NotInvisible wrote: Wed 15 Apr 2026, 9:32 pm
markreed wrote: Wed 15 Apr 2026, 9:24 pmAre you genuinely suggesting they haven't practised the songs thoroughly before the first full band rehearsal?
No, I'm suggesting they got paid to learn them.
The easiest way to tell your math is off is to observe that virtually no one makes this sort of a show a staple, which would obviously be the case if it was easy money. The other notable stumbling block is that scaling these numbers to arenas results in figures far higher than we know them to be. I'm sure they didn't lose money on the Obscure shows, but neither of them are buying a sports car off the back of it.
Sure they got paid to learn them, and likely got sent the stems recreated by Pete G so they could then play and learn their parts in isolation and play along so by the time the full live band got to the studio they probably had almost all of the 35 songs match ready. So in terms of full band rehearsals 10 days is generous.
You seem to think the only thing that matters is that bands can make money and thus, that's the only reason any band does anything. Scaling these numbers to arenas overlooks the costs of staging the video, props, a larger band, bigger crew, live AV and similar which is not the case for Obscure which is a compact show with no video, props, transportation costs, accommodation, visas, etc. Dreamworld costs a lot more per show than Obscure.
In 2014, the band were paid around $350k for a festival tent headline slot.
They don't need to rent equipment etc., and likely have full ownership of all their equipment - the costs as such for Obscure would be time, and we know Pete was working on days off during the Dreamworld dates to ensure the source files would play on the Logic 11/12 platform and make the pre-Logic 7 files compatible with the current version - I think he has access to every song the band have played live or recorded since he first started working with them in around 1993, so there's very little he hasn't got. Effectively all Obscure does is scale down the Dreamworld production and change the songs. And many of those songs have been played since 2009, so are not complete from-the-ground rebuilds, but translations from the 2009 set up to the 2026 equipment.
In addition, even if the venue took its standard 20% of merch gross, the profit ratio on a shirt is normally a minimum of £16-18, profit on a show poster probably £12-15, profit on the books like around £12-15 (Volume) and £4-5 (Lyrics), and they sold thousands of shirts, hundreds of posters, and hundreds of books. Alongside gross ticket sales of £750k, which they would get likely circa £400k of.
The whole reason Dreamworld has run so long is because the marginal cost (i.e. day to day running costs) are low compared to revenue, and the upfront investment of staging the show was recouped very early in the touring cycle. But again, and to be clear, if money was all they were interested in, they'd tour 10 months a year. And it isn't.
They probably aren't buying sports cars full stop, but the shows will have turned a decent six figure profit over the residency.
