I read that article when it came out. I've played all those same rooms that they played on that tour, so let me speak from experience on exactly what they did

I read that article when it came out. I've played all those same rooms that they played on that tour, so let me speak from experience on exactly what they did wrong. Note the part where they don't have any management, which supposedly saves them money. Then note the part where they hire bunch of extra crew to "go all out for this tour" and 3 extra band members and then end up putting something like $20k on a credit card to make ends meet on the tour because of all the extra payroll. This is where the cliche of musicians being terrible at business comes from and where not having a manager - ostensibly to save the 15% of gross - is the ultimate false economy. Anybody here who's in business could tell you that they's lose money on that tour with all that extra payroll. Now look where they are. They have $20k sitting at credit card APRs to pay off before they can even think of breaking even with anything in the future. The bands I know that are more successful in smaller rooms are so because they run the numbers beforehand. It's that simple.