Touring Strategies

Here's an interesting way to get some great gigs around home. There are artists who love hitting the road and touring far and wide. And then there are artists who want to sleep at home every night. There are gigs a plenty no matter which type of touring artist you are—you simply have to know where to look. If you live in a one venue town or even a multi-venue town, reality is, that you can't fill your calendar with gigs in that venue every night. You've got to get creative and you've got to do some exploring to find other performance opportunities for some great gigs around home. I…

Have you ever considered how to turn your competitors into your partners? As you seek opportunities to expand your performance possibilities and grow your fan-base, why not reach out to some of your, “so called” competition and create a collaboration or a partnership for some tours. Some might look at this as a co-billing and they wouldn’t be too far off base. Why not join forces with another artist to pool your resources, introduce each other to the other’s audience and share expenses. Often this type of arrangement might start with an act’s agent, management or record label. But, it doesn’t have to start with external sources. As independent artists,…

Booking & Touring Success Strategies & Secrets Hi {!firstname_fix} ,   On Thursday I shared a touring pattern with you that you can use to expand out from your home base of support and build a solid regional fan base. The Expansion Touring Pattern is one that allows you to use your Prosperity Touring Pattern as a template and create market demand in an ever widening circle. Now I'd like to introduce a slightly different pattern strategy. The Seasonal Touring Pattern continues to build upon the previous two patterns and takes it to yet another level. As you expand your touring markets, you will find that planning to tour in…

Are you getting accurate audience counts when you play for the door gigs? Playing clubs usually involves door sales. Depending on the deal you negotiate, it is very likely that your income will be partially or wholly dependent upon a percentage of the tickets sold. When you play clubs that don't offer advance ticket sales or have a real box office selling pre-printed tickets, your income is at the mercy of whomever is collecting the money at the door. Do you know that person? Are your interests their utmost concern? Are they working for the club? So are you getting accurate audience counts? Here are a few suggestions to help…

Did you know that Thanksgiving weekend is the best weekend of the year to gig? It's just a few weeks before Thanksgiving here in the US. I’ve talked about this topic in the past, but it deserves repeating and reminding you every year. Meanwhile, I hope that where ever your holiday travels take you, you end up enjoying the friends and family that surround you. Now, speaking of being surrounded by friends and family, did you know that Thanksgiving weekend,  Friday and Saturday are probably the best days of the entire year to do concerts? Think about it. Everyone travels during the week to get somewhere where they will celebrate…

The benefits of training your own agent is to help make a difference in your bookings prior to ever working with an official booking agency. Nearly every artist I speak with would love to hand over that task of booking their gigs to an agent. Most truly believe that once they are on an agency roster, they are set and the gigs will just start rolling in. I really do hate to be the one to burst that bubble, but burst I must. Depending on your market demand and where you are in your career, being aligned with an agent may be perfect for you and the gigs may certainly…

Have you set your touring preferences? Do you simply follow the crowd? So, everyone of the acts you know is playing at the club down the street. But you don’t like starting your gigs at 11pm. And, if you play that club, you have to start at 11pm. If you don’t play that club, then where are you going to play? That’s the place you know about so that must be the place you have to play? Right? Wrong! You don’t have to follow the crowd. In fact, you will do yourself and your art a great disservice if you do follow the crowd. So what’s the first thing I…

Here are some strategies to open new tour markets  by using gig directories when you have no known contacts in those markets. Let’s return to your touring plan and your calendar. We'll make this a 3 step approach and break down the process. Step One-Review anchor dates on the calendar: As you look at any dates already set, no matter whether they are performance dates, conferences, family or personal events. Make a list of those dates that are in new markets where you have never played before and where you do not have any other connections in place. Step two-Ask yourself the following questions about each of those markets: Does…

As  booking agent, I liked to avoid unwelcome surprises when my acts were touring. Shouts of "Surprise!" may be fine for parties, but for tours, not so much. In fact, the last thing you want on the day of your first show of the tour is a surprise. Like when you discover they only have 2 mics and you needed 6, or that they never put up any of the 50 posters you sent. Or how about when you were depending on their publicity person to send out those press releases they promised and now you find out they did nothing. Big oops! Big Surprise! And the worst of it…