Chapter 9

Managing Tour Routing and Budgets

This chapter deals with some of the obstacles you'll encounter when you're routing a tour. It may seem a bit complicated at first, but with study and experience you'll develop the skills you need to master this aspect of being a bandleader. To give you a head start, the last part of this chapter has a five-part step-by-step demonstration of how I put together an imaginary tour. This process illustrates all of the complications that can arise from routing and budgeting a tour - and gives you some of the most common solutions as well.

Tour routing and budgeting directly affect one another in a number of ways. You need to book a lot of gigs to make it worthwhile for you to go on the road. However, traveling from one gig to another costs a lot of money. So, once you decide to book a tour, you need to make sure that you book enough gigs to cover your travel expenses. You'll want to avoid excessively difficult travel itineraries (because they can exhaust you and your band members and can affect your presentation), but at the same time you need to minimize your days off (because they can weigh down the profitability of your tour). Balancing the routing and budgeting aspects of a tour often seems like a juggling act. Once you have begun the booking process, you'll find that your tour's itinerary will take on a life of its own. Establishing total control over the routing process is impossible because too many touring elements are beyond your control.

Troubleshooting Touring Conflicts

Complications generally arise when you start arranging your transportation for your tour-in-progress. This happens because this is the first point where you see how your transportation costs affect your tour's budget. When you have a reasonable idea of where you're going to be and when you're going to be there, you should begin to check into your transportation routing and expenses. I usually find that I am ready to do this approximately two-thirds of the way through the booking process. Sometimes you find that you just "can't get there from here" or at least can't get there in time. Sold-out flights, unworkable travel connections, high transportation costs, among other unpredictable factors, will add to your routing problems.

Routing problems occur on every tour. These problems may be caused by:

• disparities among commitment dates of various venues in your tour;

• a need to schedule unexpected last-minute gigs;

• conflicts between travel times and performance times, which are often not known until the tour schedule is relatively complete;

• excessive distances between gigs, which can raise transportation costs;

• too many open dates;

• the fact that other bands are often competing for the same dates, which means that certain venues may wait until the last minute before they commit to a gig.

You can solve routing problems in a number of ways. Which solution you choose will depend upon the individual circumstances of a gig, and perhaps the relationship that you have with your client. For instance, you can:

• change the date of a gig;

• fill in holes in your itinerary by asking your clients for recommendations and then scheduling additional gigs;

• consider alternative forms of transportation, which may have preferable schedules and fares, by contacting a travel agent    or by searching on the Internet;

• negotiate with clients so that they agree to pay for the band's accommodations for extra days off;

• lower band members' salaries slightly for a gig or two to bring the budget in line;

• solidify weak gigs that have yet to commit;

• take alternative gigs for a date that may have been canceled.

As you're finessing the routing of your tour, you may find that you need to call back a few gigs that have confirmed to see if they have the flexibility to move dates around. Plan ahead for the fact that this may happen. When you first contact a venue and set a date, ask your client if the venue has one or two possible alternative dates. Don't be afraid to ask about changing a date. Experienced clients understand routing problems and will accommodate your request if they can. And besides, you never know, sometimes changing a date at your request also solves a routing problem that the client is having. Clients deal with routing problems on their end as well, and they are often juggling dates. On occasion, a client may even call you to ask if you can change a date. Do your best to help your client out if you can. Cooperation will help you establish a positive reputation in the business and a solid working relationship with the client. When you're considering swapping dates, keep in mind that gigs with signed contracts can't be changed.

Some venues are locked into dates that can't be changed. This is frequently the case with festivals. However, if the festival is a multiday event, the client may be able to juggle the day of your particular concert. Arts presenters, most nonprofits, and concert series that book a year in advance, will not be able to change their dates. Don't bother to ask. Clubs, hotels, and small concert halls have the most flexibility. If you have a signed contract and the venue has started to advertise your appearance or if a festival or school concert hall has no other available dates and/or booking conflicts are too formidable, you most likely won't be able to change the date. However, it is always worth a quick call to find out about the possibility of changing a date.

Nothing is more stressful than looking at your tour calendar and seeing too many open stretches of nonworking days in your itinerary. Open dates increase your expenses because you and your band members are forced either to fly home and back again in the middle of your tour or stay out on the road and pay hotels for days on end with no income. If you have no alternative gigs lined up for the dates that are not yet filled, do more venue research. Call your clients for the dates you've already booked and ask them to recommend other venues or new leads. Another option is to get in touch with local musicians or radio station disc jockeys in the area for new leads.

It is standard practice, when you're in the preliminary process of booking a tour, to allocate 30 percent of your tour income toward accommodation and transportation expenses. However, once you start filling in your expense column with the actual accommodation and transportation costs, that allocation can quickly evaporate. In order to avoid this stressful scenario, assume that you are going to stay out on the road through any open dates and estimate $100 per person, per day, for hotels for each open date. Add these expenses to your budget, and then as other gigs confirm (and perhaps also agree to pay for your hotel and travel costs), you can adjust your budget accordingly.

