Here’s another example of how much money the Oasis tour is going to make. (Hint: It involves beer.)

When staging a tour, promoters and management have plenty to think about when it comes to income streams. There’s the cost of the tickets, of course. Merch can also be a giant money-maker. So can ancillary things like livestreams, documentaries, live albums, and so on. But this is one thing that’s often overlooked: beer.

Food and Beveridge revenues are a massive part of any tour. Most of that income will go to the venues (it’s a big part of how they make money since many do not charge the act rental. And if you’re in a band that has hard-drinking fans, you might even be able to negotiate a cut of F&B for yourself.

Take Jimmy Buffett, for example. When he was alive, he could command 105% of ticket sales. How is that possible? Because Parrotheads drank so much at his shows, he was able to ask for a little more per gig–and got it.

This brings me to the Oasis reunion tour. Fans–especially the British ones–drink a lot. The first three nights of their stand at Wembley broke all kinds of records when it came to selling pints. Each night saw 250,000 pints purchased. That’s about 4,500 kegs. And they needed so much beer that Wembley people had a hard time storage space for all those kegs.

Wembley’s official capacity is 90,000. That means each person at the shows drank over two-and-a-half pints each. And given (a) not everyone at the show was of age, and (b) not everyone drinks beer, that means that the average per-person tipple among drinkers was much greater that 2.5/each.

To put things into perspective, Coldplay sold 120,000 pints her night at Wembley. Swifties? Just 40,000.

(Via The Times)