less stressful and more successful tour<\/strong>.<\/p>\nPlease remember everything I say is not a steadfast, black and white rule<\/strong><\/span>. Touring, music, and any freelance creative business is full of difficult grey areas to navigate, so it is ultimately up to decide what is right for your particular situation; however, these tips will apply the VAST majority of the time<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/h2>\nWhat this<\/span> Tutorial covers:<\/h2>\n\n- When<\/strong> you should go on tour<\/strong><\/li>\n
- The “Are You Ready For Tour” checklist<\/strong><\/li>\n
- Why sleeping in your van <\/b>will cost you so much more than you think<\/strong><\/li>\n
- Planning<\/strong> for the unexpected<\/strong><\/li>\n
- Leaving<\/strong> extra baggage<\/strong> (friends and family) at home\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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Only Tour If You Are READY To Tour<\/h2>\n
Touring is often jumped into quickly because it\u2019s very sexy looking, but I often see people going on tour before they have the basics in place to support the tour (my past self included). Touring is roughly step 200 of being a musical act, and should be treated as such. <\/p>\n
Pre-TOUR CHECKLIST<\/h2>\n
Below are a list of questions to ask yourself to make sure your tour will be worthwhile and make the maximum impact and return on your investment.<\/p>\n
\n- Does the visual aesthetic of your online presence (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.) stand up to the quality of an artist on a major label?<\/li>\n
- Are your songs absolutely amazing and captivating?<\/li>\n
- Do your photos, videos, songs, and merch look as good as that major label act?<\/li>\n
- Do you have any reason<\/strong> to know that you will have a good turnout in other cities<\/strong> besides your own?<\/li>\n
- Did you run $200 of Instagram ads to target people in each city that are fans of similar acts to start cultivating a following before you go there?<\/li>\n
- Do you understand your true demographic<\/strong> for your music and how to properly target them with online ad campaigns in Instagram stories, Youtube pre-roll ads, and Facebook feeds?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Without letting people know you will be in their city performing a once in a lifetime show, your touring efforts will be much less successful.<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/www.raytownproductions.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Quote.jpg” align_tablet=”center” align_last_edited=”on|desktop” _builder_version=”3.23″ animation_style=”zoom” animation_direction=”bottom” animation_duration=”450ms” animation_intensity_zoom=”5%”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.27.4″ text_font=”||||||||” text_orientation=”justified”]<\/p>\n
Do not bring extra people. Just… No<\/span>.<\/h2>\nThis isn\u2019t something I\u2019ve personally experienced, but I have heard PLENTY of horror stories about this.<\/p>\n
Every. Single. Person on the road is an additional layer of complexity<\/strong> you have to deal with<\/strong>. Every body takes up more space in seats, more gear and luggage taking up room in the van or trailer, more space when sleeping, more people to split money with, more likelihood of personality conflicts and arguments, and overall just more possibilities of things going wrong.<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\nAny person that is not going to be on the stage needs to<\/span> be seriously considered before<\/strong><\/span> they come out. Yes, having a tour manager, roadie, or merch person is nice, but it\u2019s not worth it to bring somebody out to help if you don\u2019t vibe with them 100% and they are providing incredible value to the tour<\/strong><\/span>. Don\u2019t forget, you will be in a box for 8-12 hours per day, and have ZERO<\/span> privacy. The people you choose to spend your time with is incredibly important.<\/p>\nAnd this should go without saying, but\u00a0NO significant others<\/strong>. I\u2019ve only seen it work once<\/span> well (shout out to Hail Sagan, Nick and Sagan are married and their band is their business) but have heard mountains of stories of it going incredibly badly every other time<\/strong>.<\/p>\nLet them stay home, it\u2019s less stress for everyone. Especially for your tour mates who will have to sit awkwardly in the van while you and your significant other are fighting over something dumb.<\/p>\n
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Don\u2019t Sleep In Your Van<\/h2>\n
