I think the article is referring to bands who would play at clubs or smaller academy venues to around 200-300 people. If they have to fork out £1000 each to get a visa and then perform perhaps 3-4 gigs in the country then it's suddenly not looking worth their while. If that ends up being the case we'll start seeing a lot less interesting stuff coming to the country. As an example, Ulver are playing 3 gigs in May, as part of their European tour. They rarely tour or play gigs and they definitely don't usualy play in the UK...
If you're playing in Arena's, even just 1 night at Wembley as part of a tour, you have a whole team of people working for you and they'll sort that visa out for you, it wouldn't even be a question.
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