Touring - Get out of town!
By Kit Bengekit@harmony-central.com
April 30, 1999
Playing live is what a lot of musicians live for. Nothing tests your chops and patience quite like it. Playing out of your local area or going on a tour can be a huge tool for your band. It can help you receive exposure, radio play, and press. But if you're not prepared, it can be your worst nightmare. If you want to play San Francisco just to say you've done it, save your time and money. This is not an endeavor to be taken lightly. Very few acts can break even financially on tours without a good plan. The number one reason to hit the road is to support a CD or tape receiving airplay in a certain area. The bottom line is, it's very hard to get any sort of good booking in a market where you aren't receiving airplay, let alone enough money to put gas in the van. This column is the start of a series which will help the pro and new band alike with booking, budgeting, sound and lighting, transportation, promotion, and other aspects of getting gigs both in and out of your area. With that in mind ... let's go!
Preparation
Let's approach this from the standpoint that you don't have the services of an agent or manager. The first thing you need to consider is the plan for booking shows out of town. One of the best tools you can have to book shows is an effective promo kit. It should include a picture, bio, and a CD or tape of your material, in an attractively designed folder.
Lets say you are starting your tour in Seattle and going down the West Coast to San Francisco. The first consideration is the tour routing. There are many resources that can provide you with information about venues around the US for you to play. One of my favorites for club booking is the Musician Magazine Guide to Touring & Promotion. This guide published each year, features clubs, who to contact for booking, sound and lighting systems provided, and capacity of the venue. Another choice would be the Musician's Atlas which recently went into publication as well. It is loaded with booking/press contacts, studios, agents, and lots more.
Another great resource is to establish a relationship with a band in your area that has toured in the same area that you want to. This is the best resource, as a band that has played the area before will have a much more detailed idea of what the venues are like in a certain area. When figuring your itinerary out, consider any area between the two cities that is a college town, or community of more than 100,000 as a potential place to play. The fist thing you need to do is figure out how many places you can play between the two points that you are touring from and to. The chart below is an example tour itinerary starting in Seattle, Washington, towards San Francisco, California, and back to Seattle.
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As you can see, there are 14 different markets identified for the tour. You can count on the fact that even if you do a great job of booking, you will not get gigs in four of the markets, and will have to take at least that many number of days off because you won't be able to get a gig on a certain date or don't want to play a club on a Monday. This will provide you with days off and flexibility in booking. The days before and after the dates listed can also be considered possible dates for that market. As you can see, all of the dates are within an 8 hour drive, and most much less. You should also notice that I took the two closest communities and put one on the way down and one on the way back (What goes down ... must come up). This makes for a two-week tour if all goes well, and will prevent long distances between dates on your tour.
In choosing the clubs that you want to play in the market, choose venues that fit the format of your music. Don't even bother hitting up a rock club for a gig, no matter how cool you have been told it is, if you are a jazz or country band. Do your homework about venues, and pick three possibilities for gigs in each market if you can. Talk with fellow musicians and others who might know about a great venue for you to play. One great trick that I have used many times is to call the local music magazine in the area you want to play and politely ask them about the venues in the area. Also call the radio stations in the market you plan on playing and ask if there are any clubs you might go over well at. If it's a college radio station, by all means ask them who books shows at their school. You will gain knowledge, and make contact with an organization that will be of great help in promoting the show, once you get one booked.
After you identified the venues, you are one step closer to sending out promo kits to the venues, and if you have some extra money in the budget, radio stations in the area. Plan on sending promo kits to the clubs you have identified that fit the format of your music, and have a realistic capacity (under 500), if this is your first time playing in the market. Send out packs to radio at the same time to see if you can get some airplay on college or commercial radio before you get the date booked, and through your own efforts, or the efforts of a small distributor, have some CDs in stores in those markets.
Booking
Even if you're devoid of an agent's services, try to get someone to help with booking (a former tour manager, or a member of a band that has toured before). Someone good who knows the ropes cost big bucks. Even if you have to pay them well, it's worth it. The whole booking process will take you about eight weeks, possibly longer, from the time you want to play the market to actually getting shows. Don't take for granted that the club will contact you, because they almost never do, but do realize that most clubs get upwards of 100 promo packs a week and their booking agents are very busy humans. When you call, be friendly, persistent, but not over bearing or pesky when it comes time to contact these people. You want to establish a relationship with the person you're talking to; once you decide to book your band, the club can be a great help in promotions and possibly get you to the right person at a local radio station to set up an acoustic on-air performance or interviews. Club agents, for the most part, have one thing on their minds when they hear from an out of town band: "HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE YOU GOING TO DRAW?" This is where the radio, record store, and magazine information from each market comes in.
