I love how Bono is suppose to be this musician who is charitable and all for anti-poverty. I saw a story of how people in Glastonbury were going to protest when U2 came because Bono has been avoiding taxes.
U2 in 2006 moved part of their business to the Netherlands since they had a lower tax rate. The country that they moved from (Ireland claimed they would pay tax on earnings over 250,000 euros (as opposed to zero before). Even the guitar player for U2 “Edge” says that the band is trying to be as tax efficient as possible. The band earned $108.6 million in 2009. Like I mentioned in a previous post that you have to be careful of tours and gross receipts since they tend to leave out costs (touring equipment, entourage, private jets, etc).
I have heard U2’s Zoo TV was expensive. This was in the early 1990’s (1992-1993). The cost for producing the tour was $125,000 per day which would be around $200,000 in current dollars. To give you an idea of the cost of running a tour during the tour 180 people were required, 12 buses, and a private jet were used. An expensive million dollar stage was made and it had to be transported all over the United States.
The profit margin of the Zoo TV tour was around 4.5% even at though nearly all the shows were sold out. The tour almost bankrupted the band which led the group in their next tour to look for outside sources of financing. Their PopMart (tour after Zoo TV) had revenues of $80 million but cost more than $100 million to make. I guess my point is I am a little confused if artists spend all this time on the road promoting their music yet financially there is no value. In the business world this would be a loss leader and I guess you could make the argument that they go on tour to sell albums which produce money.
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