American Indies running shows overseas

[joeg]

I was wondering how this works exactly. GCW is running Shin-Kiba 1st ring later this week and I don't understand how the revenue generated from the shows could come close to covering expenses. Could somebody with more insight into the workings of the business fill me in on how GCW, CZW, Chikara, and ROH all run shows overseas without losing an arm and a leg doing so.

[SPS]

Probably a sponsor or money mark.

[Dale Wolfe]

Well, ROH are about to lose a lot of money with that UK tour. Tickets are not selling well at all. 

[hammerva]

I am guessing the working guys in FREEDOMS like Kasai and Takeda is helping GCW out big time.  Plus judging from the crowd reaction to the show it isn't like they are going their blind.  

ROH running a tour in the UK is the same thing that TNA did when they were on life support in the US.   They haven't burned out their product over there enough.  

[Migs]

20 hours ago, hammerva said:

ROH running a tour in the UK is the same thing that TNA did when they were on life support in the US.   They haven't burned out their product over there enough.  

I believe they did very well over there for a bit, but the summer tour last year didn't go great even with the Elite, and this one looks like a disaster. It should be noted, from a cost perspective, that they tend to use a good number of UK guys and limit the number of flyovers.

[joeg]

How much money do these shows need to generate to finish in the black? Hypothetically, it just seems like the international travel cost for 10 to 15 members of the roster plus another 4 or 5 members of the staff would be greater than $30,000. I don't see how two or three shows that draw less than 500 people could make up that money and cover venue rentals, insurance, etc,etc.... SPS said a money mark or a sponsor, so some mark is eating the the losses? 

[Migs]

20 hours ago, joeg said:

How much money do these shows need to generate to finish in the black? Hypothetically, it just seems like the international travel cost for 10 to 15 members of the roster plus another 4 or 5 members of the staff would be greater than $30,000. I don't see how two or three shows that draw less than 500 people could make up that money and cover venue rentals, insurance, etc,etc.... SPS said a money mark or a sponsor, so some mark is eating the the losses? 

30k is probably too high. You get cheap flights, venue rental could be a percentage of the gate. Ticket prices are usually higher than in the US and if you move a lot of merch, you could be either in the black or close enough that the brand value of being "international" would be worth taking a small loss.

[clintthecrippler]

This wasnt exactly a set of shows where GCW just came over, ran the two shows using only their talent and then went back home. Considering that they were using a FREEDOMS ring and talent as part of the GCW shows, I would be shocked if there wasnt some help from those guys, at least in terms of securing venues and other non-travel logistics. 

Most of the GCW guys also stuck around and worked on the BJW show at Korakuen and are working a Jun Kasai Produce Show tonight so it's possible there was a little help from those folks with in-country transportation/lodging/talent pay as well.

And if you book far enough in advance, flights from U.S. to Tokyo can be reasonable depending on where you fly out of, a cursory Google search for Philadelphia to Tokyo flights in October are running around $600 each, so even with an estimate of 15 flights including staff, they are still coming in under $10k on total flight costs. 

While 1st Ring is a fairly small venue, both nights were filled to max capacity and it sounded like merch sales were strong. Japan is also still heavily into DVD's so if GCW brought a bunch to sell they probably unloaded a few of those as well.

And if Twitter activity is any indicator, it sounds like GCW does fairly well on FITE.TV sales, as they still sell their streaming on a per event basis.

And again, because its Japan, there may have been a sponsor to help defray costs.

Its definitely an undertaking but not exactly impossible. 

[JNLister]

1st Ring is very cheap to run. I saw a page on hire costs and I think at the 'standard' ticket prices most groups charge there, you can cover the venue hire with about 60-80 tickets.

[Edwin]

@clintthecrippler pretty much summarized the GCW shows. It's basically a FREEDOMS shows with some GCW talent.

When ROH first ran their shows in Japan years back, they had a partnership with Noah and Dragon Gate. The ring wasn't an ROH ring and it was more so a regular Noah ring they used with the ROH mat. Also, not everyone from ROH was on those shows and they had a lot of Noah and Dragon Gate talent to fill out the card. So it wasn't entirely a ROH show, but it was marketed as such.

When CZW and CHIKARA ran shows in Germany some years ago, the same as ROH applies. These were pretty much co-promoted shows with wXw in Germany, but were sold as CZW and CHIKARA shows. A lot of talent on those shows had been booked for wXw, so I'm guessing they may chip in for the flights, so it doesn't fall solely on CZW or CHIKARA.

I remember when New Japan ran shows back in 2011 in New Jersey. Those were co-promoted shows with JAPW and had a lot of guys JAPW would book regularly and they also had the JAPW setup, but they were promoted as New Japan shows solely even though they weren't.