30/8/2020 DIY Touring 101 - United States

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An artist doesn’t find touring success overnight. It often takes years to

reach a point of profitability on the road and, more than likely, you’ll
encounter your fair share of setbacks in the pursuit of accomplishing
your dreams.

That being said, here’s the good news: you CAN push through it. If a life
on the road is truly your dream, you will find the power to get to the next
tour stop and you’ll be rewarded with bigger crowds, better payouts and
maybe even a booking agent seeing enough potential in you to
eventually join your team.
Before these glory days commence, you will have to put a lot of work
in. The more time you commit to planning out your runs, the quicker
you’ll be able to find your rhythm and be on the road to success.
As we dive into the basics for getting your touring career started, the
most important thing to realize is that there will be several goals and
benchmarks to reach along the way. A goal-oriented approach is key
and will go a long way towards ensuring your course of action is well-
GUIDE
thought out TO INDEPENDENT
and leaves TOURING
you in the best position to succeed.

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30/8/2020 DIY Touring 101 - United States

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When getting started as a touring musician, it is imperative to place
particular emphasis on your hometown fanbase before you expand. By
establishing your local gigs as profitable, the initial financial hit you take
when going into new markets becomes a bit more palatable.
A strong local following also makes you a desirable partner for show
trades. If you can draw 50-100 people in New York, you can reach out to
a band of a similar size in Philadelphia or New Jersey about working
together on a ‘home-and-home’ booking. This provides the opportunity
to perform in front of their audience and start converting those new
listeners to members of your own following. As you continue to go back
to that market, these fans will serve as an effective word-of-mouth
marketing channel to get new people to your shows.

Once you’re confident in your local following, it’s time to settle on a few
cities close by to explore. At this point in your career, you’re likely still
working a day job, so a ‘weekend warrior’ mentality will be your best bet.
Try to set up shows in cities where you can drive home that night, or
where you have friends you can stay with overnight. Spending money on
lodging at the beginning is going to create a cost-prohibitive scenario
and limit how often you can get on the road.
Once you have a few of these ‘weekend warrior’ markets in place, you
can begin to loop them into extended touring routes and start to
establish yourself as a full-on regional artist. At this point you’re on your
way to your first national tour!
The old business adage “you’re only as strong as your network” is just
as effective when it comes to growing your career as a musician. Do
some research to find promoters and bands that are working as hard as
you are and reach out to them. These connections will be imperative to
finding success on the road (and at home), as they will be your
strongest partners in terms of growing your fanbase. Nurture those
relationships and conduct yourself in a way that makes them as excited
BOOKING
to YOUR
work with you as TOUR
you are to work with&them.
GROWING YOUR
As you both grow in your
career, collaborations will lead to more profitable tours and larger
RANGE
attendance at your shows.
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The best place to start when planning your tour is right at the beginning.
How will you travel?
Is it possible to pack your whole band and equipment into a member’s
car or two? If so, great. If not, figure out if you can make due with a
trailer or if you’re going to have to rent a van. The lighter you can
pack and the more creative you get in terms of playing Tetris with
equipment, the less of a financial burden the road will be.
If it’s only a couple of dates, maybe see if you can borrow equipment to
avoid a trailer. Touring with another band from your neighborhood? See if
both acts can combine equipment or if they want to rent a van together
for the weekend. The hardships at the beginning will make it that more
special when you find success.
Now that you’ve got the travel arrangements confirmed, where are you
going to stay? Do you have friends in the city you’re playing in or would
one of the bands you’re playing with let you crash? If not, is it a short
enough drive that you can leave after you play the show? If you do have
to pay for a hotel room, see if you can squeeze the whole band in one
room. Multiple hotel rooms on the first run is a guaranteed loss of money
for the trip.
Finally, consider who you need to bring with you (if anybody). Tour
managers and merch people are lifesavers on bigger tours, but if you
don’t need one, do it yourself. Pick your most responsible bandmate to
tour manage and take turns working the merch boothbefore and after
your set. There isn’t anything you can’t do internally on your first shows,
so don’t get ahead of yourself.

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Another system that could work is to assign roles to everyone in the

band. Someone can handle the tour manager’s responsibilities at the
venue, another member can handle merch and the remaining members
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can take turns driving. If everyone pulls their weight, you don’t have to
worry about having one more mouth to feed (and maybe pay). Even if a
friend volunteers to do it for free, make sure that one extra person
doesn’t negatively affect your travel arrangements or lodging before
TOUR
giving themLOGISTICS
the go ahead.

As an independent artist, you won’t have the luxury of a label to pay for
a dedicated marketing plan around your tour. This means that the grunt
work of getting the word out about your shows will fall on your band.
Luckily, you can promote your tour for free or with a very modest budget.
Here are several ways to raise awareness around each date.

