charic Posted June 25, 2012 Share Posted June 25, 2012 Once my band have finished our first album (I'm trying to set a deadline of around September) I really like the idea of doing a week long "mini-tour". We don't have a great deal of experience in gigging as we got our first few gigs done and then decided to expand our setlist (we only had 20 minutes). On this "mini-tour" our set should be approx. an hour long, with 8 (I think) originals and 2 covers. As we're a pretty heavy band I'm quite concious of trying to pick the right venues and also trying to get appropriate bands to play with us. So do you guys have any experience of: Finding venues outside of your local area Finding bands outside of your local area (I prefer the idea of getting a local band at each gig, should they support or headline though? I'm unsure... but we really want to do our full set) Sorting accommodation along the tour? What's the best cheap option? There's obviously sleeping in the van or not sleeping but we can't do that ALL week Any other tips? I've never really had to organise anything other than pub gigs before and it's a little bit daunting at the moment. My current idea for locations are: Norwich Sheffield Leeds Manchester Birmingham London Then finishing locally in either: St Neots, Peterborough or Cambridge Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yorick Posted June 25, 2012 Share Posted June 25, 2012 Birmingham, heavy stuff at Scruffy Murphys. Contact Sirius/Heretic promotions on farcebook. Small-ish room but great PA and crew. Also the Asylum2, great room which is the Madhouse rehearsal studios upstairs bar, Contact Rych Stanton to book the room. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charic Posted June 25, 2012 Author Share Posted June 25, 2012 (edited) Wow thanks Yorick I really like the look of ScruffyMurphy's looks like they really have got their sh*t together Edited June 25, 2012 by charic Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charic Posted June 25, 2012 Author Share Posted June 25, 2012 Btw I'm liking the sound of Mindless Torture, not bad at all mate! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulpirie8 Posted June 25, 2012 Share Posted June 25, 2012 (edited) Don't have much advice in terms of specific venues unless you planned on including Scotland in your tour! But we tend to just get in touch with venues/promoters on Facebook (or drop them an email with demos attached) and try to sort stuff out that way! If you tell them about your tour and that you're trying to help promote your album etc. then most venues IME will be happy to put you on! And the same goes with bands! The hardest part is usually organising them in an order which geographically makes sense as venues won't necessarily be free on the night you want! In terms of accomodation it depends how comfortable you want to be! We sleep in the van most of the time with the odd youth hostel thrown in when we feel we need it! We also have a tent in the van which is sometimes a better option, weather permitting! And obviously if you have any friends dotted around the country that wouldn't mind putting up an entire band for the night you should ask them too! Hope you find some of this useful, Paul Edited June 25, 2012 by paulpirie8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike257 Posted June 25, 2012 Share Posted June 25, 2012 If you don't want to rough it in the van and can all save a few quid to chip in, look for a Travelodge within a sensible (say 30 min?) drive of your venue, pref on the route to your next one. If you book early enough they do them stupid cheap, sometimes as little as 9 quid for a room that comfortably sleeps three. We occasionally squeezed six of us into one room with some stealthy sneaking in, but we did a week long tour where we had two hotel rooms every night, was luxury to get a post-gig shower and a decent kip. As for your set length, you'll probably find that as an unsigned band without an established national fanbase, you'll be booked on nights with a bunch of local unsigned bands of (hopefully) similar genre, and won't be treated any differently to them, so probably 4 bands doing 30 mins each or something similar - I'd be surprised to see anyone on a bill like that given an hour set. It'll be the best week of your life though! