Creating a Band - Part XI, the First Tour

When it comes to the myths of rock stardom, nothing is quite as legendary as the act of touring. Many of the biggest stories in popular music, be them fact or fiction, stem from the adventures of the open road. But as we'll learn in part eleven of the "Creating a Band" series, touring isn't about throwing televisions out of windows and driving cars into swimming pools.

As you're probably already aware, a tour is an event where one or more bands travel to different cities, performing shows in each location. The tour has several different functions: it spreads the band's fan base to new areas, it improves album sales, and in the case of a well-planned, successful tour, it puts substantial net profit in the bank. Quite a few bands experience pitfalls on tour because they lose sight of these three objectives, finding themselves succumbing to the allure of "life on the road."

Before we get into the actually planning of the tour, let's take a moment to understand the five most critical elements of a successful tour. You can sum up each of these elements in single words, so let's do that, shall we? The five critical elements of a successful tour are security, sustenance, comfort, profitability, and exposure, in that exact order. Security comes in the form of making sure that the band members are safe and that the equipment is safe, and that the threat of theft or harm is minimized at all costs. Also, preparations for emergency situations, like someone being injured or vehicles running out of fuel, should be considered heavily. Sustenance is the element of making sure everyone in the band is well-fed and hydrated during the full course of the tour, which plays a role in security and comfort. Comfort comes from making sure that the musicians are well-rested, fueled, and energized, because musicians that are tired, hungry, or sore aren't going to put on a show of "a-game" quality. Sleeping in a van for the love of music might seem like an achievement for a starving artist, but for a serious, professional musician who hopes to make a living from their passion, this simply isn't an option. Sleeping in a bed minimizes the risk of experiencing cramps and sores which can limit a musician's ability to play. Profitability is the band's ability to turn a net profit from the tour, and return home with money in the bank. Last, we have Exposure, which is the band's exposure to potential new fans and the ability to sell albums. Every phase of planning and carrying out the tour needs to keep these five critical elements as key factors of each of the tour's numerous facets.

The first step in planning a tour comes in the form of scale-planning. How large should the tour be? How many cities should be reached, how many shows should be performed, and in what period of time will these goals be accomplished? Your first tour should be planned to minimize risk, and as such, you should plot out a short regional tour. It should last no less than five days, and no more than fourteen days (two full weeks). This way, you're on the road long enough to earn experience, but not so long that the band burns itself out or exposes itself to unnecessary financial risk. The length of the tour (in days) should be calculated based on the number of desirable cities that can be reached within a reasonable period of time, but we'll get to that shortly.

In choosing the cities where the tour will make stops, it's vital that several factors be taken into consideration. what sort of music scene does the city have/ how will your music be interpreted by people in that area? How much distance can the band safely cover, keeping musician fatigue, fuel costs, and the ability to arrive in a timely fashion in mind? Are there cheap, clean hotels/ motels in the area where the band can sleep, or does anyone have a friend or relative in the area whose willing to let the band spend the night in their home? How many shows would the band ideally book in a given city, based on the size of the potential fan base and the popularity of local venues?

Range should be heavily analyzed during this phase. If you can help it, the band should avoid traveling for longer than four hours to reach a show, and as a general rule of thumb (for this first tour, anyway) no show should be booked on the same day where eight or more hours of travel have taken place. Finishing a show and driving to the next show immediately afterwards should only happen when the opportunity for profit and exposure are great; never for one or the other, and only for both when no other option exists. Remember, you don't want to push the band harder than the quality of performances will allow!

After you've chosen the tour's stops, try to plot out at least two alternative stops to each destination. These alternative locations should be other cities along the same route (cities that can easily lead to the next primary city on the tour). We'll use these alternatives during the booking phase in case scheduling conflicts occur.

The next step is to figure out when this tour will occur on the calendar. During this phase, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday should be treated as the golden days; if you can help it, try to make sure that the cities where you have the most fans, the most potential fans, or the largest general populations are reached on these days. If you live in an area that experiences snowy winters, avoid touring between November 20th and March 20th to minimize the threat of being caught in a snow storm, not just because of the obvious safety hazards, but because snowy roads can slow vehicles and make the band late for gigs. Also, try to keep in mind what sorts of cities you're targeting, and what time of year it is. College students are a great target audience for most popular brands of modern music, and if your tour is planning on hitting college towns or cities with large college student communities, try to aim for doing so during the school year; Between March and June, or between August and November. If playing for college students isn't your thing, aim for a summer tour (between May and September), because that's the time frame when people are most likely to be heading out for entertainment, and high school kids not being in school during that window might also improve your chances of bringing in a fan base.

Now let's figure out vehicles. You're going to need at least one vehicle (possibly two) that can safely and efficiently transport the full band and all of its equipment from one city to the next. For most of you, this will mean you'll need to rent a vehicle. If this is going to be necessary, research rental vehicles and find the one (or two) that can comfortably seat everyone and carry all of the band's equipment. Also, keep fuel economy in mind! A vehicle with a good MPG (miles-per-gallon) rating is ideal for touring, because it means you won't need to buy as much fuel.

