making money quickly often leads to losing it quickly........as traders we all know that, right?
i have a relative who is an up and comming peforming artist (no, i will not reveal their name) you'd be suprised at how difficult it is to manage the money. i'm not defending anyone but....most of these artists have zero understanding of $$ and rely on others for advice...for a percentage, of course. being one of the few people in the family that has any financial sense i get calls all the time about what they shouyld do or not do. (i also have an OPM situation wating for me whenever i want, but i don't want it).
in addition to an agent/manager, my relative also has a business mgr., pubilicist, tour mgr., paid band members, crew, and others that all share the $$. entertainers typically have many hangers-on., so many that in actuality the typical entertainer only sees about 20 - 25% max of what they get paid. so on a tour that grosses 1M, the artist gets maybe 200-250k if they are lucky. (they usually make more from the merchandising, which is classified as a different revenue stream and does not get treated the same as cd and tix sale) they do get freebies for promotional purposes, but you'd be suprised how little $$ they actually get in the end. my relative was written up in rolling stone magazine, had a nice blurb in people magazine, appeared on some national TV...and all the while they were financaily in debt to their label!!! all my freinds thought i had it made, lol. its only been in the last 6 months that they got out of debt with their label....but you wouldn't of known it from just looking at their lifestyle.