My History of the Grateful Dead at the Mecca: The Greek and Berkeley

Link here  113 page pdf book

Lenny Hart's Last Tour Dates, December 1969 to March 1970.

 Thank the lord for Sam Cutler. At this point, the Dead were making about 5% profit on their touring revenues.  So 1,500 miles to the city. Wow

Economic Comparison of 1976 and 1978 from my Upcoming Book

 When the Grateful Dead came out of "retirement" in 1976, they played 60 gigs that year good enough for 14th on the rankings of top grossing bands in America.  Manager Richard Loren worked with the band to create a great profitable touring schedule.

Two years later in 1978 the band rose to the 4th position behind the Rolling Stones, the Commodores and Bob Seger.  I'll tell you more when my book on the Economic History of the Grateful Dead is finished.

But I will leave with you this:

Page 63 of the draft of The Economic History of the Grateful Dead

 

Interesting Band Gig Income for the Grateful Dead in 1979

I'm over 400 pages in my draft of my book on The Economic History of the Grateful Dead and I've discovered a fascinating fact.

While the Dead ended up playing 52 shows at Madison Square Garden in New York for the first two they were vastly underpaid.  

With about 20,000 tickets sold always at the Garden, and about $9.28 in average ticket price, the band got less than 20% of ticket sales.   Most gigs for the band were about 45%-50% of ticket sales in this era.  

This got fixed in September and remained about half for the next 50 shows.

I'm curious why the first Garden shows were so low paid.