We're almost ready to book the shows, but before we can do that, we need to come up with expenditure estimates for each city and alternative city on the tour roster. These estimates will help us calculate how much money needs to be earned from shows in those areas (and the tour in general) to keep the tour paid for (and hopefully turning profit) from start to finish. If the band can manage to break even, that's a good thing, but that can't happen if you book shows that underpay the band! List out all of the band's expenses (potential and mandatory alike). These will probably include vehicle rental, fuel costs, lodging (hotel/ motel costs), food, and emergency money ($50 per city is the bare minimum you should even consider, but more emergency money would be better). Fuel costs will probably be the hardest to calculate, but you should be able to work this out with a simple algorithm... distance (in miles) divided by fuel economy (MPG/ miles per gallon) will tell you how many gallons of fuel will be needed, and then this can be multiplied by the average cost of a gallon fuel at that time (in dollars). As a general rule of thumb, you should always estimate that your vehicle will get half of its fuel economy. This can help soften the financial impact of getting lost, sitting in traffic jams, a driver with a lead foot, etc.

Okay, let's create a hypothetical tour stop, and work out a general estimate of how much this stop will cost us. City A (where we're leaving from) and City B (where we're going) are 150 miles apart. We're using a rental van, which has a fuel economy of 20 MPG. So we halve the fuel economy to get 10 MPG (just to be safe in planning). We divide the distance by the fuel economy, and we end up with 15 gallons of fuel needed. Let's say gas is $2.50 per gallon, so we're going to spend $37.50 in gasoline ($2.50 per gallon times 15 gallons). The rental van itself costs $20 per day, plus $0.75 per mile, which means we're spending $132.50 in rental costs. Next up, we have hotel costs. We find a deal for $75 per room, and we need two rooms, so that's another $150. Then there's food. Considering that each person gets $30 for food per day ($10 per meal), and that we have, let's say, five people (four band members and a manager or tour manager), we're looking at spending $150 on food. Last but not least, we tack on $50 for emergencies. All-told, the band needs to earn $520 per show just to break even on the tour. Some of these costs can be minimized, of course; bringing coolers full of food and picnicking for meals and finding cheaper hotels/ motels (or staying with someone for free) would reduce the amount of money the band needs to earn per show to break even. But calculating for the most expense possible, and then minimizing those expenses later, will help equate to more profit for the band overall.

Finally, we've reached the stage of actually booking the tour! Let's start by listing out each and every potential venue in each primary and alternative city, complete with contact information (so you don't have to look up each venue later). Also, research what's already scheduled in those venues on those evenings, to save you some legwork down the road. If there are music festivals or other outdoor events taking place, get contact information for their booking agents as well. You might also try contacting the most popular local bands in the area to find out if perhaps you could share a bill with them. With all of this information in front of you, go down the list and contact each potential venue. Let them know that you're a band that's planning a tour, invite them to receive a complimentary press kit, let them know what day(s) you'll be in their city, and try to get on whatever bill they have running for that night (or day, in the case of some venues and most festivals/ outdoor events. Also, make sure you mention the size of your fan-base (which should already be noteworthy by the time you've reached this phase). If you already have fans in that area, mention that as well. After contacting all of these venues, sending out press kits, and communicating with the interested venues, you should have an idea of how much they're willing to pay. Some venues might offer more money than your estimated needs, while others might not come close. Try to book the shows that can make the most money and have the most exposure potential. If you're lucky enough to encounter two different venues who are both offering more money than your estimated costs will require, choose the venue with the best exposure, and if exposure is negligible between both venues, take the one that will pay the most, right down the cent. You might book a show one night that earns more money than you need, and you might end up struggling the next night to book a show that gets you out of the red, but keep in mind that the tour as a whole is an attempt to generate net revenue, so if you can break even when you get home, that might be worth settling for. And if the band is looking at generating a tremendous amount of revenue, you might want to simply take one or two tour dates off, allowing the band to rest and take in some of the local sites.

After each show has been booked, send out contractual agreements to venue owners. This was important during your local gigging exploits, but it's absolutely mandatory on a tour. You don't want to arrive at a scheduled gig, only to find out that the venue has changed the agreement or isn't willing to pay as much as you had previously agreed on! Make photocopies of each signed contract, too, and make sure you bring copies on tour with you, just in case.

With the tour fully booked, it's time to start your marketing campaign! If you have fans in the area, ask them to print out fliers and hang them up, or mail them pre-printed fliers if you trust them. Contact local radio stations, newspapers, and free local papers/ magazines and announce the tour and its stops in the area. If you're going for the college crowd, make sure you contact the college radio and TV stations and the campus newspaper(s), and if you can get fliers hung up on those campuses advertising the show, do that as well. Go on social networking websites like Facebook and Myspace and hunt down potential fans in those areas, informing them of the show in their city and inviting them to check out your website. Also, instruct all of your fans (through your website and social networking pages) to tell their friends and family about your upcoming tour, because they might know people in those areas who'd be willing to come see the band. If you live within a relatively reasonable proximity to the tour destinations, and if you're able to do it, drive to each of the cities you can reach and put up fliers yourself.

