Show dictionary · Production Management
Buyout
A buyout is money paid instead of a service that would otherwise be provided. A meal buyout replaces catering with cash; a production buyout pays the artist to bring their own PA, lighting, or crew instead of using what the venue or promoter would have supplied.
In practice
Meal buyouts are the everyday version: when the venue cannot cater or the crew prefers cash, the rider’s catering requirement converts to a per-person amount. The rider usually sets the number, and whether dinner buyout stacks with per diem is a negotiation with strong opinions on both sides.
Production buyouts operate at contract scale: a promoter obligated to provide sound and lights pays the touring production a negotiated figure to carry its own instead. It shifts risk and quality control to the tour and shows up as a line in the settlement.
How you’ll hear it
"No catering tonight; dinner is a buyout, twenty-five a head at the production office."
Related resources
Part of the eventools.io Show Dictionary, a free glossary of live event production terminology.