Fear Factory Guitarist Dino Cazares Says The Cost Of Touring Is Making It ‘Impossible’ To Make Any Money

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Dino Cazares Photo by Steve Thorne/Redferns via Getty Images
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Fear Factory is among the many bands impacted by the rising costs of touring.

Several musicians have voiced how difficult it is to tour at this time; from the costs of renting busses to even hotel rooms, catering, and more, touring is becoming more expensive for musicians, and in turn, making it difficult to see much of a profit.

Along with issues pertaining to inflation, there are also issues involving venue merch cuts – specifically, venues requesting a share of the profits made from merch a band sells at a given show.

Over on Twitter, Fear Factory guitarist Dino Cazares quote re-tweeted a story from Metal Injection involving Dark Funeral member Lord Ahriman speaking to such woes. Per his quote re-tweet Dino wrote the following:

“That’s why this tour we are doing coming up we’ll be in a van, the cost of touring is making it impossible to make any money.”

In response to this quote re-tweet, a fan wrote to Dino and shared how they are not a fan of venues taking a cut from the band’s merch sales. Per that fan:

Ridiculous for venues to take a merch cut. I try to buy merch directly from the bands outside the venue if possible to avoid the venue’s theft. Calls to stop this seem to have gained a bit more traction lately. What do you think can we truly do to stop this? #StopVenueMerchCuts”

Dino then replied to this fan and wrote the following: “u may need a resellers license to sell outside and the venue owner may still try and tax u cause your selling on his property, he may also call the police cause he knows u probably don’t have a license to sell, so to avoid all that u would have to go down the block to sell”

What is your opinion on venue merch cuts? Are you against them?