Touring is a big part of the music industry.  It helps artists broaden their fanbase outside of the internet and playing shows in their hometowns, and gives them a great opportunity to sell their cds and merchandise as well as a chance to meet those fans in far away places.  Signed artists, with the help of their record label, management and booking agents seem to make up the majority of the touring artists out there, but at the same time there are plenty of do-it-yourself bands out there.  There are many different sources out there to get information for touring bands, but I’ve often found frustration in finding the answers I’ve been looking for.  The goal of this article and the others we’ll be posting on the site will be to help provide all you do-it-yourself touring musicians with valuable information, so that your tour will be successful and well planned.

As this article is called the basics of independent touring, I won’t go into too many details about touring, but by the end of it, you should have a better understanding of what to expect from touring as an independent, do-it-yourself artist.

First off, you need to ask yourself and your bandmates if you’re ready to tour.  This seems like a pretty straightforward question, but you should consider the following:

Is our live performance strong enough to take on the road?  Hopefully if you’re planning a tour, you’re not planning on playing your first show as a band in a city on the other side of the world.  A strong live show will be crucial to your success in your own town as well as anywhere else.  If your band is well rehearsed and has successfully played many strong shows on your own turf, then a tour might be what you need to take things to a new level.  If you haven’t left the garage yet, then get out in your own town first, and play some shows to see how it goes.  Sometimes the best rehearsals are smaller shows that didn’t go the way you planned as you can learn from playing live just as much as you can learn working out the parts of the songs your band will be playing.  A strong live act will catch your audiences’ attention and will make your tour successful in the long run, so unless you’re 100% confident in your show, I’d suggest putting off touring until you are.

Do we have plenty of merchandise to sell, and what are we selling?  This is one of the most important questions you need to ask before booking a single show.  While a tour can help make an established act money for future endeavours, being unprepared by not having merchandise to sell at your shows will be a killer for your band.  Make sure you have enough cds, t-shirts, stickers and anything else you feel your fans might want to take home with them from your shows.  A good cd is a great start as people will hopefully want to buy your music, but make sure it’s in your possession before you even bother booking your shows if you can.  There’s nothing worse than finishing your album, and being ready to hit the road only to find out the discs won’t be in your hands until halfway through the tour.  T-shirts and stickers are great things to have as well as they not only make you money, but they’re walking (or driving) billboards for your band.  Why is this such a big deal?  It’s simple really…  chances are, you won’t recieve what you’re hoping for in guarantees from your shows.  Especially when you’re a band on your first (or even second tour) you’ll find it hard to get venue owners and promoters to give you large sums of cash even if they have heard of you.  If you have a proper stockpile of merchandise including cds to sell at your shows, you’ll find it so much easier to make it from point A to B without your bass player starving in the process.

How long will we be on the road?  You can plan for any distance and timeframe to work with, but for a first time tour, I’d suggest trying a shorter tour rather than trying to do the whole country over six months on your first tour.  This is for a couple of reasons…  If you have financial problems or breakdown along the way, it’s much easier to fix your problems on a short tour than it is on a longer one.  Another thought is that you can slowly build up your fanbase radius this way.  Think of it like this…  if you play for a week on your first tour and build up a good repoire with the places from the tour, it makes it easier to book at those same places when it comes time for your next tour.  If you take your time building things up as opposed to trying to do everything at once, you’ll be more successful in the longrun.

Obviously this isn’t everything you’ll need to know to get on the road and performing, but it’s a good place to start.  In order to be successful on the road, you should get together with your band and ask those questions.  You might be surprised that you have a ways to go before you’re ready to hit the road, but then again you might find out just the opposite. 

When you’re ready to get on the road, check back here and start looking for articles that will help you with all the steps you’ll need to take to go on tour.  I’ll be posting about booking your tour, working with promoters, networking and staying alive on the road in the very near future as well as interviewing bands who have been out there successfully touring to help your band out!