You should spend as much time as you can between the booking of the tour and actually heading out on the tour trying to promote each show as heavily as you possibly can. Never assume that your fan base is strong enough to invalidate your need to do this, and never put all of your trust for marketing in a particular region on the shoulders of a single individual or organization. If you don't have people lining up to get into the show, then you haven't spent enough time marketing!

This would be a good time to plan for emergencies and contingencies. Plot out multiple routes to and from each destination on the tour. Also, get directions within each city to local hospitals, police stations, music stores (so you can buy equipment in a pinch), post offices, and restaurants. Create a full "Tour Route Binder" containing printed maps and routes to and from all of these locations, with tabs for each city on the tour, so that navigation is made as simple as possible and time wasted getting lost is minimized. There's other planning you should do as well. You should have first-aid kits and roadside emergency kits in each vehicle. You should have at least one or two people in each vehicle with cell phones. You should also bring along emergency replacement parts for your instruments, including guitar/ bass strings, guitar picks, drum sticks, drum heads, extra cables, auxiliary microphones, and whatever other spare parts you can think of. If you can avoid stopping at a music store to buy emergency replacement parts for instruments, you can save everyone time, money, and energy.

Now comes the fun part: going on the actual tour. The day before each stop, call ahead to the scheduled venue(s) to make sure everything is on schedule. Find out if there have been any changes, and confirm sound-check times. The band should leave early enough that no fewer than four full hours will serve as a buffer period between the band's hotel check-in and the venue's sound-check. This will help make up for mishaps on the road, like getting lost or blowing a tire, and if nothing bad happens and the band arrives four hours early, then hey, they get some time to chill out and see the sights! After the show is complete, the band should gather for a brief post-show/ post-city meeting to discuss the pros and cons of that city, with someone taking notes on the band's experiences in that area. This will come in handy for future tour planning, and will give the band a fun exercise to unwind with as a unit. Also, someone (probably the band manager) should keep an eye on the band's online resources (if the hotel has internet access and someone has a laptop computer with them), because you may have already made fans in that area!

Keeping records of everything on tour is absolutely vital. Income and expense reports should be made and updated each and every day. If you can convince the band to do so, everyone should keep tour journals, because those might prove to be helpful in future tour planning. On the fun side of record-keeping, bring cameras and video cameras on tour with the band, if the resources are available to do so. Capturing photos and videos from the tour will give you some really great material for your website. You might also want to bring a recording device of some sort (a standalone CD burner, minidisc recorder, etc.), because some venues might allow you to rig up a recording device and go home with a live recording, direct from the board, and if the tour goes particularly well, and if venues have good enough equipment, you might be able to compile a full live album from the tour, something your fans, your band's dossier, your press kit, and your bank account will all mutually appreciate!

When the tour is finished and everyone is finally back home, the postmortem phase will begin. First, the full band and the band's management should go through the expense reports line-by-line, highlighting any and all expenses that could have been avoided, and noting precisely how those avoidances could have happened. Next, go through the revenue/ income reports, also line-by-line, highlighting any and all aspects of the tour's income that surpassed expectations and/ or resulted in the band turning so much as a single penny in net income, and note how those pluses came to be. With this finished, blend the expense and income reports to compile a net profit/ expense report, which will in turn produce a total net profit value. If this figure is in the red, then the tour was poorly planned, and the next tour should heed these warnings. If the tour broke even, things worked out in the end. And if the tour turned a profit, then it was planned and executed well. With all of this in mind, the manager should compile a "Tour Postmortem Report," outlining everything that went right, everything that went wrong, and how future tours might be improved upon in every applicable way. This report should be discussed in a formal band meeting, from top to bottom.

Three months after the tour, another report should be drawn up, this one regarding the tour's impact on the band's fan base and album sales. Did website traffic improve? Did the band sell more albums than usual as a result of the tour? How much merchandise (t-shirts, posters, etc.) have been sold in cities the tour visited? How much of the band's profit in that period can be directly attributed to the tour?

Tours can be fun, but they can also be a headache. Make sure you travel safely, attempt to anticipate every possible problem, and most importantly, make sure your audiences enjoy themselves! With this, there isn't much more this series can teach you of value. If you've read all eleven parts of this guide, you should be armed with at least a basic understanding of how your band can profit from your exploits. I hope this guide was as fun to read as it was for me to write, and please don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for future versions. And if you use this guide and experience success as a result, please let me know, because that's the ultimate experience for me as a writer!

Coming Up Next: We'll close out the "Creating a Band" series in part twelve, with a collection of tips, hints, and myths about forming and maintaining a band.