Touring is the crown jewel of the music industry and of the band experience. The minute you picked up your instrument, you probably thought about how cool touring would be shortly after. Half the fun of being in a band is the idea of going on tour. We’ve all heard the stories. Sex. Drugs. Rock and roll etc. And to be perfectly honest, all music business stuff aside, touring is amazing. It’s fun, and you’ll bond with your band, and you’ll share stories for a life time. Now that we got that out of the way, this is a music business blog. I’m a promoter, and you’re in a band who actually wants to have a career. If your end goal is to have your band photo on the back of a box of thin mints because you “really just want to enjoy the experience of being in a band”, cool. Don’t read my blog. It’s not for you…

A couple years ago I was at the LAUNCH Music Conference listening in on the panels, and the manager of (insert huge band name) who works for (insert huge company) said something that stuck with me. “Don’t go on tour until you have a solid enough fan base to sell out a local club in your hometown.” I’ll expand upon this further and say, don’t tour until you have a consistent fan base in your area. I’ve seen groups pull 100+ to a CD release and their draw goes back to 20 paid until another CD release. I’m not saying you shouldn’t go play a show outside your market once in awhile, but playing out on a weekend and coming back home that night to sleep in your bed is not “touring”. The term touring implies expenses, and being on the road for at least half a dozen shows or so. Here are some benchmarks I feel any artist should have before planning to tour.

FULL LENGTH ALBUM– An EP is great, but fans are more willing to spend money on an album, especially if it looks amazing, and is priced right. I’m not writing about digital vs. physical in this blog, but you need to gauge which has more of an impact on your fan base in your hometown and have copies when you go on the road. A full length shows that you’ve solved the puzzle of your writing process, and come up with more than 5 songs. When a fan falls in love, they can chew through your EP in one night, maybe even on the car ride home from the show. Get a full length, which engages fans on a higher level from an EP, and keeps fans in outside markets interested.

PROFESSIONAL VIDEO – You really shouldn’t tour without a visual representation of what people are going to see. When you play a show on the road, ideally you’re opening for a band with a fan base. That fan base will check you out before the show, and will search for you on YouTube. YouTube is the single most visited site on the web to listen to music, and you need a professional representation of either the music, the live show experience, or both. Get a professionally shot video with a storyboard, or a really awesome video of a live show where you packed the house. This lets everyone know that you’re for real, and you’re not some band they shouldn’t care about.

MERCH – Ask any band who has been on tour. In the beginning, you’ll make more on merch than you will on show pay. The money you’re paid from the show itself comes from paid draw. You may not have a plethora of fans in a new market, so there may not be a ton of money from the door. If you negotiated a gas/travel concession, good for you. However, you may have a ton of fans by the end of the night, and they’ll want to take something home to remember you by. Have multiple shirt designs, and don’t skimp on quality. If I wash your band shirt twice and can’t ever wear it again, that’s no good. Fans take notice. The full length will be part of your merch display, but you need things to bring new fans over. Have a nice setup with a desk light, a banner, or have someone lay out the merch in a way that doesn’t look like a clusterfuck. I’m telling you, this may sound ridiculous, but presentation of merch is important, and having different kinds of merch to appeal to different fans in outside markets is important as well. Have a cheaper item available for a few bucks if your cheapest item is $10. Simply put: If you aren’t selling merch on tour, you probably aren’t making money on tour. At best, you’re leaving a lot of money on the table.

SOLD OUT SHOW – Now we get into the meat and potatoes. You need to sell out a local room. If your highest drawing show was around 30-40 people, you still have some work to do in your hometown to engage fans in your circle. If you can’t get 30-40 friends, classmates, co-workers etc. out where you call home, getting a respectable number of people out to your routed date may be impossible, or a wish moreso than a reality. There is no shame in playing a local club that is smaller (70-150 cap) and selling it out before you move up to the bigger clubs in the area. The best shows have the most energy, which usually comes from a crazy crowd of enthused fans that packed the house. You want to develop a reputation of bringing people out consistently, and selling out smaller rooms in your area. That reputation carries buzz, and buzz is what you need when going on tour to really make an impact. If you’re just some unknown band, people may not come see you play. I can’t say this enough.

If nobody is coming to the shows you’re booking, there is almost no benefit to bothering to leave your hometown to play. Make sure you have a draw at home before going on the road.

RELATIONSHIPS/LEVERAGE/SWAPPING – When you’re a consistently drawing band with buzz in your area, you’ll have leverage, which is a necessity when setting up an out of town show. With no leverage, you’ll end up at a crappy bar on some state road no one has ever heard of, with a buyer who wants to put you on at 6pm on a Tuesday night for no money. Before setting up a tour, you should have done some show swaps to test out where people like you, and the tour dates are return engagements ideally. If you can bring 80 people to a show in your hometown, some other band who can do the same in their hometown will swap with you. Then, you’re both playing to at least 80 prospective fans, and it’s an even trade. The best bands in the markets you’re hitting most likely don’t work for Unicef, so you need to do your part and bring people out for a show swap. If you’re doing your work and playing solid shows back home, routing dates for a tour will be easier. The buzz will guide you to the best bands and clubs in the area, and you’ll build relationships with them to ensure fans are coming to see you. Again, if nobody is going to the shows you’re playing, stay home. Don’t waste your time on tour. Wait until there is a benefit to playing the show. Make sure you do your due diligence when planning to hit a new market, and find out where the best clubs are, and who the most trustworthy buyers/promoters are. If you need help routing a date, hit them up directly. They’ll see that you’re serious when they research you, and will help you get in touch with other bands with a similar style/draw.

When the time is right, touring can really take your band to the next level. When the time is wrong, you’ll play to empty rooms and spend your money/band fund on a band trip. If you’re missing some of the components I listed above, or still need to work on your hometown draw, take the money you’d spend going on tour and fix those things. Get a website, work on your merch, get a full length, get a video etc. Bands don’t like when I say this, but your band is a business. It needs money and customers (fans) just like any other business. Starbucks didn’t branch out to open hundreds of stores before becoming one of the most respected coffee shops in Seattle. Once you have a firm grasp of your fans in the home market, do some swaps, build some solid relationships with people outside your hometown, and then go into that market with momentum, or at least give yourself the best chance to succeed. Becoming a successful band is not fate. It’s not wishing or hoping or making choices because you feel a certain way in your heart. It’s very similar to the way businesses become successful. When taking a risk in business, you want to remove as much uncertainty as possible. By focusing on the above points, you’ll get the best out of your tour, build a fan base, and ideally be a huge band with a massive booking agency behind you, routing you with nationals and making your band worth thousands of dollars per show. Then you can quit your day job and perform full time for a living, and that’s always the goal.