How to self-manage a tour. Part 1: Initial management and planning

Without a doubt an important step for any emerging artist is to make a tour of concerts in places different from those where he resides, in order to show his music and his show to a new audience, and thus continue to grow and develop his proposal.

At the same time, a tour is an instance that requires an important amount of planning, as well as the work of several people involved, regardless of the size of the tour. That's why it is essential to have as many solved details in advance as possible, in order to avoid complicated situations that affect the working environment, and therefore, the concerts themselves.

In the case of an emerging artist, it is almost certain that his first tours during the first years of the project will be self-managed. After that, the goal is to achieve a certain status that an agency, a manager or an external party will manage the future tours, and the artist will only take care about the show itself. That's why THIS POST IS ORIENTATED TO ARTISTS WHO ARE LOOKING FOR SELF-MANAGEMENT ADVICE FOR THEIR OWN TOURS.

Therefore, when the artist is in charge of organizing a tour, the most important thing is to be clear about what kind of goals he wants to achieve with it, because if that is not the case, there can be a lot of frustration, bad times and even friction within the team.

The objectives to make a tour can be, for example:

- To have the experience of going on tour

- To establish a network of contacts in other places

- To attracting the first fans in other places

- To build loyalty among existing followers, and to attract new ones

- To make a cohesion in a working team when travelling

- To make money

- Others

It may be one or several, but the important thing is TO BE CLEAR ABOUT WHY WE ARE ORGANIZING THE TOUR.

Once the goals are defined, a series of stages are initiated which we will look in detail. This first post talks about the initial management, and then it will be the turn of logistics, promotion and finally the execution of the tour.

About the initial management of the tour, let's see step by step each of the elements involved:

1) To define the period and duration of the tour:

There are certain milestones that trigger the possibility of a tour. It can be, for example, the invitation to a festival or an important event of the style of the artist, and in order to take advantage of the trip, smaller concerts before and / or after that event can be managed in the same city or nearby locations. Another fact is the season, mostly summer, which many artists take advantage of to organize tours. Or it may be the season of the beginning of the school and/or university period, depending on the type of audience the artist is targeting. These are just a few examples, and there may be more milestones according to each artist.

Whatever the period to tour, it is also important to understand that the more in advance arrangements are made, the more possibilities there are to make a good tour, since nowadays, the music industry in terms of tours, works more and more in advance of time, sometimes even having the events committed from one year to another.

2) To coordinate the group of people who goes on tour:

This element is directly related to the previous one, since in the case of a band, at least all the members must be able to attend the whole tour, and if in the period of the tour, one or more of them cannot attend for various reasons, the possibility of rescheduling the tour or looking for possible replacements of members must be analyzed, among other possibilities.

In addition, it is necessary to consider if the show requires a technical staff in an essential way, such as a sound engineer, lighting technician, roadies, etc. and also to know their availability.

3) To consider a budget for the tour:

It is important to be clear if one of the objectives of the tour is to make money or not, and because of that, it is the artist who must define it and have available hopefully 100% of the money of the total costs of the tour before it starts, since different scenarios might occur. This is because sometimes the payments contemplated will not be made on the same days of the shows, but can even happen several months after each performance, for example.

By this way, the expenses of transportation, accomodation, fees of session musicians and staff, etc. are covered. Besides, it is also important to consider an important amount of money for contingencies and emergency situations.

4) To get the dates themselves:

As mentioned above, one of the triggers of a tour is the invitation to one or two important events for the artist. To these, a couple more can be added with equal relevance, and we can call them "pillar" events, that is to say, based on those events the rest of the tour is assembled adding more dates, in a convenient and correlative way according to objectives, proximity and budget. All this requires a constant monitoring and negotiation with each venue.

To conclude this first entry, just to emphasize that if the management is done properly, there are better chances that everything goes well, because a tour well achieved is very rewarding for any artist, and surely will be a very good memory for him and his audience.