Articles

Do you pre plan your tour routing to create your future tours? I used to pre plan my artist's tours to look the way I wanted them to end up once the tour was contracted. I would get out all the maps, coordinate the routing with my act's goals for the tour and set the tour dates accordingly. Then I would go after the venues in the towns that I had pre-selected for our optimum routing. Sure I had to juggle a few dates here and there, but for the most part, I was able to pre plan my tour routing to be as efficient as possible. Now this can…

Home pages, blogs, social networking sites, sales pages, press releases and merchandise pages all written to communicate with current or prospective fans, bookers, media, clients, customers or business associates. But, is your copy or your message truly written with those readers in mind?Before you "throw up a home page or a landing page," consider these 3 ideas to help you write your copy so it directly speaks to your reader.Decide who will be reading the piece you are writing:Your target audience for each page of your site, your social networking site or your blog may be different. They each may desire a different experience when they read your copy. Know…

As the saying goes,"timing is everything." That is so true in the promotion business. Miss a deadline, and you may forfeit an entire month's itinerary information getting to the booking personnel across the country. This could hamper the ease of future bookings. Or, if you miss the calendar listing deadline, your photo, and upcoming gig information may not appear in the local daily paper, reducing your chances for a good audience turnout. So let's get a handle on the timing and work with a timeline that will keep you on track.Publicity TimelineGather media contacts with contract returns -Ask the venue to send you their local media contact list when they…

So you are working hard to book your tour, and the dates are falling into place smoothly. Now the biggest challenge ahead of you is to create some audience excitement and media interest. I believe that any project, tour or product you create needs to have the marketing plan in place while you are planning the project, tour or product. You see this working all the time with national products, movies, major label record releases. The concept produces successful results when applied to independent label releases and individual artist tours.Now can you get a jump on marketing your upcoming tour by incorporating this marketing template and timeline into your touring…

You have reached that point in your career development when adding an agent to your team would be a next logical step. Before you pick up the phone and start calling around, I suggest you do the following three steps. Take inventory and create an overview of your career position to date. This process and information will help you present a clear picture of your career for yourself and assist you in making a more powerful pitch to any agent you are considering. Taking inventory includes re-evaluating your past two year's growth. I would include a list of all your past performance venues, the fees you actually received, the capacity…

Folks are gearing up for the big holiday hoopla as this Fourth of July begins to get noisy. Thinking about this holiday reminded me of the challenges of booking tours around holidays. I thought I would offer some tips about holiday bookings, which ones to go after and which ones to avoid. Some holidays can be a gold mine, others a big bust. Some days aren't even holidays, but should be treated as such when it comes to booking gigs. Holiday awareness can net you additional gigs and also help you plan ahead for travel challenges like traffic and airport delays.My favorite holiday for gigging is Thanksgiving. Friday and Saturday…

March is getting down to business month. With the summer festival season on the horizon, this is a great time to contact and line up your summer events calendar. Many of the major festivals already have their talent lined up and contracted. There are still some filler slots open at most of the major festivals. But why rely on the major festivals to fill up your calendar? There are so many town, city, county and state-wide events that will take place throughout the spring, summer and fall that book local and regional talent along with some of the big name acts. Now is the time for a bit of research…

In my article, How To Get Tour Support for Your Musical Act, I discussed alternative methods of funding touring expenses if you are an independent artist. This article focuses on how to work with your record label and what expenses might be likely for the label to fund. Most of you who have been signed to a label are probably working with a smaller independent label unlikely to have the financial resources at their disposal that most of the major labels have. All is not lost. This is a process of working with the label, whether an Indie or a major label. Creativity is one of the greatest resources we…

Touring is expensive, especially when you tour with more than two people. There are so many costs associated with launching a tour and many of those costs are incurred before playing the first date. As an independent artist managing your own career and possibly running your own record label, you are responsible for fronting all the money for marketing, recording and eventually touring. There are ways, however, to get some financial support for some of the touring costs. It takes a little work, some research and some creative thinking and can result in having someone else pay for some of the touring expenses.The key to this process is to first…