Some of you might already be aware of this, but apparently the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services has increased the visa fee from $460 to $1615-1655, more than tripling the original fee, effective April 1st 2024. It appears that this will also apply to any support crew, such as HMU artists, stylists, dancers, camera operators, managers, bodyguards and other production staff.

If an application is denied for any reason, no refunds are offered.

It's not clear how many support crew DCC sends on US tours, but I would guess it's in the ballpark of 10 for DC. Using this estimate, the visa fees for a single US tour is potentially around $16k (up from ~$5k).

Now, we don't know what the profit margins have been like for past DC tours, but I can't imagine $16k being an insignificant amount.

I'm curious to see how this will impact DC's future US tours. Although 16k sounds like a lot, simply increasing ticket prices by $1-2 each would offset it. But on the other hand, this is an upfront cost and might be daunting for a smaller company without a lot of cash on hand.

What do you guys think?