So your band has decided it’s time to hit the road.  You’ve got your live act together, your cds and merchandise are ready for sale and you’ve decided on the length of time you’re going to be on the road.  What do you do next?  Simply put, you would book your shows and hit the road, but since the goal is to be successful, you should probably take a few steps back and come up with a plan if you want to make things happen.

Plan your route

A good place to start is to figure out where you’re going.  It’s easy to look at a map and pick out all the big cities nearby, but you should make sure to check into the smaller towns and cities as well.  Small towns offer some of the best shows out there as people are always looking for something to do, so when a new band comes through, people tend to check them out.  Planning out a route can be fun, but you should keep in mind that just because you want to play in Minneapolis on Saturday, it doesn’t necessarily mean you can get a show there on that date.  Flexibility is the key with your routing.  Make sure that you always keep your options open and have alternate places to go.  It helps out a lot if you can switch city A with city B to get the shows you want.

Start with a calendar with the dates you want to play on and get a map.  Another good resource to have on hand would be an online map site.  Online maps are cool because you can enter in your starting point and stop point to get an estimated drive time.  Knowing how long of a drive it is from one place to the next is crucial to booking a successful tour as opposed to a stressful one.  Before you start, you should have a few things in mind…  think about how much driving you want to do.  Keep in mind that just because you think a five hour drive is no big deal most of the time, that after a few days on the road, your drives can very easily start feeling longer and longer as the days go by.  While it might seem cool to take on a long drive so you can play in a city far away, it’s not always the best way to go.  It’s one thing to take a single show in another town far away, but when you’re doing it day after day it can get very taxing on you and your band.

How do you decide where to play and where not to play?

I suggest networking with other bands that sound similar to your own band.  This can ultimately mean the difference between a great tour and a poor one.  I suggest this for several reasons…  One is that playing with similar bands will help you find an audience that appreciates your music when you play out.  There’s nothing worse than being an acoustic rock band that gets booked with three death metal bands.  Another reason you should network with other bands is to help you find venues that will cater to your music.  Established bands tend to know where to play and where not to play in their home towns.  You can get a lot of good advice from them when it comes to booking and playing shows on the road.  I’ll go into more detail about this later in my article on booking your tour. 

The most important thing to find out when picking where you want to go is what locations offer the best situation for your band and style of music.  Some places are very music friendly and almost anything goes.  Places like this are great for almost all styles of music and are fun to play at because people appreciate diversity in their music.  Some places however don’t have as much to offer for all styles.  If you’re playing a very specific style that has more of a cult following than more mainstream sounding music, finding places that are friendly to your style will be necessary to your success.  Take your time doing your research an make sure that the places you go will be friendly to your music. 

All in all, try not to overdo it.  Pick routes that are easy to drive, find places and other bands that will work well with your style and do your research.  If you rush things, your tour might not work out as well as you had hoped, but if you take your time and find good places for your band to play, you’ll have a more successful tour in the longrun!