Yes. It\u2019s cheaper. But I want to make the case that it is actually more expensive to stay in your van<\/span><\/em> than get a motel room.<\/span><\/p>\nOn the road, assuming you don\u2019t go for the dirtiest, total crap motels, you can get a room for $60-75 a night. This will end up being $15-20 per person, or hopefully it will come out of your money from the tour. For these situations likely a couple people will be on air beds.<\/span><\/p>\nThis will give you so many amazing things<\/strong>: freedom from your van, ability to stretch out and have space, better sleep so you perform better and are mentally stronger, and showers. Daily showers.\u00a0That is SO worth the price. <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\nThe difference in your mental state between van sleep and bed sleep is immense. Invest in your rest<\/strong>, because anybody that has been on the road will tell you how insanely stressful it can be on every aspect of your body and mind. Also, don\u2019t forget that every performance needs to be top notch to be memorable<\/strong>, and you never know who may be watching and what opportunities may arise from the right person seeing a STELLAR<\/strong> performance on the right night. The only way to maintain this type of performance night after night is to get a quality night sleep.<\/span><\/p>\n[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/www.raytownproductions.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/Memorable-Show.jpg” align_tablet=”center” align_last_edited=”on|desktop” _builder_version=”3.23″ animation_style=”zoom” animation_direction=”bottom” animation_duration=”425″ animation_intensity_zoom=”5%”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.27.4″ text_orientation=”justified”]<\/p>\n
Have Two Of Everything<\/h2>\n
Okay, that might be a little impractical, because two vans?? Who has that budget?? But on a serious note, it is wise to have a backup for as many things as possible<\/strong>. Strings, picks, mics, cables, sticks, heads, a tool bag, rolls of tape, flashlights, tables, laptop and phone chargers, a backup laptop if you can afford if (if it\u2019s integrated into your show), stage outfits, etc. ANYTHING that you have one of, that can derail your show or your tour, is a potential problem. Every tour has at least one thing break or go missing, so that backup will save your ass when it\u2019s 11 PM on a Thursday, you\u2019re on in 20 minutes, and nobody else has the specific receiver unit for your wireless mic pack<\/strong>. Trust me<\/span>, have backups.<\/p>\n[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.25″ column_structure=”1_2,1_2″][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”3.25″ custom_padding=”|||” custom_padding__hover=”|||”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.27.4″ text_font=”||||||||”]<\/p>\n
I could honestly keep going about all of the things I would advise you to do for your travels on the road, but for now I will leave you with those! At this point I want to pass the question off to you:<\/strong><\/p>\nIf you have been on tour before, what other tips would you tell somebody who is planning to go on a run?<\/em><\/p>\nIf you haven\u2019t been on tour, what worries or questions do you have about the touring experience?<\/em><\/p>\nCheers to creating great music, and Happy Touring!<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”3.25″ custom_padding=”|||” custom_padding__hover=”|||”][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/www.raytownproductions.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/John-McLucas-Bio-Pic.jpg” url=”https:\/\/www.mclucasmedia.com” url_new_window=”on” align_tablet=”center” align_last_edited=”on|desktop” _builder_version=”3.23″ animation_style=”zoom” animation_duration=”45ms” animation_intensity_zoom=”5%”][\/et_pb_image][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What\u2019s going on everybody! Super excited to share my experiences on the road and tips for having a more pleasant tour. I have toured with two different acts, one of which I can\u2019t name (NDA life) and the other being the awesome people at Hail Sagan. In the last 3-4 years I\u2019ve toured in roughly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":26201,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[67,69,68,66],"class_list":["post-26151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tutorials","tag-band","tag-concert","tag-show","tag-tour","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raytownproductions.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raytownproductions.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raytownproductions.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raytownproductions.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raytownproductions.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26151"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/www.raytownproductions.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26525,"href":"https:\/\/www.raytownproductions.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26151\/revisions\/26525"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raytownproductions.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raytownproductions.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raytownproductions.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raytownproductions.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}