If either you or your travel agent doesn't have E-mail, print out your itinerary and fax it to your travel agent so the two of you can discuss where you're going and how you plan to get there. Your agent may have solutions you have not considered. Alternatively, you can save your travel agent a lot of time and yourself a lot of worry about travel schedules and expenses by going on the Internet to do your own research. Almost every airline, railroad company, and car-rental service has a Web site. By checking a few sites you can get reasonable estimates of plane and train schedules and expenses for almost any part of the world. Having this information will make discussions with your travel agent much more efficient. Print out the plane and train schedules you think would work for the segments of the tour you have booked to date and fax them to your travel agent. He or she may be able to find lower prices and special offers that aren't posted on the Internet.

Expect to have some open dates in your itinerary and plan ahead for them. Negotiate an extra day's paid hotel, either before or after the gig date, with as many venues as you can. Assure the client that if another date confirms for the open date, you won't need the extra day's hotel. If you forget to ask for extra hotel days during negotiations, you'll have to call your client back to see if he or she is willing and able to help. These kinds of situations may be awkward, but you never know until you ask.

After you've made all of the arrangements that you can to save money with your travel and accommodations, if your tour still looks as if it's going to have a negative balance, try shaving a few dollars from your bandleader's salary. Check to make sure you haven't made a mistaken entry into your budget columns. As a last resort, see if taking $25 to $50 per person off a few gigs brings the tour back into the black. If other gigs commit later, you can readjust your salary entries.

Once you've completed your initial assessment of your routing consideration, you'll have to go over your itinerary and assess the viability of each uncommitted gig. Take the weakest gigs off the calendar and budget, and see what the routing and expense picture looks like then. You may be surprised to suddenly see alternative routings you hadn't previously considered. If this is the case and if you have some flexibility to make routing changes, you'll have to call some of your committed gigs back to see if they can change their dates for you.

If you're having trouble getting a confirmation from a client, tell him or her that you're trying to keep your tour expenses down and that you need an answer by a certain date, or the cost of purchasing tickets for the tour will increase and you might not be able to afford to play the venue. I've found that this approach sometimes helps to gently prod my client into making a firm decision. The downside of this strategy is that the contact may say that he or she can't confirm at that time, and suggest that you book an alternative gig if you can. This can leave you in a position from which you have little leverage to make a counterproposal. In both types of situations the client's response is usually a good gauge of how solid his or her commitment to you is.

Occasionally you'll encounter a client who just hates to say no and will keep you hanging. Oftentimes this is an indication that the client has another band in mind for that date and he or she simply hasn't yet made a decision. The closer you get to the date of the gig the less likely this is to happen - because if your client hasn't yet made arrangements for another group, he or she will be more anxious to fill the date and will be more willing to commit to you. If you find yourself in this kind of situation, you will have to make a judgment call as to how serious your client is, and how you want to proceed. Your decision may be based on whether or not you have an alternative gig. Ask the client what the odds are that the gig will be confirmed. If you get a positive response and you don't have an alternative, hold the date. If you don't get a positive response and you have a solid alternative gig (maybe for a smaller fee), take that one. It's better to have a definite gig than to hold a date open for an engagement that's looking shaky or will never happen. If you don't get a positive response and you have no alternative gig, take the date off the calendar and leave it open. If they call, they call. If they don't, you won't have made any decisions based on the gig committing.

Creating Your Tour Calendars

Computer calendars are indispensable for routing tours, checking on open days, logging venue info such as fees, keeping track of event schedules, filing contact information, and readjusting tour dates. Calendars can also be used to note call-back dates, client call-back dates, and dates you expect mailings to be sent or arrive. Calendars are crucial when creating tour budgets and itineraries. When talking to a prospective client, have the calendar program up and running; this way you won't be hesitant about your tour itinerary and routing.

Keep visual track of a tour's constantly changing status by highlighting calendar dates using different colors or type, depending on the status of the gig. Enter dates that are definite in red. Enter the dates that you have contacted but are waiting to hear from in blue with a question mark. Dates that are yet to be contacted should be entered in black with a question mark. As soon as the status of a date changes, adjust the calendar and update the budget.

Try to allow no more than one six-hour driving day per week, unless it's an off day, or after the trip. Three- to four-hour drives per day are reasonable, and not too exhausting. But sometimes you'll have no choice but to accept some hard travel days.

Once, in the middle of an extensive U.S. tour, I accepted two days of concerts in two different Polish cities. The client made an offer I couldn't refuse because we had four days open in that part of the tour. We finished a gig in Columbus, Ohio, drove to the airport, flew to Philadelphia, connected with a flight to Warsaw (with a change of planes in Munich), and then drove for three hours from Warsaw to the first gig. The total travel time was eighteen hours. We arrived at the first venue about three hours ahead of the performance time, which meant choosing between eating or catching a nap. I opted for the latter. Upon awakening, I hurriedly showered, shaved, and dressed, getting to the gig just in time to play. I was so tired I could barely lift my hands to the piano, but we made a good presentation anyway. Sometimes, when exhausted by hard traveling, a presentation is all you can do, but if your band has good musical rapport, that aspect alone can carry off a successful performance.

That night we got a decent night's sleep, drove for three hours back to Warsaw, took a two-hour-long train ride to Krakow, and got to the next location with just enough time to eat and rest a little before the gig. The next day we took a train back to Warsaw, caught a plane to Louisville, Kentucky (by way of Munich and New York), and finished the last two weeks of our U.S. tour. Even though I had arranged a day off for the day after our return to the United States and had managed to book gigs for that next week that only required one to two hours of driving, it still took days for us to recover from that trip.

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