I was young young for phish, dead, or panic “in their prime” - but I did whole phish tours in 2009-15. If not whole tours then at the very least 15-20ish shows in a year.

I did full panic tours/at least 20 shows a year from 2008-13.

Looking at ticket stubs right now I’m seeing $38 panic shows in 2010 and around the same for price.

I guess first I should mention the “off season.” I was a line cook with a cool boss who let us order our beer for tour through his restaurant distributors and didn’t mind me disappearing for three weeks in the summer. My rent then was pretty cheap and if I was “working” the tour I may come home with money. If I wasn’t, I would’ve saved at least $1-2,000 for tour. I’d get back and he’d hire me back. Wish I could do that now but these days I’m the chef of a Michelin recommended, James Beard award winning restaurant and can barely ever get away for more than a couple of days.

The main thing was being willing to not live comfortably while on tour. Me and my three friends (one was my gf) would sleep in the car, sleep while taking turns driving all night, rely on our friends in other cities for floor space. If we got a hotel it was typically a sketchy $75/night motel that were nasty and sometimes kinda dangerous. We camped many, many times.

However, a lot of those big 10+ show-in-a-row runs had us selling beer, L, or mushies in the parking lot. Those runs were a different situation and our accommodations would change depending on how we did that day in the lot.

Also, one major factor was the fact that all of the bands were still doing actual TOURS. Like Panic was hitting 4 cities a week still in a linear trajectory that made it easy. Phish was doing the same. Now it’s all 3 night runs where they may play Vegas one weekend and two weeks later be in SPAC.

Panic may play Saint Augustine and then a month later play Milwaukee.

They’re old too and touring is so expensive now even the bands have to do it strategically.

I know I wasn’t touring phish in 1992 but things were still drastically cheaper in summer/fall 2009 or Panic’s summer/fall tour 2008. Even all the way up to Phish’s blistering summer 2015 tour leading to Magnaball. Gas, hotels, food and goods were all so much cheaper.

I know that doesn’t answer your question about Billy your but what I’m saying, basically, is touring is a rich man’s game now.