Do any of you have any idea how hard it is to set that stuff up every night, perform, and then tear it down, then get in a car and drive to the next venue? Or fly to the next venue? You need crew. They need beds.

I agree with everything you said except this. That is generally not how it works. The artist tells the venue how their shit needs to be set up and the venue handles it. I work/voulenteer for multiple companies working in music touring, and I even do this sort of setup/teardown occasionally, contracting for a couple production companies in my area. A good friend of mine plans out tour routes for bands going across the US, and he never has to plan for the bands to have roadies. I know some guys who rent large passenger vans for bands to tour around, and none of those bands ever have roadies tagging along. A bunch of my friends who are in a band just left today for a tour up and down the East coast, and they're not bringing a bunch of roadies along lol.

The company I contract with for setup and teardown is pretty straightforward. We compete with a bunch of other companies doing the same thing. When we get work the venue tells us what's on the artists rider for stage set up and we come make it happen. Lots of companies do it with rented equipment to make up for stuff the artist needs that they dont own, it's pretty straightforward. We did a pretty large Snoop Dogg show recently, for instance, just so you know Im not just talking about smaller regional groups.

It is brutal labor though, you're right about that. But the reasons you listed are exactly why it's more economical to plan out the tour with contracted stage guys rather than touring roadies... hotel rooms, food, etc, etc, its too much. Why would anyone pay for that? The entirety of a band's stuff can be schlepped into one decent sized van or small bus...