“You’re doing all the work, selling your own merch, but they’ll still come at the end of the night and take 25 percent. For what?!” UK metal band on the cusp of breaking up detail the ludicrous costs of touring in the 2020s

Serena Cherry, singer/guitarist of UK post-hardcore four-piece Svalbard, has detailed some of the ludicrous expenses that go into being a touring band in the 2020s.

In a new interview with the Heavy Stories podcast, Cherry, whose band announced last year that they’d split up in 2026 after one last tour, breaks down the reasons why Svalbard are calling it quits, with the rising costs of touring being one of the biggest.

Over the 75-minute conversation, she reveals that she has to balance touring with her full-time job at a gaming magazine to make ends meet, often working eight-hour-or-longer days while on the road playing shows.

“We did a tour fairly recently, in 2024, that I found really difficult,” she recalls. “I remember bumping into Liam [Phelan, co-singer/guitarist] while we were on this really long ferry journey between Helsinki and Stockholm and just bursting into tears. I was just so stressed trying to tour and work at the same time.”

She adds, “My job is very hectic and busy. Sometimes it goes outside of the regular, 9-to-5:30 hours. Even on the UK tour, we had a showcase happen that I was running, so I was working right up until stage time.”

Elaborating on the expenses that bands now face on the road, she explains that following the UK’s exit from the European Union they now need to pay for a carnet, a document that permits the importing of goods from the UK to Europe.

“We have to pay different fees just to bring merch across – not to sell it in other countries, but just to bring it!” she explains. “[The cost is calculated] on a percentage, so it depends on how much you’re bringing. It means you have to increase the cost of each t-shirt when you’re over there, but sometimes that feels really wrong, when you’re playing somewhere where things are normally cheaper, like Poland. It’s not ideal.”

Furthermore, if Svalbard were to ever tour America, they’d be charged many thousands of pounds for visas, and their applications may be denied even if they pay everything they owe. This is why the band have never performed in the United States.

“The visa costs are insane!” she says. “Sometimes America will just turn it down based on, ‘Oh, we don’t think it’s big enough or warrants coming over here.’ That is a reason, as well. We just can’t afford to do it! And it’s not for lack of offers. It’s thousands and thousands of pounds, per person. And that’s not including the cost of touring when you’re over there.”

Then, once a band hits the road, they have to fork out for petrol and bus or van hire. When Svalbard toured Europe as a support band for blackgaze pioneers Alcest, they spent £23,000 on a tour bus. She also says that the majority of venues take merch cuts, pocketing a percentage of the profits that bands make from selling t-shirts and records inside the building.

“Even when you’re the one selling, or you’ve got your merch person there to sell for you, [they’ll charge you,]” Cherry says. “You’re still doing all the work, selling your own merch, but they’ll still come at the end of the night and take 25 percent. For what?! They didn’t print it, they didn’t play the set! Absolutely outrageous.”

Svalbard are far from the only heavy metal band to either break up or announce their intention to stop touring in recent months. In 2024, rising UK hardcore five-piece Ithaca announced that they’d break up the following year after playing just two more shows. Guitarist Sam Chetan-Welsh later told Hammer that the emotional and financial impact of touring played a major part in their decision to stop.

“If we could be a lot more choiceful about touring and recording and still keep things going, then maybe we could have kept it going,” he said. “But it’s not sustainable. Touring is such an unbelievable investment. Recording is an unbelievable investment. And ironically, now that we’re breaking up, this is the first time where our finances as a band are healthy.”

In addition, last year, progressive metal solo artist Devin Townsend said that he’d be taking a break from touring for the foreseeable future. The musician has previously said that he does not make money from touring, as he pours whatever profits he makes back into his onstage production. UK metalcore band While She Sleeps said last month that they were stepping away from the stage, as well, burnt out on the cynical grind of the touring lifestyle.

Acknowledging the break-ups and hiatuses of these other bands, Cherry says in the Heavy Stories interview that “it’s becoming the case where, if you want to tour … and be in a band, you have to be from a privileged background now”.

She continues, “For me personally, I’ve never had a parent’s place that I could go and live in rent-free. I have to make a living every month to put a roof over my head. If I’m not making money touring – because of 25-percent merch cuts, visa fees, carnet fees, bus fees, petrol, all these massive outgoing costs – I can’t afford to do it. It’s going to become the case where every single voice you hear in metal will be from a place of privilege.”

Svalbard played their final UK tour in November last year and released their final song, If We Could Still Be Saved. The band are playing in Japan, Canada and Europe in the spring and summer, before drawing their career to a close with a set at Arctangent festival in August, a stone’s throw away from their hometown of Bristol.