Touring can be a terrific experience no matter what happens, but the feeling of driving for hours to perform for a new audience in a new city and showing up at a venue that doesn’t fit the vibe of your music can be extraordinarily deflating. At some point, your band is going to get to a place where you can adequately control that sort of stuff. But for now, it’s your responsibility to research the right spaces for your music, ensuring each stop on your tour is a success.
Here are six tips for finding your ideal venues on the road.
If you have a handle on who’s making your kind of music and promoting the kind of shows you like to play in the cities you’ll be visiting on your next tour, you’re off to a great start. Knowing who plays where in a given city is going to give you the best possible chance to reach a new audience and make strong connections with like-minded artists and promoters. Do your research!
This pairs nicely with the first tip. The better you know your own musical or technical needs, the easier it will be to find spaces to best accommodate your live show. If you’re making quiet chamber music, booking a rockabilly dive bar is probably not the best idea. That might sound obvious, but it’s often surprising how much the context and the environment of a show affect how well it comes across to an audience. Even if you play the best set of your life, if the sound is bad or the venue doesn’t really suit the emotional effects you’re trying to achieve, it may fall short.
Did a band you like or are friends with recently go on tour in the same places you’re looking to perform in? Steal their venue list! If your sound and aesthetic are similar, chances are their promoters will be glad to hear from you when you reach out.
We love it when bands from out of town go bold and set up shows (usually through local organizers or other local artists in that city) in strange, unusual places. There’s no better way to make a great first impression on a new crowd than to bring them out to spots that don’t usually host live music. Get creative and don’t be afraid to chase your wildest ideas!
For example, our friend Jessica Allossery did a nationwide tour consisting only of house concerts and wrote about the experience here.
If you’re blazing into a new city without a built-in audience waiting for your band to show up, you have to get creative. An easy way to guarantee that the right people will hear your music is to pair up with a promoter whose themed event your music fits into.
Use every show you play as an opportunity to network. If you’re planning a show in a few months in Burlington, Vermont, and a band from that city comes to play where you live, go support them and tell them you’ll be coming through. If you don’t already have a gig, pick their brains about where to play, ask them their favorite places to grab dinner, or where the college crowd hangs out on weekends. The more you tour, the bigger your network becomes. Eventually, a huge chunk of your gigs will be booked hassle-free by friends and people owing each other favors. It’s a beautiful live music ecosystem, and you deserve access to it!
This article was originally written and posted on Soundfly. Take 15% off any of Soundfly's mainstage courses with promo code: SONGTRUST15