Booking Your Own Tour
Bands want glory, and practicing late nights in your parents’ living room doesn’t always give you the recognition you deserve. So, you do what any band would, you start playing local shows. You get everyone you know, your mom, your siblings and anyone you can grab off the sidewalk, to come and see you. And that’s great for a while. But you outgrow local shows like a toddler outgrows pants, and now you’re ready to book your first tour. So how exactly do you do that?
Long Island drummer Will Noon and Pennsylvania vocalist and guitarist Chris Cerulli saved money by doing it themselves. Noon, who currently plays with Straylight Run, booked a tour for Eyeball Record’s Zolof The Rock and Roll Destroyer with his own booking agency “Super Hot Booking,” and Cerulli recently booked his first tour for his own band, Motionless In White.
Here’s what these “do-it-yourselfers” had to say:
Decide where you want to go—Take out a map or an atlas and sit down with your bandmates. If you have friends in neighboring states, try to go there first. Not only will they have friends to bring to your show, but they’ll also offer you a place to crash. Sleeping in a van sounds like you’re living the rock star life, but remember home offers comforts, like a hot shower.
Keep your tour small—Don’t try to go cross-country on your first go around, “It’s hard work, so just be ready for it,” says Will Noon, who is also the stickman in the hardcore band Breaking Pangaea, based out of Philadelphia. “Start small. Play locally and then slowly expand. There’s no point in booking a four-week national tour when you’ve never played the surrounding cities.”
Noon also suggests spacing out your touring schedule. Most bands take their first tour during Spring Break or over summer vacation when most bands and people who go to shows are out of school. If you only have one week for your first tour, you may want to try to play as many shows as possible, but that’s probably going to burn you out.
Remember you can always tour again—You don’t have to go everywhere that first week; you can book some time to tour throughout the year. “The first Breaking Pangaea tour, I think we wanted to play 10 shows in 11 days,” says Noon. “We ended up playing four shows in seven days I think. Ha!” Lesson learned? It’s important to pace yourself.
So, let’s say you’ve dotted the map and gone online to find clubs where you want to play. One easy way to do your search is to type “list of venues” plus a city name into yahoo.com. Once you find a few good spots, you can cold-call them and send out demos. Cold calling is fine as long as you limit your calls. After ringing the club once, follow up about a week later. If you don’t book something right away, don’t despair. Ask if the venue received your press kit and tell them you’ll call back once they’ve given your CD a listen. When you do book a show—and you will—call about a week before you perform to confirm.
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