Little Known Tactics for Greater Touring Profits

For many independent artists organizing do-it-yourself tours, a common question  is, “How can we make more money on tour?” One of the simplest methods: by spending less. Here are some ways you can cut your expenses while on tour which leaves room for more profit.

Whether you’re planning a national, international, or regional tour the goals are the same: earn income while promoting yourself in a familiar or new territory. Reaching out to fans and connecting personally at your concerts are the keys to gaining a dedicated fan base and generating buzz around your band. Admittedly, while overall comfort plays a key role in combatting tour fatigue and  maintaining performance levels, sometimes comfort isn’t an option. If tour expenses are outweighing guarantees, try implementing some of these cost-cutting  travel techniques tailored for the DIY, self-booking independent artist. 

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The Virtual Tour, Parts II and III (OR: Keep Your Studio Slippers On!)

To successfully promote your music you need to be able to influence potential listeners from all across the web. A new and potentially effective method of increasing the recognition of your music, influencing new listeners and spreading the awareness of you, as a band or musician, is to set up a virtual tour.

In this article we look at why you should be setting up a virtual music tour, how to find blogs to host your tour and how to get the most out of the experience. In the final paragraph I share a trick that has proved to be a very powerful way of encouraging listeners to interact and leave blog comments.

What Is A Virtual Tour?

The basic structure of a virtual tour is a collection of different types of web/blog posts, hosted on a number of different sites/blogs, all promoting your band and/or music. A simple example: the tour might be six different blogs to each post about your band/music, each posting on six consecutive days. Another example might be four different blogs, one standard website, and an announced and date specified new video post on your youtube channel, over a one week period.

The idea behind a virtual tour is that the musician/band has a chance to influenc

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Is “Pay to Play” Okay?

When our band, “Control the Chaos” decided to hit the highway in June 2010, it was with the intention to spread our branded style of “Vegas Molten Metal” to the masses. After all, what better way to do that than literally go from city to city on tour? Besides, we’d been pretty aggressive in Vegas so we figured it was time to give the venues and our fans some needed time to miss us. We mapped the routes, did our own booking, loaded up our equipment, said our prayers and decided to go for it.

A couple observations: Each city definitely had its own unique vibe and style – no surprise there, but we also started to see a strong pattern of pay-to-play requirements especially as we got into the larger shows and bigger venues. We also found that more places up North were willing to negotiate a guarantee based on success of the show, where many Southwest venues wanted more assurance ($$). Mind you, nobody called it “pay to play”. Rather it was wrapped around the pre-sale ticket requirement policy that many clubs and venues have adopted.

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The Virtual Tour, Part I (OR: How Your Band Can Tour the World from Your Living Room)

A virtual music tour is similar to a traditional tour in that the band/musicians make several appearances, and in several locations, in an attempt to promote and sell their music. On a traditional tour, musicians make contact with clubs, bars or other suitable venues (suitable venues: house parties, small music festivals, state fairs, and Geri’s Bat Mitzvah) to book live shows. They then travel to each city, spend time at each location playing their music and possibly spending time with the audience in an effort to sell their music and merchandise. Many musicians will agree, for the effort and expense involved, touring and playing live doesn’t sell many CD’s or music downloads. (Although it can be a heck of a lot of fun, if you have the money.)

A virtual tour is very similar to the traditional live tour. The biggest difference being, there are no extensive travel, no travel related expenses, no need to try to figure out how to take 2, 6, or 12 weeks off work. Virtual tours are accomplished 100 percent over the Internet.

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Electric Vans And Touring: Can You Afford 2 Cents Per Mile?

There are many large businesses taking advantage of 2 cents per mile with the use of electric vehicles, that is not a typo, one of the electric vehicle industries greatest bonuses is price per mile. The new electric vehicle industry will endevour to help bands of the future, but why are they not ready for us independents just yet? Simply put, due to the huge upfront costs of an electric van, you actually can not afford 2 cents per mile.

You may or may not as a musician have thought about these new propulsion methods. I am talking about electric vehicles, which are actually not so ‘new’. In the early 1900’s there were more electric cars registered on the roads of America then there were petrol cars. What does this mean today? Well with technology being trickled out to the possible consumers as slowly as possible it could mean a resurgence of the electric vehicle 100 years after they where first driven on the roads of America and beyond. What does this have to do with you your probably thinking. Electric vans are a part of this not so new technology which your band could utilize.

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Think Outside the Venue To Get That First Gig

Most new bands approach the first part of their careers like this: We need to find an audience, but in order to find an audience we have to play shows. If we want to play shows we have to get a talent buyer to book us, but talent buyers are going to want to know we can draw an audience before they’ll ever consider letting us play. It’s a frustrating catch-22. Thankfully, it’s also not the only (or even the best) route to finding your first audience or building your initial fan base. It just means that you’re going to have to go around the gatekeepers and find fans somewhere else.

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