Being fortunate to know a couple of gigging musicians, I have at least some understanding of the equation facing bands in terms of pricing v level of show production v selling sufficient tickets v making a living.

Given the current scale of production for Brit Floyd's show, notwithstanding that a few venues won't support elements of the production (e.g. the flying pig), I suspect the £25 to £30 range for tickets is pretty much as low as it can go. The balancing act of getting enough people into a gig v "consumer resistance" to ticket prices has been much harder for at least the last 3 years simply because there is less "funtime" cash around but ultimately a line must still be drawn.

At the moment, there is no point trying to command higher ticket prices because they wouldn't sell and the only options left are to identify a baseline where a certain level of production can be maintained with just enough "foot fall" to support it or, alternatively, reduce prices and strip back the production. For tribute bands relying on the tagline of reproducing the "Pink Floyd experience", stripping back the production to basics kind of defeats the object of the exercise.

A while ago, I did a casual costing exercise for a long standing pipe dream which is to put a band together and undertake a tour of 15-20 gigs (including 2-3 in Europe) to perform an album that has never been performed live. Because of the level of production that I would want, the BASIC costs (i.e. band, transport, accommodation, food, insurance) would not be far short of £200k. Sure, I could pare it down to merely the band on stage with only a basic light show and have other aspects done on the cheap but, to put it mildly, where would the fun be in that?

By the way *cough*, if anyone does in fact have a spare £250k+, please DO feel free to contact me....

On the issue of "VIP packages" et al, it's tricky. I can seen why such packages are mushrooming amongst tribute bands. There is plainly some form of demand (the fan side) and it's another income stream for relatively little effort (the band side). My strictly personal view is that tribute bands should probably not go down this route - it can have the capacity to suggest that the tribute band has rather lost sight of what it is: i.e. a tribute band, not the original band. For me, VIP packages just feel "wrong" for a tribute band.

Note to Stargazer: In an earlier thread, a full performance of "The Wall" was discussed. Damian contributed to the thread and there isn't any doubt that there will be a full performance of that album at some point. It *might* have been for next year but there is slight problem. Apparently, some other guy is currently touring the world with the biggest ever production of The Wall and it probably isn't ideal for Brit Floyd to have a "Wall" tour clashing with the other guy.....(it's still unclear whether Roger Waters will be continuing his tour into 2013). Allegedly, the other guy's show is pretty good... .