Going on tour

As for vans I know not other then its best you name your van on tour.

Jeez horror stories. I’ve had a few. I think it’s most impotant to make sure that the band members have enough time/space to be on their own for a while, so you don’t get cabin fever. Make sure that you a) have enough VARIED music in the van so you don’t wind up wanting to murder someone cos they want to listen to bloody Frank Sinatra FOR THE 67th TIME, and b) know where you are going and have contact numbers for all the places, also try and find out how much you’ll be paid in advance so you can plan food and petrol etc. if there is a vegan in the band don’t stop to eat at Burger King all the time *sob*. Don’t, whatever you do, get carried away and get so pissed on the first night that the morning after leads to RUIN and you wanting to jack the entire thing in. have stores of water, cola, headache pills and chewing gum in the van at ALL TIMES. *sigh* touring is on the whole great though. Have fun! And let us know when/where you’re playing!

What you want is a good van. Hire it, rather than buy one, cause when it breaks down, it will be S.E.P. Make sure your van has a LARGE BOOT. And I mean large, large enough to hold three amps, a full drumkit and that strange guy who nobody at the club actually knew, but seems to have a begged a ride off you back to the train station/his mates' house where he promises you will all be able to crash.

Touring with other bands: only do it if you KNOW the bands in advance. Hell, I know lots of people have had wonderful bonding experiences, but I've had such hell with strangers.

Number one rule of successful touring: NO. BOYFRIENDS. ON. THE. TOUR.

Yeah, probably no girlfriends as well. Having extra people on the tour who are not prepared to work, and are only there to get in the way/whinge about how their lover is not paying attention to them (excuse me, they're trying to WORK, this is not a holiday for them) will be a bigger source of tension within the bands than any scary one night stand picked up along the way.

Best way to approach touring: treat it as a working holiday. Crazy shit will happen, venues will flood, vans will break down, relationships will break up, you will lose your place to live back home - but treat touring as this weird bubble that does not intersect with real life. It's the only way to deal.

Booking your own tour is perfectly sensible. If you have contacts in other bands in other cities, offer to do gig exchanges, rather than full on touring together- this is best. You will both be guaranteed a place to stay, and a reasonable audience in the other person's hometown. And you'll hopefully be able to tell if you can get along well enough to go on a full tour maybe later on.

It's a big of a hassle booking your own tour- promoters and venue bookers are the FLAKIEST people on earth, and they exist only to make sure that you will be playing in York one night and Exeter the following night. But it's easier than dealing with a mate who thinks they are a "booking agent". And real booking agents are all shysters. Until you have a proper label and/or management to pay off the ripoff artists, just don't bother getting ripped off yourself.

Worst tour I ever went on was the worst two weeks of my life, thanks to the combination of disagreements with other bands we'd never met before in our lives who treated us like glorified roadies, WHINGING cunt boyfriends, and a totally dishonest promoter/booking agent.

Best tour: three band members and a mutual friend to drive the van, booked gigs ourselves, stayed with friends we met along the way, and had the time of our lives.

Our next tour starts next Saturday. Weh-hoo, I'm excited! We're doing it in three legs (days off = SANITY. make sure you have days off, this is urgent and key) starting next weekend and I. Am. Ready. To RAWK!!!

sorry sarah, i'm afraid i've missed any other mention of your band, so i don't know what kind of level you are at, wouldn't want to sound like i'm teaching aging relative to suck eggs :)

oh, and what kate said (typing at the same time)

Music in van: institute a turn system, so that no one member can become stereo nazi. One person's "Oh my god, I've got this amazing Television bootleg/Neptunes Remix/Fushitsushi live double album!" = another person's private hell.

And yes, get payment details in advance, and budget. You will ALWAYS go over your budget, but make sure you have some kind of ballpark figure. Tour Itineraries also = URGENT AND KEY!!! (Do not give them away to cute boys looking for souveniers, either, keep them so you know where the hell you have to be the next day.)

And if you get a rider, always take it with you. Even if you don't like beer/sodapop/the flavour crisps they gave you, you can always trade it for a place to stay!

Having an extra person to drive ... cannot stress how important this is. SO LONG AS IT'S NOT A BOYFIEND!!!

oi kate, as a formor promotor and current presenter i resent that - sure there are messed up people out there but there is a ton of work that goes into making sure the events happen, and i have worked with a lot of dedicated booking agents - don't know what sorts you had the misfortune of coming across but don't tar everyone with the same brush.

haven't had a chance to go to your link yet - what kind of music do you play?

The *ONLY* time we ever worked with an actual, professional booking agent, all he seemed to do was interfere with and mess up plans that our bassist, the band's A&R person and the gig promoters had already made. Grrrrrr. (And now I've shot my mouth off, we'll NEVER get a decent booking agent, heh...)

It's a good idea to work with a promoter in regional areas where you've not had much exposure. A good promoter acts as a bridge between an established fanbase who want to be exposed to good music and new bands. Under these circumstances, everyone benefits.

But different people have different ideas of what a promoter is supposed to do... anyway, I'm not going to start ranting. Good luck with organising the tour!

And laminates. Always make sure you bring plenty of laminates. Coz I always end up just giving them randomly to people in the audience. And then wondering who all these people backstage are. MAN... I wonder how we're going to get our laminates now our bassist's husband doesn't work for Evil Majorlabel Industries any more. Touring without laminates is no fun at all. Otherwise, how are random people in Road Chefs or supermarkets going to know that you are really a Rock Band On The Road and not a random gang of drunken idiots acting like fules?

