GBOR, NBOR and concert settlement: a glossary

The accounting sequence

• Tickets sold × applicable face prices → gross box-office receipts (GBOR); not the same as an all-in buyer checkout total.
• Subtract contract-defined taxes, rebates and other agreed deductions → net box-office receipts (NBOR); check the actual deal definition.
• Apply allowed show expenses and the agreed guarantee, backend or versus formula → a post-show settlement and payment.

Terms in the deal

• GBOR — gross box-office receipts, before deal-defined deductions. Gross versus net explained.
• NBOR — net box-office receipts after contract-defined deductions, not a universal industry-wide formula. Gross versus net explained.
• Adjusted gross — a contract-defined base after specified deductions; read the deal before comparing it with NBOR.
• Taxes and facility charge — line items with different recipients; neither is automatically ticketing-platform income. Facility-fee guide.
• Promoter expenses and house nut — approved show costs and the room's fixed cost base. House-nut guide.
• Guarantee — A fixed fee the promoter contractually owes the artist for the performance, payable regardless of how many tickets sell.
• Backend — The percentage of defined show receipts — usually net receipts after agreed expenses — that an artist earns beyond, or instead of, a fixed fee.
• Versus deal — A contract paying the artist the greater of the guarantee or an agreed percentage of receipts: the two are computed and the larger figure is paid.
• Door deal — A deal — most common in clubs — where the artist is paid a percentage of admission receipts (“the door”), sometimes after a house expense deduction, rather than a fixed fee.
• Gross potential — Full capacity multiplied by face value: the most a show could gross at list price before any fee, deduction or unsold seat.
• Settlement — The post-show accounting between promoter and artist where receipts, allowed expenses and the contract formula produce the final payment.
• Versus deal — pay the greater of a fixed guarantee or agreed percentage, not the sum of both. Versus-deal guide.

Go deeper

Follow the line-by-line settlement sheet and promoter economics guide for worked contract-specific examples. The artist-share guide explains why a receipt alone cannot reveal what the artist earns.

Receipts and the calculation base

GBOR means gross box-office receipts: the face-value receipts from tickets actually sold, before the deductions specified in the deal. It is not gross potential, which assumes all sellable tickets at listed prices, and it is not the fan's all-in checkout total. Gross potential and the gross-versus-net guide keep those three quantities apart. A report of sold-out attendance alone cannot show GBOR when tickets were sold at different face prices or some seats were complimentary.

NBOR means net box-office receipts after the deductions permitted by the contract. Which taxes, refunds, rebates or charges come off before this line depends on that agreement, not the abbreviation. 'Adjusted gross' likewise describes a gross figure adjusted by particular stated exclusions; without the document's adjustment list it is not a substitute for NBOR. Two reports can use the same term while applying different deduction lists. Compare the actual lines rather than treating a familiar acronym as a standard national formula.

The artist's floor and upside

A guarantee is the artist's contracted fixed performance fee, owed regardless of ticket sales under the agreed terms. It says nothing by itself about touring costs or the artist's take-home earnings. The guarantee reference separates the promised fee from net profit. Backend or overage describes additional participation when the contract's conditions are met. The threshold, eligible receipts and approved expenses determine whether any additional sum is payable; 'backend' alone is not a calculation. See the backend guide for why a guarantee-plus-percentage deal differs from a versus deal.

In a versus deal, the artist receives the greater of the guarantee and the agreed percentage of the defined base, rather than both amounts added together. The percentage and its base are negotiated, so the versus-deal reference does not supply a universal rate. A door deal, by contrast, pays a share of admission receipts under the deal's own deductions. These labels describe different ways to allocate risk; none establishes how much of every ticket the artist receives.

Costs, charges and the house nut

The house nut is shorthand for the fixed show-cost base a promoter needs to clear, not a line with one mandatory definition in every settlement. Rent, staffing or production may be included as agreed, while other real business costs might remain outside approved show expenses. The house-nut explanation and settlement guide show why a budgeted cost and an allowed settlement deduction are not always the same thing.

A facility charge is attributed to the venue or building; a tax is a statutory amount. Neither should be counted automatically as ticketing-platform revenue or artist income. Whether either appears in the contractual gross, is removed before NBOR, or is collected outside the settlement pool needs to be checked against the actual agreement. The facility-charge reference distinguishes the checkout labels; the buyer's receipt cannot establish the private allocation of each charge.

The settlement sheet

A settlement sheet is the post-show reconciliation of tickets, permitted deductions, approved expenses and the contract's artist-payment terms. It records what the parties agreed actually happened, rather than a prediction from the original offer. The line-by-line example is explicitly hypothetical and illustrates the order in which those quantities can be checked; its numbers are not typical rates. Ask which receipt base was used, which lines were deducted, and which deal applied before interpreting a reported walkout. Without the underlying sheet or contract, a published gross cannot be turned into an artist payout or promoter profit.