Social Media (Direct Outreach)

There are several ways to reach potential concert-goers online leading
up to your show. Let’s break it down by platform:
Twitter 
Twitter is the most conversation-driven platform and thus the most like
the old-school Myspace method of reaching fans in new tour markets.
Look through your followers and tweet at those who live in the cities
you’ll be visiting. You can also look at who follows the venue and tweet
at several of those people who seem as though they’d be into your
music. If they like the venue enough to follow it, chances are they may
be open to checking out a new band playing there. Also, always make
sure to tag the venue and other bands performing when you tweet about
the show and see if they will retweet it. This way you can preemptively
start working on turning their fans into your fans.
Facebook

Create an event for your show and encourage all your friends in that city
to RSVP ‘yes’ and invite their friends. This is pretty much the digital
equivalent to when bands used to hand out flyers for their gigs at other
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30/8/2020 DIY Touring 101 - United States

shows and you’ll get a similar return. If I had to venture a guess,

depending on how wide you can spread the invites, this might mean
10% of those ‘yes’ RSVPs will be actual concert-goers. That doesn’t
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like an impressive number, but every little bit helps. If you get 100
RSVPs, that could mean playing in front of 10-20 people instead of just
the bartender. A few other tips here: 1.) Make someone from the venue
an admin on the event so that they can send their own invites; 2.) Make
sure to tag the venue, and; 3.) Geo-tag the post when you share the flyer
for the event.
Instagram
Aside from sharing the flyer and doing story updates to promote your
shows, most of your Instagram work will take place on other people’s
profiles. Go to the venue’s Instagram and find people that are
commenting on their posts. Follow them and if you get the follow back,
make sure to comment on any live music photos they post inviting them
to your show. You can also search the geo-tag for the venue and posts
about bigger, similar bands playing at other locations in the city to find
people to invite to the show. In the same vein of what was mentioned
with Facebook, always make sure to tag the venue and other artists on
the bill in your posts about the show and geo-tag the venue. The more
you can integrate into their ‘built-in’ fanbases the more chances you’ll
have of people checking out your set.

Local Press
Do some research and find local writers and press outlets to reach out
to. You may not get coverage the first time around if they’ve never heard
of you, but invite them out to the show and put them on your guest list.
Make sure to get some hang-time at the venue so that, even if you didn’t
get any coverage of this first date, you might get some love the next time
you’re in town.
Digital Advertising
Setting up a digital advertising campaign could seem like a daunting
task, but even a small investment could go a long way. I wrote
a comprehensive article for TuneCore that could serve as your initial
tutorial on the topic if you’re interested in giving it a try.
Hit the Pavement
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Just because you aren’t in a town doesn’t mean you can’t put boots on
the ground. Send the venue some tour flyers to post up in advance of
the show. Have your socials clearly shown on the flyer so people know
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whereCLOSING
they can check out some music. Also, if you have friends or fans
in the area, see if they’d be willing to serve as a makeshift street team.
They can put flyers in local coffee shops and record stores, ask friends
to come out and help spread the word via their social media. Just make
sure to reward them for their help with a guest list spot, free merch or by
KEYS TOdinner
buying them MARKETING YOUR
or some drinks while you’re TOUR
in town!

If you’ve reached the point where this section of the article is applicable,
congratulations! All that hard work is paying off, and you can begin
working on the next step in your journey towards building a sustainable
fanbase away from your hometown.
The question is how does one go about doing so if they may not be
back through those cities again for a few months (or longer)? Once
again, the internet is your friend here. If you’ve noticed that these new
fans have started following you on social media, reach out to them and
say thank you for coming out. If you let them know their support really
means something to you they’re more likely to keep following your
career. You can also mine social media to see if there were people at the
show who may not have followed you yet but could be into doing so.
Search the geo-tag for the venue and see if anyone took any photos or
posted messages about your performance or any of the other bands on
the bill and give them a reason to follow you by clicking the follow button
on their account or commenting on their posts thanking them for coming
out.

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These days, the concept of a mailing list may seem antiquated and, to
an extent, it is. Everyone with an inbox gets bombarded with offers and
unsolicited invites each and every day – most of which are promptly
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deleted without even a glance. Still, despite the high chance that most of
your mailing list messages are going to be deleted, it is worthwhile to get
everyone’s emails at your show for a couple of reasons.
First, some people, particularly those that really loved the show, will
open each mailing list message you send – excited to hear your new
music or get an update on how your career is progressing. Second, you
can geotarget your mailing list for show updates. This is a great way to
digitally flyer before your next visit to a city and get the fans you won
over with your exceptional live show back out to see you again. Similarly,
reach out to these new fans and make sure they’re subscribing on their
favorite listening platforms so that they are updated when you release
your highly anticipated next song or album!

WHAT
Finally, getTO
back DO WITH
out there! ALL
The best wayTHOSE NEW
to keep people FANS
interested and
grow your following is to get back out on the road and play in their city
AFTER
again. YOUR TOUR?

It can’t be stressed enough that touring will not be easy. The glamorous

adventures you’ve seen on TV will not be waiting for you the first few
times you hit the road. That being said, it is 100% worth it. The road is
where you’ll build genuine fans. More importantly, these tough times will
serve as the source of some of your best memories with your
bandmates, and making it through the struggle will add a whole other
level of appreciation for the more enjoyable tours you’ll embark on later
in your career.
So good luck, get out there and start building your fanbase beyond your
homebase!
By Rich Nardo, VP at Ngagency

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