If the answer is that you don't know, because the tour is slated to go on for a year or more, base your estimate on those dates with confirmed bookings or that are on sale.
Your guest pass usage will relate to the size of your audience. A rough rule of thumb is that in small clubs, you will use passes for about 1% of the audience, in theatres for about 1-to-2%, and in arenas about 4-to-5%. Stadium shows will run about 1%. Before or after show usage will vary depending on the size of your touring party, the habits of the band, and how hot the current album is, but will usually run 2-to-3 times that of guest (VIP) passes.
If the tour has a sponsor, they will generally ask for a specific number of passes. Add 5% to that number, as they will always ask for more.
You will have to issue satin passes for local stagehands and helpers, and dressing room caterers. You will have to issue either laminates or satin passes to promoter staff, runners, and senior building staff. You will need a laminate and one or two replacements for each member of your touring crew and your touring vendors' staff, (lights, sound, staging, riggers, t-shirt vendors, drivers). You will also probably want to issue working laminates for certain VIP's who may not be on the road with you full time.
Does the artist like to play clubs after hours? Is there a special mosh pit built into the stage? Does your sponsor want a special seating section? Are you running radio contests? Is there a large and active fan club? All of these will yield specific and easily-definable numbers, but need to be considered.
You will almost certainly want a distinctive pass to identify photographers who have limited-time access to a specific area of the front of the house and no backstage access. You may also want to consider a special pass for print media or video teams from local TV. All of this will depend on the public interest in the tour. A major stadium tour will likely attract more media attention than a club tour by a baby act. You should probably consult with the artist's personal manager and/or publicist on this, as press relations are always tricky and very important.
If the numbers are available to you, they may be a great help to you in checking your calculations. If Otto did the last tour for this artist, we can build a history for you that may reveal ordering patterns that are not cost-effective. (Frequent small orders are less cost-effective than less-frequent large orders.)
Extend that over a reasonable number of dates, (the more the better), to arrive at a total. For any realistic-length tour in venues other than stadia, you should be able to count on a total pass bill of less than $100 per date, so long as your ordering patterns are cost-efficient. Special production values or inefficient ordering patterns will raise this, and tours of under about thirty dates may throw all calculations into doubt. Please consult with us. We will be more than glad to help you design the most cost-efficient system possible for your circumstances.
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