If all you’ve ever wanted was to be a professional live music hire, it’s no surprise you’ve found yourself at the tour planning stage. Given you aren’t there yet, it’s still a great opportunity to learn all that you can, so when that moment arrives, you’ll already know what the planning stages might look like. 

The life of a professional live musician will firstly mean tons and tons of travel. If that doesn’t sound like you, you might need to adjust your life goals to better fit something you are comfortable with. 

If you are fine with, or even excited at the thought of, seeing the world and playing your music, here’s a few things you’ll want to keep in mind while you are still in the planning stages.

Decide Your Role

Given you are the musical act, or part of the band, that’s going to be your main objective – playing the music your fans love. What else do you want to do though? Are you looking to plan every second out or would you rather have a manager, or tour planner, handle as many of the behind the scenes roles as possible? 

The same is going to be the case when it comes to stage setup. If you are looking to do all the work yourself, that’s a great way to save some money but will all the traveling and other work to do, is that going to be the logistically responsible thing? 

Think About The In Between

It’s no surprise to say that a vast majority of your time while touring isn’t going to be spent on the stage. That’s the most important part, yes, but no matter how long your set is, there’s still going to be a lot more time spent getting your stage ready, tearing it down and then all the time getting from one venue to another.

While still deciding your role, think about being the most comfortable and well rested between shows. You’ll need to be on your A-game while performing and being comfortable and well-rested is going to ensure that. With this in mind, heavily consider the travel arrangements.

 A van is going to be cheaper, but if you can afford to rent or own a tour bus, and then have access to all the comforts that come with it, that might make quite the difference in how you feel throughout the long tour ahead of you. 

Festivals

If you haven’t been a part of a festival lineup previously, you might not be thinking about the importance of a show like this. With a little careful planning, you should be able to build around the festival dates so you don’t have to do much traveling to get there, given you’ll already be close by. 

In today’s crowded world, this is going to be one of the easiest ways to get yourself in front of fresh faces who later might turn to massive fans. Just think about it, it’s easy to have over 50 bands at a festival and very few attendees are going to be aware of each band prior to attending. 

Even if you aren’t a headliner, try to get yourself a spot on the lineup to expose yourself to as many new listeners as possible. Also, having yourself a reputation on the festival circuit is only going to mean more options in the coming years.