(02-10-2010, 04:37 AM)VAMPkito Wrote: To reiterate something I've said times before, when HYDE says something is going to be big, he never fails to deliver. According to an interview from last year, this tour is going to be much, much bigger than the previous tour, so I don't expect too much of a letdown even if they DON'T return to the US.

BUUUUUUUT You have to take into mind the finances involved in this. Many people often think of musicians and other successful celebrities with sheltered lives and amazing incomes. While the latter can very well be true, where do you think all that money goes? This may or may not be true, but you could say that a good amount, let's say 40% just as an example, go towards the recording and producing of the next album as well as distributing it across Japan and the surrounding Asian countries, then an even larger amount, let's say 50%, goes into the tour, leaving the musicians themselves with only 10% of the profits to distribute amongst themselves, each of whom must then pay for their own private expenditures. So essentially, while that still leaves a lot more than the average person, it doesn't leave quite as much as people think.

What I'm getting at is that just like everyone else, VAMPS must adhere to a budget. An average Japan tour normally doesn't cost too much. For starters, they own their own transportation. No plane tickets, bus rides, or any of that to add to their cost (barring the price of fuel), they're well-known there so booking a venue doesn't cost much and in some occasions they get paid themselves for performing there, and ultimately, they know how the fans will react in different variables, so they can base their actions around that.

However, booking an overseas tour is much, much different. They have to pay abhorrent amounts of money for plane tickets and other forms of transportation, finding a venue willing to accept them despite their less-than-superior recognition, and not being familiar with the personality of the fans make the tour a lot more costly. This is only complicated by the differences in currency values. The yen is not equivalent to the Euro, the dollar, the British pound, the gold, etc.

In other words, it costs a lot more so we shouldn't be raising our expectations and/or demands just yet. They may look loaded with cash in our eyes, but when you think about all the expenditures that their huge profits go to, it really changes your mindset on their fortune. I'm pretty sure VAMPS won't let us down, but I'm also pretty sure that they'll be depending on fans to cross borders and oceans for them like they did last year and in 2006 for the FAITH tour.

Something tells me, though, that HYDE's been wanting to do this for awhile. One reason I say this is because some of his solo albums have German distributions (from what I'm aware of), and because the tour is booked a year in advance. So let's hope that maybe he made some kind of financial arrangement for this sort of thing.

Anyway, I think it's best we just, you know, wait a bit before we get our hopes in a knot and our expectations impossibly high.

As for L'Arc actually calling their 2008 tour a "world tour," I don't recall. =/ - I think some FANS were calling it a world tour, but from the beginning, I only remember them referring to Asia and France.

Glad you brought this up because I didn't want to be the one to mention it......lol.

We tend to think of Americanized musicians and all of the money that they rake in. My understanding is that this is not so in Japan. They do not command enormous sums. They are not rolling in money like Michael Jackson was. Do not misread my words....they are not starving but they are not filthy rich either.

Those traveling expenses are a big thing. I just read (in the past month) a recent interview with Tetsuya in which he said that they sometimes did not make enough money from performances to pay for their expenses and so it came out of their own pockets. (I also remember a past interview in which he had to cut back on Hyde's spending on the sets of the Theater of Kiss due to costs). So NOW I understand why they merchandise so much.....to help make up the difference.

Given this, it is probably costing VAMPS to travel. They need to plan carefully and get the most coverage for their yen.

I agree that the U.S. may not be considered as part of a "world" tour. But I'm still hoping for LA and possibly NY. If they go west from Japan to Europe, NY is on the way back home as is LA. Plus Hyde likes LA.

Just my 2.5 cents.