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charic Posted June 25, 2012 Author Share Posted June 25, 2012 [quote name='mike257' timestamp='1340622725' post='1707023'] If you don't want to rough it in the van and can all save a few quid to chip in, look for a Travelodge within a sensible (say 30 min?) drive of your venue, pref on the route to your next one. If you book early enough they do them stupid cheap, sometimes as little as 9 quid for a room that comfortably sleeps three. We occasionally squeezed six of us into one room with some stealthy sneaking in, but we did a week long tour where we had two hotel rooms every night, was luxury to get a post-gig shower and a decent kip. As for your set length, you'll probably find that as an unsigned band without an established national fanbase, you'll be booked on nights with a bunch of local unsigned bands of (hopefully) similar genre, and won't be treated any differently to them, so probably 4 bands doing 30 mins each or something similar - I'd be surprised to see anyone on a bill like that given an hour set. It'll be the best week of your life though! [/quote] I was thinking of a hotel every other night maybe... if we decide not to stay in the big city's then maybe we could get it cheaper I suppose. To be honest, it IS an advertising thing but it's more a baptism by fire for gigging Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charic Posted June 25, 2012 Author Share Posted June 25, 2012 [quote name='paulpirie8' timestamp='1340622035' post='1707009'] But we tend to just get in touch with venues/promoters on Facebook (or drop them an email with demos attached) and try to sort stuff out that way! [/quote] How do you find the venues and promotors though? Do you just scour the net looking or is there some kind of resource? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulpirie8 Posted June 25, 2012 Share Posted June 25, 2012 The best resource for that is probably "The Unsigned Guide"! It has a pretty extensive list in there with contact details for each of them! They used to do a book which got updated every year but they stopped doing it a few years ago! Now they just have a website you have to subscribe to! You can pick up one of the older edition books second-hand on amazon for a couple of quid; I'm sure most of the venues are still relevant! You could always just do a google search though I suppose i.e. Music venues in Birmingham! I'm sure you would find most of them that way! But yeah like I say most venues tend to have a facebook page and more often than not, that's how we get in touch! Paul Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charic Posted June 25, 2012 Author Share Posted June 25, 2012 I'll check out "the unsigned guide" I'm sure a book would be quite handy anyway Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dmccombe7 Posted June 25, 2012 Share Posted June 25, 2012 Try Ivory Blacks in Glasgow if up this way. They have a good following of young heavy rock bands. Hotels are an expensive way to tour if only just starting off. If you can afford it then by all means go for it though. Its how i did it way back in the day and i enjoyed every minute of it. Try B&B accomodation but it does limit the end of night party. Hostels are another option but haven't tried them. Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike257 Posted June 25, 2012 Share Posted June 25, 2012 [quote name='charic' timestamp='1340623601' post='1707063'] I was thinking of a hotel every other night maybe... if we decide not to stay in the big city's then maybe we could get it cheaper I suppose. To be honest, it IS an advertising thing but it's more a baptism by fire for gigging [/quote] Yeah, the city centre ones aren't usually cheap, but we did a week long Academy tour and stayed either on the outskirts of the cities or in the first motorway services with a Travelodge along the route to our next show. Don't think we ever drove more than 40 mins after a gig, and there was only one night where we had to go slightly in the 'wrong' direction to bag a 9 quid room. Routing the tour as sensibly as you can (not crisscrossing back and forth across the country!) is really important in terms of keeping your budget in check. Fuel will likely be your single biggest expense on the road. Make sure all of your communication to venues and all of your promo material marks this out as being a tour to promote the album - one thing I've been advised many times is that if you're touring, it should be [i]for a purpose. [/i]What are you selling/promoting? Just gigging for the sake of it is a missed opportunity. As soon as you have your schedule in place, start looking at doing some localised promotion in each area. Are there local websites/magazines/Facebook groups covering your genre or the local scene in general? In Liverpool we have a couple of free mags that are distributed to bars, venues etc around the city that cover the local scene, and general and genre-specific Facebook pages, some of which are pretty active and full of useful contacts. Anything you can do to engage with people through these channels, make some friends and even get some help with local feet-on-the-ground promotion is a good thing. The localised promotion backs up the next big one. Merch. Get it, make it look good but don't overspend on it - you need to price it affordably enough to have people take it home, and enough of a profit margin that it is worth