They addressed that in the article: "We could have played a duo show instead of hiring six people to tour with us. That would have saved us over $50,000, but i

They addressed that in the article: "We could have played a duo show instead of hiring six people to tour with us. That would have saved us over $50,000, but it was important at this stage in Pomplamoose’s career to put on a wild and crazy rock show. We wanted to be invited back to every venue, and we wanted our fans to bring their friends next time. The loss was an investment in future tours." So it seems they suspected that investing less in production would have meant lower ticket sales for that tour and in the future, which is a rational suspicion regardless of how accurate it would have ended up being. Plus, if they had stripped it down, they still couldn't tour twelve months out of the year so it still wouldn't have amounted to a decent yearly income. At any rate, the point is that Pomplamoose is very well-known and even if they overshot by a few tens of thousands of dollars, it still shows that touring isn't exactly big bucks for even well-known indie bands. More commentary: http://www.artistempathy.com/blog/the-pomplamoose-problem-artists-cant-survive-as-saints-and-martyrs http://www.artistempathy.com/blog/the-pomplamoose-problem-ar...