Do haggle with venues to get yourselves free food.

If you are a well liked band who can draw people have someone who is good with figures and is sober be your driver/tour manager. They can be all bitchy with everyone you have to interact with thus sparing you the pain.

If you have a weird sound and don't trust soundmen either bring you own or bring a recording of what you want to sound like live to play to them.

Do stay with friends. Do respect the time you are allocated on stage. Do treat the other bands equipment with respect if you are borrowing and help unload/load etc.

(Currently, I am sick of my bandmates - in both bands!)

Anyway, though it sounds a little fun, would it really help at all without being on a label or would it be a waste of time? I'm just making conversation, really.

For now, we're just trying to plan some out-of-town weekend shows, so we can have a little road trip adventure.

if you're new to the whole thing, just try going to cities in your area [for example, philly folks should play nyc, dc, baltimore, richmond, nc, boston]. you dont even have to book a whole tour, really, you can pick one or two cities for a weekend jaunt.

The main problem we're running up against now is that we don't have a van. We rented a van to go down to Austin for SXSW, but we can't afford to keep renting vehicles every time we go out of town.

This is good to hear, since this is almost exactly what we're doing.

xposts

xpost - jaymc, yeah most good bands i know on bigger labels did that first, in some form or another.

Here's one question I have, though, about touring: how worth it is it to play a city where you don't know anybody and don't have enough of a reputation to get on an appropriate and well-drawing bill? I mean, on one hand, I like the idea of piling into the van and just playing to whomever will take us, but on the other, I don't want to put a ton of money and time into a tour where we're playing to five people in a coffee shop in Youngstown, OH.

Haha. Actually, I'm the guilty party here, since I couldn't fathom why people wanted to go to McDonald's and they had to put up with my sleep-deprived temper tantrums on the matter.

Of course they don't have jobs, so they don't really have anything better to do.

you've got to start from somewhere and the truth of the matter is, you're going to start off playing places where no one has heard of you, and thats the point. i think its a bit facetious to expect built-in crowds and audiences, especially if its your first time in town.

big deal, you play a bad show once. but hopefully someone in the audience might like you -- talk to them. ask them where a better place to play is, or what like minded bands are around [if you havent done your research in advance].

also: just buy a van. now you'll have an excuse to tour because you'll have payments to make!

- bands that show up on time
- bands that are friendly

im pretty easy to please. things i dislike:

- bands that play other shows too close to ours [applies to locals]
- bands that show up late
- bands that are difficult to work with
- bands that complain about the money situation even though they knew the deal beforehand

more advice here: http://plainparade.org/booking.html

What do you mean by this?

bands that play other shows too close to ours [applies to locals]

philly bands have a huge problem of playing too many shows in a month, then get pissy when their draw is crap. perhaps someday they'll realize there's a direct corrollary between the two.

one of the reasons bands take a lot of gigs is because the bookers use them as bargaining points. for example, they ask them to play a crappy tuesday night bill in exchange for a saturday show on a really amazing bill. sometimes the favors work out, but most of the time they dont.

plain parade's policy is that bands who play with us cannot play two weeks before or after. we book only 4 or 5 shows a month and put a huge amount of effort into promoting them. of course, if a band has a conflict and talks it out with us, we'll be more than happy to work it out. when a band plays another gig waaaay too close to our show [esp. if theyre headlining ours] and doesnt tell us -- that really hurts our feelings. we've been known to completely stop working with them as a result.

however, we want to a) make sure the show is awesome for everyone involved [and our shows either sell out or are close to it, esp. in 2005] b) dont want to lose our own money on an event [because you know, we dont get paid for doing this].

Electric Factory [5,000 capacity] $
Trocadero [1,400] / Balcony Bar [125 - inside troc] @
Theatre of Living Arts [1,000] $
World Cafe [1,000]

First Unitarian Church [3-500] =
North Star Bar [300] +
Millcreek Tavern [250-300]
The Khyber [225] +

Silk City [150] *
Pontiac Grille [125] +
The Fire [125] *
Manhattan Grille [125]
Tritone [100] *
Space 1026 [80-100] *
Vox Populi Gallery [100] =

$ booked by clear channel
@ booked by house of blues
+ booked by heyday entertainment
= booked by R5 productions
* plain parade does shows here

a flow chart of promoters:

CC / HOB > Heyday / R5 > plain parade / other indie promoters

"the places they should play"

also, lets not post the people to avoid. no negative vibes on this thread!

High Noon Saloon (used to be Okayz Corral, currrently the rock hot spot)
Harmony Bar (great for all kinds of stuff)
Slipper Club (cabaret club that has rock shows)
the Weary Traveler (more for folkish things)
Cafe Montemartre (smaller downtown place that has jazz and rock)
Luther's Blues (too-large venue that mostly has mid-level touring acts and some of the bigger local bands)
Mother Fool's (hippie coffee shop)

King Club (it's fun when the place is packed, but they're sketchy about money)
Club Majestic (awesome space that I should really mention on the other thread, but I heard they stopped having live music there)
Inferno (teh goth club)
Cardinal Bar (mostly Latin music and dj's, but they have rock shows too)