To get the ball rolling, obtain as many local music magazines as you can from each market. You can get most radio stations or record stores in the area to send you copies. Find out by looking at the ads for the local clubs who the better bands in the area are that you plan on playing. If you see a certain band playing all Friday and Saturday nights at a venue then those are the bands you want to make a note of. Look at the club ads for venues you've sent promo packs to (and any bands that radio and record store contacts said are cool), making a list of bands that play a lot on weekends. This tells you who the better bands in the market are. Call your radio, retail, or magazine contacts back and ask if they have a phone number for these bands. If they do, call up the bands and tell them you've heard they were a cool band to play with and ask them if they have an upcoming show they could put you on (Don't forget to mention that you'll be glad to return the favor if they ever come to your area.), and that you have already sent packs to the clubs for review.
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This accomplishes two things at once. First, it helps you bypass local agents, who might not book you for anything more than a Monday night. And second, it puts you in contact with what you know is one of the better bands in the area. The object is to make friends before you play a town that could help you through the process of promotion, possibly get you a gig, and improve your draw. There's nothing worse than driving six hours to find out the other bands on the bill draw six people and sound like the Dukes of Hazard, when you consider yourself a hard rock band. Having your contacts in the market worked out before you call an agent for a show also calms the club agent's fears that you're not going to draw anybody - which you aren't, unless you know fifty people in Eugene who'll come see you.
Repeat this method in all the markets you plan to go to, making sure to be accurate with the time it takes you to travel. Don't expect to play Salem, Oregon, one night and San Francisco the next. If the above plan fails to land you a gig, it's on to contacting clubs directly - which takes a lot more effort and involves dealing with some of the hardest folks in the business: agents. About two weeks after you send your promo packs out, start making your calls to the venues that you have sent stuff to. Don't blow smoke up an agent's ass by telling them your band can draw 50 people when it can't - you'll make a fool of yourself and most likely never be invited back. The best way to approach the problem is to use the prep work you've already done. Tell the agent you can set up an on-air interview or a record in-store, that you have product in stores, and while not being able to draw from an established fan base, you're planning to plug the hell out of the show. A lot of the advantages that you have when seeking gigs in your hometown go by the wayside when trying to book gigs out of town. Your local media contacts, radio, and most importantly, your draw are of little consequence then. Most booking agents worth their salt realize, and in fact capitalize, on this, but there are certain things you can do to make an agent more receptive to playing their room.
The first is to obtain as many promotional opportunities as possible before you solicit clubs for gigs out of town. This can be accomplished by calling up the local print media, radio, and record stores that are carrying your product and obtaining at least some assurance that you can get a record in-store appearance, radio interview, or write up in the local music magazine. With this information you will have some bargaining power. When you call an out of town club and let them know that you have secured some creative options to promote the show, it makes it look like you might draw some people to the club, or at least have done some of the legwork to promote your appearance in town. The club will respect this and it will be easier to get a good slot on the bill. Your first communication with the club should not even mention booking a show unless the club brings up the subject first. The first time you get someone from the venue on the phone, ask them if they received the pack that you sent, the dates that are available for your band to play the venue, and if there is a good time for you to call them back. Remember that these people are extremely busy, and they will appreciate that you touched base with them without hitting them up for a gig in the first two sentences. When you get to the point of booking a show, ask the club which bands you would be playing with, your time slot, payment, and soundcheck/load-in times.
Once you have most of your tour booked, do a little advance work. Call the venues and ask to talk with the house soundman. Explain to him that you will be playing the venue and find out about parking, load-in time, and sound check. If he will be mixing your band, send him a CD or tape, stage plot, and five or ten bucks. The money assures that you will arrive at the club to be met by at least one person who gives a damn about you. That little bit of money will almost certainly get you a decent sound check and will endear yourself to the club before you even hit town. Think of it as public relations money well spent. Ask the sound engineer if he could listen to the tape to get familiar with the type of material the band will play if he or she will be mixing the band. Also try to solidify your outside promo opportunities and make up some flyers or posters with all the bands names on them. Send them not only to the club but also to the other acts on the bill, radio, the print media, and anyone else in town you might know who is some kind of big shot in that market.
If you are an independent band on the road, at least part of your time will be spent trying to find cheap housing and food, unless you have a tour manager with you or someone who has been out there before and knows the ropes. A great touring helper is a book called Let's Go USA (available at most bookstores). It lists cheap food and hotels in all 50 States written from the perspective of people on a budget. Do not expect to "crash" at people's houses everywhere on tour. It just doesn't work like that anymore, and while helpful in saving money, you will end up tired from the lack of privacy. Arrange your tour so you will be driving at night. That way you will wake up in a bed instead of arriving at a club at six in the evening and going from the van to soundcheck before you know what the hell town you're in. This is also necessary to do advance promo, interviews and so forth during the day.
In part 2 of "Touring". We will give you some great tips for after you get the gig, concerns about how to deal with money on the road, accommodations, promotion, and more.
On to Part 2 ->
Kit Benge (kit@harmony-central.com) has written for BAM, The Rocket, The Chicago Reader, and gobs more. He has been a sound engineer, tour manager, booking agent, and personal manager for dozens of acts since 1978. Kit currently operates a public relations/event-planning firm, plays with lots of gear, and is rarely seen outside of an island near Seattle.
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