Six ways to earn extra money on tour
If you’re having trouble making the numbers work as you’re planning to hit the road with your band, think creatively about ways to earn more money on tour. Read the post.
how to tour
Calculating a tour budget
Hitting the road can be a wonderful way to share your music, expand your fanbase, and have amazing experiences. But when you add up all the costs, it can be pretty expensive, so you’d better make a tour budget before you book those gigs. Read the post.
How to make a detailed input list for your live shows
An input list should include every instrument, DI, and vocal that’s part of your stage set-up. Here are some tips to help you put together an effective input list with minimal headache. Read More.
The details your live sound engineer wants to know
Think you’ve told your live sound engineer everything he needs to know for your big gig? Don’t forget these important details. Read More.
Set yourself up for success with an accurate stage plot
A well-crafted stage plot – customized to the lineup and tech needs of your band – can go a long way towards setting yourself up for success once you hit the stage, especially for a multi-band event. Read More.
Five ways to get more gigs
If your goal is to get more gigs and play better venues, these five tips can help you make the most of your time and energy and give you a plan of attack. Read More.
Are you building a music career or just filling the calendar?
Have you ever felt frantic about getting more gigs on your schedule? Depending on your goals and where you are in your music career, that may be exactly the thing to do. If you are in this to create a lasting career in music, one that builds momentum and progresses from one level to the next, you need a plan when booking music gigs. Read more.
Expand your audience with opening act and support slots
One way to expand your audience is to serve as an opening act for a better-known artist on multiple tour dates or one local show. Sometimes you can get lucky and be in the right place at the right time, but if you’re more interested in strategy than chance, here are three suggestions to help you land some of these choice performance slots. Read more.
Simple travel tips for musicians (and everyone else)
Traveling can bring excitement to your life, and it can bring stress and upheaval, as well. Even when I’m not touring for my music, when I head to the hills for a month, I know how to make all systems go with as little as possible. Here are four simple travel tips to help you endure life on the road without feeling like roadkill. Read more.
Crossing the border to the Great White North: a musician’s guide
Playing music gigs in Canada just got easier thanks to a new law, but crossing the border with your instrument still requires preparation and organization. If you’re planning a trip to play music gigs in Canada, here’s some advice and a few online resources to help make your border crossing smooth and easy. Read more.
International Music Gigs, Pt. 2 – Managing Your Gear
When playing international music gigs, singers and flutists have it easy. Drummers, guitarists, bassists, and keyboard players, on the other hand, have to figure out more creative solutions to manage their gear. If your music-making equipment is larger and more cumbersome than a standard airplane carry-on, how do you ensure that, when you take the stage miles away from home, you have the gear you need to a give a performance that you can be proud of? Read more.
Touring Tips For International Music Gigs
Whether you’re driving north from the east coast to play a coffee shop in Montreal, bringing your electro-pop act to a string of clubs in Tokyo and Thailand, or presenting a midnight set at a jazz festival in Germany, performing music gigs abroad can be an incredibly rewarding and cool experience — but one that brings its own set of challenges. Here are tips from seasoned musical world travelers to help you make your international music gigs run as smooth as possible. Read more.
Making Money: Merch, Music Gigs, and Your DIY Tour
The most important thing to do when dealing with money is to make sure to write EVERYTHING down. A good way to keep tabs is to put all the info in Excel. We divide it into date, gas, food, lodging, salary (how much we pay our musicians), pay (from the venue), CD sales, t-shirts, tips, extra. At the end of each day we total it up. There are two main ways to make money as a band: 1) Guarantees/door/bar percentage, and 2) Selling merchandise. Read more.
How to Get Gigs and Make a Living Playing Music
Many people have asked us how we transformed our band into a sustainable business, touring 250 days a year. We’ve created a series of videos to help explain what we’ve learned over the past few years in the hopes that it will help you learn how to get gigs and get more good bands out on the road. We’ll explain how to book music gigs that are well attended and pay guarantees, promote your shows, make extra money, build a following, and describe who wants to take your money (and why you shouldn’t let them). Read more.
Saving Money While Touring
Traveling to play music gigs is expensive. Being on the road also takes a lot of planning, time, energy, and day-of alertness for travel plans to be flawlessly executed. Whether touring around your favorite regions of the globe or traveling to a far off city for a music conference, there are a few tricks and tips that can help make your travels go smoothly, and keep your bank account afloat at the same time. Read more.