” said McGuinness.
“The vending mechanism becomes more difficult, and you tend not to reach everyone. In Europe, you're talking about $7-$8 per head on merchandising.”
Despite huge ticket receipts and hefty merchandising returns, he said, the Vertigo tour will not break even until September “simply because of the start-up costs involved'‘.
In the US the band uses up to 17 trucks to transport equipment, this increases to 70 when the band comes to Europe.
Up to 30 people - including the band, wardrobe, publicity, accounts and management - will travel by air in Europe.
McGuinness said that, as well as bringing its own core staff, the tour hired additional ground crew in each country it travelled to.
Traditionally, bands have toured simply to sustain record sales. But McGuinness said that while this remained important, cover prices and merchandising had proved to be more lucrative.
“The concert business is certainly healthier than the record business at the moment.
“It can vary, depending on who's touring at any given time, but it's looking like it's going to be a very good year all round,” he said.
“There is a small sales bump in each city you play along the way - but it's not very pronounced. Album sales are beginning to tail off now; we're close to around 10 million at the moment.”
McGuinness is well satisfied with album and single sales for How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, released late last year.
“We've had number one singles in the US and England. In England, we've had three - sorry, two - number ones, but I think we can claim a moral three, given that Crazy Frog beat us and Coldplay.”
It was reported last year that the band enjoys one of the highest royalty rates of all time. The BBC claimed that it has received a 28 per cent cut on each record sold under a groundbreaking €60 million 1993 deal with Island Records.
The €3 it receives for each album remains untouched by the Revenue Commissioners under the terms of the artists' royalty tax exemption scheme, bringing the total estimated wealth of the band to €475million.Bono himself is estimated to be worth €164 million.
Record sales and concert receipts aside, ‘U2 Inc' remains highly lucrative in its own right.
Rolling Stone magazine last year ranked the band 36th in the highest earners for 2004, despite the fact that the band was largely ensconced in the studio for the year.
According to the magazine, the band accumulated €11.5 million - €9.9million of which was handed over simply for delivering the finished product.
It reported that the band and Apple were splitting a €41 mark-up per item on sales of the U2-branded iPod. The collaboration with Apple is widely viewed as a canny move on the band's part.
With McGuinness predicting the demise of the CD, and taking into consideration widespread illegal downloading of music,U2 put its entire 400-track song collection on Apple's online music store, iTunes, in 2004.
On top of this, the band benefited to the tune of $1.5 million in a one-off dividend from the US multimedia software company Burst.com.
The company announced in April that it would pay a cash dividend of 90 cent per share following the settlement of a copyright infringement lawsuit with Microsoft.
Accounts filed by Not Us - U2's holding company - in early 2004 revealed that the four band members netted €4 million from the sale of rights to use the band name on an official website.
While U2's management maintains that the boys are not in it for the money - and a glance at their earnings would seem to indicate that they could safely retire on the strength of their substantial back-catalogue - the temptation to maintain their current high profile and associated financial rewards must be huge.
The band did not play Desire, the song from the 1988 album Rattle and Hum, at any of its US dates earlier this year.
If it makes it back onto the set-list at Croker next week, those lucky enough to have a ticket might just keep an ear out for the line ‘She's the dollars, she's my protection'.
Originally posted by djrlewisBut Paul McCartney's worth £840 million just on his own (until Heather Mills gets her claws into him). And with the imminent release of the entire back-catalogue onto iTunes that's set to go up even more.
Originally posted by RemyAnd the Beatles? Come on, bands make the most money with touring, they toured around the world when tickets were only 10 bucks
Friday April 27, 2007
The Guardian
According to new figures the Rolling Stones are the richest band still on the road, with a combined fortune of £570m - of which Jagger, now 63, has £215m. The latest Sunday Times Rich List, to be published this weekend, calculates that guitarist Ronnie Wood is the least well off, valuing him at a meagre £75m.
U2 are not far behind with £487m. In addition to their royalties and ticket sales the band have diverse business interests.
A glance at the companion list of the wealthiest musicians under 30 suggests that following U2's template of stadium rock mixed with social concern will make you rich. Coldplay are already worth £120m, with more than 30m albums sold worldwide since their debut, Parachutes, in 2000. Like U2 they split it all equally.
Originally posted by yeah[..]