Zeke Ruelas
When the pandemic shut down live music, many touring bus operators parked vehicles indefinitely, deferred maintenance or sold units into the RV market. But Dreamliner took a different tack. Even in 2020, while tours were grounded, the company took a chance by committing to new builds.
“We basically started receiving and building new [bus] shells from the early days” of the pandemic, recalls Dreamliner CEO Richard Thomson, who started the company in 2019. He notes that the touring bus “industry already had a supply-demand imbalance” and that the pandemic made it “exponentially worse,” as buses came off the road and bus operators began selling off their fleets to help pay the bills.
“Fortunately, we were building while no one else was,” he says
The bet paid off. When touring roared back in 2022 and 2023, Dreamliner emerged with a modern, expanding fleet. In late 2023, the company acquired Hemphill Brothers, the Nashville stalwart long synonymous with A-list coaches, adding roughly 130 vehicles to its 60-unit operation. Overnight, Dreamliner became the market leader. Through aggressive acquisitions and steady fleet investments, it is now the largest touring bus operator in the United States, going from a small California player to a market giant with a fleet of 215 tour buses in less than a decade.
In the live music economy, tour buses have become indispensable forms of transportation for thousands of touring artists who travel hundreds of miles between venues each night. These buses — rolling hotels and headliner suites — are the lifeblood of touring, carrying artists, bands, and crews from one city to the next long after the encore has ended.
Now Dreamliner is looking to expand into the consumer market, hoping to launch a weekend business for its buses aimed at college sports fans, bachelor parties and high-end family trips. Thomson sees an untapped consumer market for short-term rentals — think weekend football games, corporate retreats, national park trips, even bachelorette parties.
“With 200 buses, there are always going to be gaps” when vehicles are just sitting in the lot, Thomson explains. Tapping into the consumer market can help them maximize each vehicle’s potential. “If someone wants to go to an SEC game with their buddies, tailgate on the way there, and be back in their own bed the next day, that’s possible. You get access to a multimillion-dollar vehicle with a professional driver. It’s like being in the Four Seasons on wheels.”
The model isn’t cheap, costing $5,000 to $10,000 for a weekend, depending on mileage and driver hours. But split among 10 friends, it’s comparable to a luxury getaway. Booking currently happens via Dreamliner’s website, with staff coordinating drivers, logistics and parking. As awareness grows, Thomson believes consumer rentals could help offset seasonality during slower touring months like November through February.
Dreamliner’s trajectory underscores how much the bus industry has changed in just a few years. Once dominated by founder-owned regional companies — Hemphill Brothers, Diamond Coach, Night Train — the sector now has a clear consolidator in Thomson, a former financier who entered the market in 2019 and quickly bet big.
That professionalization has ripple effects. With a fleet of more than 200 coaches, Dreamliner operates at a scale that requires 24-hour on-call support, hundreds of employees and constant reinvestment. “We’re not just some bus company anymore,” Thomson says. “We’re building real infrastructure to support live entertainment at every level”.
In a business that thrives on movement, Dreamliner is betting on more than just keeping up —it’s betting on setting the pace, whether for country stars, sports broadcasters or fans looking to turn a road trip into an experience.
The bus business has long been defined by imbalance. Demand for entertainer coaches consistently outpaces supply, and fleets take years to build. One company, Quebec-based manufacturer Prevost, is the main creator of high-end tour buses which it then sells to Dreamliner [and other companies?] as empty shells that take several hundred thousand dollars to complete. The company offers two bus types: headliner buses which include a bedroom suite and private bathroom for A-list artists like Kenny Chesney, Miranda Lambert and Chris Stapleton, all who lease buses from Dreamliner; and band and crew buses, which include 6 to 12 bunks and usually include a rear lounge in place of a master suite.
In 2024, Dreamliner moved into trucking, acquiring ShowMotion, which specializes in flatbed trailers for stadium stages, and ShowPro, which handles 53-foot big rigs for audio, video and lighting gear. That diversification gave the company a one-stop footprint in tour logistics. “On the trucking side you’re dealing with production managers, on the bus side you’re dealing with tour managers,” says Thomson. “By connecting those dots, we can be the easy button for transportation – one tour might need 22 trucks, three flatbeds and 12 buses. We can put it together for them and save them a substantial amount of money.”
Inside the Business of Coaches
Zeke Ruelas
At its core, the bus industry is about reliability and customization. Artists and crews climb aboard after midnight loadouts, sleep while drivers log hundreds of miles and wake up in a new city ready to perform. For that to work, buses must be both durable and comfortable.
Once Prevost delivers a bus to Dreamliner, it then spends eight to twelve weeks in the company’s Nashville facility getting road ready.
“We’re considered a second-stage manufacturer,” explains Mark Larson, Dreamliner’s vp. “The first step is built in Canada, and then it comes to us. We wire it, insulate it, build in the bunks, lounges, kitchens and suites. When we’re done, it’s titled and licensed here.”
The economics are steep. A new “star bus” — the high-end unit reserved for headliners — runs well over $1.5 million to build, with monthly leases around $30,000, before factoring in fuel and driver costs, which can push the lease price up to $40,000 a month. While Dreamliner does have an after-market business selling its older coaches, most tour buses are leased on a monthly or yearly basis, depending on an artist’s touring plans.
Demand is strongest in summer and fall, when overlapping tours leave fleets completely sold out. “The second half of September, we’re booked solid,” Larson says. “And that’s after adding new buses. The demand is always there.”
While demand remains strong, the economics of building and operating coaches has grown more complex. “Costs are up across the board — labor, materials, insurance,” says Thomson. “We’ve seen nearly a 30% increase since 2021.”
Insurance is a particularly heavy burden, doubling or even tripling in recent years. “If insurance goes from $15,000 to $40,000 per coach per year, that’s a massive additional cost,” Thomson notes. Labor inflation has also reshaped shop floors, with companies forced to raise pay for veteran technicians and new hires.
These rising expenses mirror broader industry challenges. As tours have become more elaborate with larger productions, longer routing and year-round scheduling, the need for dependable rolling tour buses has only grown. Touring economics may fluctuate — 2023 was a record year, while 2025 has seen softer ticket sales and an international-heavy routing — but the underlying demand for buses rarely dips for long.
Artist preferences vary by genre and lifestyle. For many, the rear master suite — with a queen or king bed and private bath — is non-negotiable. Country stars who essentially live on the road often prefer non-slide buses, maximizing interior width for easier movement while rolling. Pop acts or those using buses as backstage lounges gravitate toward multiple slide-outs, which expand living areas when parked.
Technology has become the top differentiator. “Starlink is the big request right now,” says Larson. Dreamliner now equips buses with both satellite-based Starlink and multi-carrier cellular systems to ensure streaming connectivity across the U.S. and Canada. Multi-screen entertainment systems, gaming consoles and Bluetooth sound are increasingly standard.
The company’s ability to customize goes beyond artists. ESPN recently commissioned a Dreamliner coach for its series College GameDay, converting a near-complete studio bus into a rolling broadcast prep room outfitted with seven TVs, recliners and workstations. “It’s plug-and-play,” Thomson says. “Instead of building a temporary media center at every stadium, the bus just rolls up ready to go.”
