Brazil’s meia-entrada law lets a promoter calculate a floor for a show’s ticket gross before the first ticket is sold. A guarantee or percentage deal that is written against a full-price sell-out is therefore written against a figure the room cannot produce.
The floor is 80% of face value
Brazil’s law limits half-price tickets for students, low-income youth and disabled fans to 40% of a concert, and over-60s get 50% off outside that cap. Take 1,000 sellable seats at one face price. At most 400 can be sold at half price, which is worth 200 full-price seats of lost revenue. That is 20% of the full-price gross.
The 600 remaining seats sell at face value, so the gross before over-60s cannot fall below 80% of a full-price sell-out. The quota is a ceiling on the discounted share, so the real figure can sit anywhere between 80% and 100%. The 80% mark is the planning number, and 100% is the best case.
Over-60s move the floor further
The over-60 discount sits outside the 40% cap, so it stacks on top of the quota. Each over-60 buyer in the full-price pool removes half a seat of revenue. Using the same 1,000 seats with the quota fully used:
- No over-60 buyers: gross is 80% of full-price potential.
- 60 over-60 buyers: the extra 30 seats of discount take gross to 77%.
- 120 over-60 buyers: the extra 60 seats of discount take gross to 74%.
The share of over-60 buyers depends on the audience, and no formula in the law supplies it. This is the one input to take from past sales data for similar shows or from the promoter’s own audience records. It decides whether a deal clears at 77% or at 74%, so ask for it before agreeing a guarantee.
Write the definition of gross into the deal
The risk sits in the contract wording. Three structures handle the quota differently:
- Flat guarantee. The promoter carries the quota risk, but it will price it. Expect the offer to be built on the 74% to 80% range rather than on 100% of capacity, and check the break-even against that range.
- Percentage of gross. The percentage applies to actual ticket revenue. If the contract defines gross as face value times capacity, the artist side and the promoter side will reach settlement with different numbers. Define gross as revenue actually collected, or state the quota adjustment in the clause.
- Guarantee against a percentage. The break-even point where the percentage overtakes the guarantee moves up when the discounted share rises. Recalculate it at 80% of potential, not at a sell-out.
The remedy is a settlement sheet that shows ticket counts by category: full price, quota half-price and over-60. Without the split, an artist cannot tell whether a shortfall came from the law or from weak sales.
Why the settlement statement now matters more
Small print is setting the economics of live and recorded income alike. As one recent review of withdrawal fees, registration deadlines, ticket quotas and court records put it, the terms now decide what music is worth to the people who make it. A quota is one such term. Its effect on revenue is fixed by statute, but its effect on an artist’s pay is fixed by how the contract defines gross.
The companies that run settlement are staffing for that work. Live Nation and BMG are hiring for operations and royalty services roles, with further openings across touring and direct-to-consumer commerce. Operations and royalty-services teams are the ones that produce statements. An independent artist or label should ask what a statement from those teams will itemise before signing, and should not wait for a dispute to find out.
A settlement checklist for any quota market
Before agreeing terms for a date in Brazil, or in any market with a mandated discount, apply these steps:
- Compute the floor: capacity, less the quota share at half price, as a percentage of full-price potential. In Brazil that is 80% before over-60s.
- Estimate the over-60 share, then subtract half a seat for each over-60 buyer in the full-price pool.
- Test the guarantee against that range, not against a sell-out.
- Define gross in the contract as collected ticket revenue, or name the quota adjustment explicitly.
- Require ticket counts by category on the settlement sheet.
- Recalculate any break-even point between a guarantee and a percentage at the floor figure.
None of this changes what the law gives fans. It makes the range of outcomes visible at the point where the offer is made, which is the only time it can still be priced.
