A great thing for us is that we've heard that from artists who have been on the tour before. "The tour was great. The shows were great. It was awesome playing in these big rooms every night. But man we had a blast, being able to hang out and be with each other," which is not something we really get the rest of the year.

Anyone you are super excited to have on this year?

I better say everybody or somebody's going to be mad. We've got the Rhett Walker Band and Luminate and Tim Timmons and some of these guys that a lot of people have just never heard before, but they're great artists. They've got things worth hearing. That's exciting for me.

It must feel nice to be a venue for those bands, which might not otherwise be able to get 15,000 people out to the Save Mart Center, let's say.

Yes. To go along with that, with the $10 ticket, we wanted to have a tour, a concert every night, that was honestly worth a $50 ticket at least, for all the artists that you are seeing and the production that we bring out. We wanted it to be a good show. We didn't want to sacrifice something just because it was a $10 ticket. We want people to be able to get what they get at a big show.

For a lot of these artists, they don't always get the opportunity to play with a big production like this. So it makes it exciting for everybody.

There is a Roadshow documentary in the works. Tell us about the film.

When you look at this simply by the numbers and from a business standpoint, it doesn't make any sense at all because it doesn't work. There has to be a bigger reason for doing this. We're trying to convey that.

It's not just a concert movie. We're conducting interviews with everyone on the road. Not just the band, but the crew, too. Some of these crew guys on this tour have been on the Roadshow all five years, so they feel invested in it and they understand why we're doing this tour. You get their take on why they get three hours of sleep every night but still love doing this tour. It's a pretty honest take on what it takes to make this happen.

When you say the tour doesn't work, are you paying out of pocket to get these bands, or are you just not making any money?

Yes to both. All the other bands certainly make an honorarium every night. This being our thing, honestly, we're pretty much doing this for free. Which gets difficult because we have to commit to do the Roadshow. We can't do anything else for this time. So we have to get creative about how to make it work. Between us, our management and the promoters who we partner with on this tour, how do we make this work from city to city?

There are some cities we can't go back to because there's no way to make it work. We hate that because we'd love to go back to those cities, but there's only so many nights you can go losing tens of thousands of dollars and still be able to come back. We wish we could do it for free, just not have to charge a ticket at all.

Is that what you dream about, the day you can do it for free?

We would love to get to the point where the road show was free and you could just come until the building was full and the fire marshal shut us down.

But we want people who are coming to feel like this is something they want to invest in as well. There is something to be said for keeping a value on things.

The tour is obviously about the music and the bands, but is there a larger message you are trying to convey?

We've always been a band that's never hidden the fact that our faith is what informs what we do. We're certainly going to be honest about that every night on stage. That's the great thing about every band on this tour. We all feel the same way about that. We're going to have a show that entertains people, but we're going to be honest about why it is that we do what we do.

And it seems like there is an audience eager for that honesty.

I would hope so. People respond to honesty and if you are genuinely passionate about what you do, that comes across. People appreciate that.

Does the success of the tour speak to the popularity of Christian rock?

For a while, there was a stigma that the artistry of Christian music wasn't as good as everything else out there. Critics have finally realized that's not really true anymore, if it was ever really true.

The quality of the music that people in the Christian music industry are making is as good as anything else out there.

People are excited because they know that. And they're excited because there is a unique experience like the Roadshow that is coming around and making it easy for the fans to win.

SHOW INFO

"Rock & Worship Roadshow" featuring Mercy Me, Jeremy Camp, Tedashii, Kutless, Family Force 5, Luminate, Adam Cappa, Rhett Walker Band and Tim Timmons.

6 p.m. March 10, Save Mart Center, tickets are $10 each, available at the door only.

Details: therockandworshiproadshow.com