On Tour For DUMMIES

A Fans Guide To Being On Tour

 

PLANNING

 

When your favourite band announces a tour it feels like Xmas morning, it feels like falling in love, it feels like falling in love on Xmas morning. It’s the best of the best.

You then instantly get slapped around the face by a few questions. *

What are the dates? What date is my local gig? What day is that? Can I do the gig? Do I have other commitments? Can I do other gigs? Should I do other gigs? Is it possible to do other gigs? And on and on and on it goes…   

The prime driver to every question that instantly pops into your head is MONEY!

Tickets, travel, hotels, it all adds up, doing a gig isn’t necessarily cheap, even if you only do one local gig.

It all depends on the band you want to see and at what level they are in their career and how popular they are with the Squares and the Band Wagon Jumpers.

If, for example, you want to see a small band that are at the start of their career or are a cult band it is relatively cheap and easy to see them play live, however, if the band you want to see is on the crest of the wave or is flavour of the month with the Squares and the Band Wagon Jumpers things become difficult, and God forbid if you want to try and see a band that thinks they deserve to play only stadiums.

Seeing your favourite band can range from £10 to £20 at one end of the scale to £100 at the other, and that’s just for a ticket.

Whether you chose to do one gig in your local venue or whether you chose to do multiple gigs, it doesn’t come free or cheap. 

Once you’ve decided on a single gig or multiple gigs it all comes back to the Devil we call money, or as it’s now called, Disposable Income.

Doing a single gig is the cheapest option, but what if you chose to do multiple gigs, multiple gigs fall into two categories. **

Cat 1, Doing multiple nights at your local venue. For example, if a band plays three nights at Birmingham Odeon, you go to all three nights.

Cat 2, Doing multiple nights on a tour. For example, Glasgow, Birmingham, and London. This option then gets complicated when you have two separate scenarios. Scenario One, are those gigs on three consecutive days - for example, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Scenario Two, are they on your free days - for example Tuesday, Tuesday, and Tuesday.

And you all thought it was simple, it’s anything but.

Once you have decided on which date or dates you can do the real planning then begins. If you are doing your local gig, then it is relatively easy. If you are doing multiple dates then things get more complex, but the framework for each gig is identical.

Concert ticket. Getting to the gig. Getting home again or staying in a hotel. Every gig is the same.

The only slight variation on the theme is financial. For example, staying overnight in a hotel means spending money, which is money you could spend on another ticket.

While travelling to multiple gigs means spending even more money, but it means you get to more gigs, hopefully spending the money that you saved by not staying in a hotel. So, by saving money, you get to spend money, the money that you have saved from when you didn’t spend it, but now you are, spending it that is. Basically, you just move your clothes to a lower peg. ***

Have you started to notice a running theme of money? It’s all about money. So, conversely, what I’m saying is this, the less money you spend, the more money you save, which means you have more money to spend getting to other gigs, or at least die trying.

Afterall, you don’t really choose to see your favourite band, you have to, it’s an itch, it’s a craving, it’s an addiction. It’s not like you have a choice in your decision making, and just like any addict, you’d do anything to have that hit.

Fuck your 12 steps.

Fuck your God.

I’m an addict and I’m happy with it.

 

* “You know, when you’ve been Tango’d.”

** Sorry, I lied, the cheapest option is to do no gigs.

*** “I do wish you’d listen, Wymer. It’s perfectly simple…” Monty Python’s The Meaning Of Life - Part II Growth and Learning.

 

Noggin xx