Each of the two busses ran 11,850 miles in the five weeks of the Winter Rose tour. We bought $7,500 worth of diesel per bus. The average price of diesel is around $2.50. That means we used 3,000 gallons of fuel per bus for a distance of 11,850 = 3.95 mpg. Not much worse than a Hummer!! I need to buy two of these TerraPasses to clean up the almost 120,000 pounds of CO2 that were emitted! And this does not include our Summer tours!

A Hummer and other large SUVs get about 7-10mpg and transport 1-4 people. We use a 45 foot bus that carries a lot of luggage and gear and that 7-12 people LIVE on. My fuel estimate also includes the running of the generator to create electricity for AC, fridge, toaster, or coffeemachine while the bus is parked. That said I think 4mpg is actually quite good. Busses are more efficient than SUVs.

The cost of fuel touring groups are facing shows how tightly budgeted a tour has to be. Fuel cost was $15,000 and that does not include bus rentals, which are probably in the area of $4,000-5,000 per bus per week – over the course of five weeks that adds $40,000-50,000. So that’s $55,000-65,000 for starters, before you figure in the salaries etc…

Shows have to be sold out or close to it, merch has to sell well, and it’s not good when a show gets cancelled – as happened with the sold-out Carefree theater in West Palm Beach.

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