Touring Ain't Easy

Touring ain’t easy. The idea of traveling the world may look glamorous from an outsider’s perspective, but the reality is far less appealing.

Don’t get me wrong— It is fun. I did it for years, both as an artist and a tour manager, and I experienced some of the most memorable experiences of my life.

But driving 8 hours and then jumping on stage isn’t enjoyable. And neither is couch surfing or living off fast food for a month.

So let me tell you about the challenges and pitfalls, as someone who has experienced them all.

Tour routing must make sense logistically. This means keeping drives manageable and making sure you’re going in the right direction. It also means playing the right markets and taking off just enough dates that you get your required rest without breaking the bank. This is because a night off means a day in the red (expenses with no income).

So when you book a tour, you create your budget based on every show happening without any hiccups, and for the agreed upon price. And luckily, we now have data which tells us where our fans are, so that alleviates the risk of throwing a dart at a dartboard with a blindfold on.

But even then, what happens when shows are struggling to sell tickets?

I wanted to highlight a couple tweets from this week to give you a more vivid snapshot.

A lot of artists are embarrassed when their shows aren’t selling, and they work with their teams to come up with every excuse in the book in order to save face. Grip didn’t resort to excuses. He told it like it is, and I respect that; and hopefully this will ensure his true fans pay to come see him on his next tour.

Also, a lot of our business is smoke and mirrors, as many artists and others attempt to fake it til they make it. So when the air clears and the truth comes out, they appear worse for attempting to portray a heightened success.

And unfortunately, there will always be those that root for your failure. Jealousy will have followers secretly hoping for your downfall, especially if they think you’re living on top of a house of cards.

Haters want your album to flop, your popularity to dwindle, and your tours to be abject failures.

So you still wanna be in the business?

I also wrote about my own lessons gained from a struggling tour this week, including how I go about handling the challenges of low ticket sales.

Selling tickets is easier said than done, and I know plenty of artists that have millions of social media followers, but can’t sell 100 tickets to a show. So be grateful for the fans willing to pay to come see you rock the stage, and give them your best, no matter the turnout.

If you don’t have time to read an entire thread (I don’t blame you), I’ll give you the quick synopsis…

I worked tirelessly to book a two and a half month tour… Some of the shows struggled to the point of having to give a few price reductions and cancelling a couple shows; and the manager blamed me, and will no longer return my calls.

Here were a few takeaways:

1. There’s a reason some artists or managers jump around so much, with no loyalty. They always believe the grass is greener, but it rarely is.

2. I work on behalf of artists, but promoters are also my clients. If I would have screwed over all of these promoters (by not working with them to soften the blow of a big money loser), I would have burnt numerous bridges, ensuring they would never take on shows for my other artists. And I probably would have still been dropped by this particular artist.

3. We can only control our efforts. The results are out of our control. And we can’t take the response of others personally. We can only learn and improve. I learned that over performing isn’t always efficient. I probably could have made this a successful one month tour; and with less than half the effort.

Nobody ever said the game was easy. If it was, everyone would be flourishing.

I hope the lessons I’ve gained continue to be beneficial. Please feel free to respond with any other ideas for the newsletter that would be helpful to you.

I appreciate the support more than you know.

Til next week.