your while. Reasons why this is important are two-fold. People have short memories, so you ideally want everyone who walks through the door of the show to go home with [i]something[/i] that has your name on. Make this as easy as possible for them - it's good to have t-shirts and CD's (price them cheaper in a bundle eg. £7 shirts, £4 CD, tenner for both) for the spenders, badges for those with pocket change to spend, and flyers liberally scattered around the venue (with agreement from venue staff, don't tick anyone off with your mess!) for the tightarses in the crowd. The other reason merch is so important is cash flow. Every t-shirt you sell is a meal for a band member or two, or a chunk of the petrol to your next stop. A few last minute t-shirt sales have bailed me out on the road more times than I care to remember. Put someone sensible in charge of the money, have an ongoing float and write down everything you sell. Only spend what you need to get by - if you're going to take food/beer spends out of the tour kitty agree a daily limit and stick to it. Breaking even on a tour is hard work but can be done. Basically, think hard about what you want to get out of it. At the very least, it'll be a week long crash course in gigging, and a great time with your mates, but a bit of planning and extra work can hopefully make it more than that and bring some new fans, contacts and positive attention to your band. Exciting stuff! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charic Posted June 25, 2012 Author Share Posted June 25, 2012 Wow! Thanks mike lots to think about. We do currently have merch but it's online only at the moment as we haven't had the cash/viable opportunity to sell. The mainly problem with said merch being the fact that it's based in america (great quality though). May need to do a search for UK based Tshirt printers! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike257 Posted June 25, 2012 Share Posted June 25, 2012 No worries, happy to help! You can usually get pretty good prices for shirts from small local places, try and stick to a single colour design if you can, every extra colour adds to the setup and print price for screen printing. If you can rope in somebody who is a canny designer you can do a lot with one colour. There's a few BC members who do it for a living if you want tips from the experts. I've usually bought about 100 at a time in a mix of sizes, you can get them pretty cheaply if you buy decent quantities, I think ours came in about £3.50 -£4 each and sold at £7 - a much better return than you'll get from those online "print on demand" places. Badges are a good cheep and cheerful one and there's a few websites that do them for a pretty low prices, as opposed to stickers which seem to be pricey for ones that look good unless you're buying enough to cover the Empire State Building from top to bottom. The other important thing I forgot to say about merch is making it visible. Too many bands say "you can buy .... from us, come and find us afterwards" and then depend on your crowd remembering what the drummer looked like and grabbing him at the bar, while the rest of you sit in the dressing room. Make it visible, have a merch table, and have somebody glued to it at all times. Being available and approachable will win you fans and friends. A good idea is a ready made display - I got two of the biggest cork noticeboards I could find, plastered them with the band's logo and then pinned/taped on all of our merch and prices. Stuck a couple of hinges on them so they would fold shut for transport (and keep the display from getting knocked about) and you've got an instant shop front that you can throw up on a table and be ready in seconds. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charic Posted June 25, 2012 Author Share Posted June 25, 2012 (edited) Well here's our current merch [attachment=111427:IMAG0369.jpg] [attachment=111428:IMAG0376.jpg] Which I'm guessing is pretty much out for screen printing As for visibility... the orange should help for that Edited June 25, 2012 by charic Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike257 Posted June 25, 2012 Share Posted June 25, 2012 Is that front and rear print on the tees? The two print locations mean an extra set of screens, so double the setup costs. It's still screen-printable, just a little more expensive so will cut into your profit. Maybe one of our resident experts (Paul h is a t-shirt wizard!) can give you some advice on the best way to lower the colour count for printing. Taking this way off topic from actually booking yourself a tour here, and the great advice flying in from everywhere else - happy to help with anything tour related if I can though, feel free to PM me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charic Posted June 25, 2012 Author Share Posted June 25, 2012 Nah, ones tshirts the other is hoodies and good point on the off topicness. I may do some new tshirt designs in my spare time and see what I can come up with Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike257 Posted June 25, 2012 Share Posted June 25, 2012 Ah, of course - I was looking on my mobile, tiny pics! The t-shirt design will easily go in one colour so shouldn't be an issue - the hoodie design could be tweaked though, although hoodies are pretty expensive to buy/print compared to t-shirts. Are any touring bands coming through your local area? Have a chat to them about venues/promoters and get it straight from somebody with experience, also means you can tap up some potential bands to share a gig with. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charic Posted June 25, 2012 Author Share Posted June 25, 2012 I'm unsure how the tshirt design could currently go into one colour (it's currently gradiented, has a drop shadow and a minimum of 2 colours because of the writing and orange diamond) No touring bands in the area I can think of but I do know a person or two I can drop a line to ask some questions I had forgotten about. I think we'd only look at doing the tshirts for now. It was a case of "just because we can" with the online thing (they are VERY warm though, mine gets stolen all the time) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rogerstodge Posted June 25, 2012 Share Posted June 25, 2012 If you get as far as London try the 12 bar club in Denmark street, you'll get a gig there no probs Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Admiral Posted June 25, 2012 Share Posted June 25, 2012 [url="http://www.amazon.com/Tour-Smart-And-Break-Band/dp/0979731305"]http://www.amazon.co...d/dp/0979731305[/url] Well worth a read and it's available in the UK I'm sure. I bought mine in Brooklyn NY, but the advice is equally valid for UK tours. Top tip 1 : The spreadsheet is your friend - if you aren't good on MS excel, find someone who is, or get on a 'basics' course at your local nightschool. You can put everything into it - mileage, cost per gallon, cost of shirts and CDs, merch sales by venue etc - and it will let you track exactly where the profit is (and more importantly isn't). Top tip 2 : If you are playing to an audience which has a remote chance of being a 'mixed age' crowd - e.g. : , rock, punk or metal, - don't just buy S,M,L t shirts. Get some XL, XXL and 'Meat Loaf' sized ones, as IME there are plenty of middle aged blokes who still like to see a live band, but 25 years of Guiness and curries has left them with a waist size that used to be their chest size - and older guys usually have jobs, and consequently - money. A Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charic Posted June 25, 2012 Author Share Posted June 25, 2012 [quote name='The Admiral' timestamp='1340644882' post='1707518'] [url="http://www.amazon.com/Tour-Smart-And-Break-Band/dp/0979731305"]http://www.amazon.co...d/dp/0979731305[/url] Well worth a read and it's available in the UK I'm sure. I bought mine in Brooklyn NY, but the advice is equally valid for UK tours. Top tip 1 : The spreadsheet is your friend - if you aren't good on MS excel, find someone who is, or get on a 'basics' course at your local nightschool. You can put everything into it - mileage, cost per gallon, cost of shirts and CDs, merch sales by venue etc - and it will let you track exactly where the profit is (and more importantly isn't). Top tip 2 : If you are playing to an audience which has a remote chance of being a 'mixed age' crowd - e.g. : , rock, punk or metal, - don't just buy S,M,L t shirts. Get some XL, XXL and 'Meat Loaf' sized ones, as IME there are plenty of middle aged blokes who still like to see a live band, but 25 years of Guiness and curries has left them with a waist size that used to be their chest size - and older guys usually have jobs, and consequently - money. A [/quote] Tip 1: No problem there, I started out programming in Excel Tip 2: Brilliant and valid point Will check out the book, might see if it's available on kindle Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silvia Bluejay Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 Bumping this to get more suggestions in! I flooded Cerberus Cell's FB page with links to London music pubs and venues, but I guess they may need more suggestions for outside London too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charic Posted June 27, 2012 Author Share Posted June 27, 2012 It's appreciated bluejay Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woodyratm Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 I generally ask other bands who I know have toured before for links. If you were heading to Aberdeen, I could suggest some awesome places to play. Or at least one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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