[00:00:00] James: Welcome to episode 190 of the Bandhive Podcast. It is time for another episode of the Bandhive Podcast. My name is James Cross and I help independent artists tour smart. This week on the show, we are going to be talking about exactly that Tour planning and budgeting, and this is totally irrelevant for me right now because I've been doing that this week for my own band nerves, it's a topic that we've discussed on the podcast several times in the past, but I'm going to frame it a little differently now that I'm doing this for my own band rather than for somebody else's band, because the discussions are a little different I found when you're planning it out for yourself.

[00:00:37] James: To start with, when I'm tour managing another artist, they typically come to me with the dates and say, this is when we want to tour. What can you put together for us? Whereas in my own band, it's more of a discussion of when is everyone available, and we have a general framework in mind because we do have a coordinated calendar.

[00:00:56] James: In our project management app, we use projects.co. And [00:01:00] any dates that were not available go into our show calendar as holds. And I'll talk about different show statuses and how we log them in the calendar in a little bit. But essentially it's in there as a hold to say, Hey, we can't book a show here. We already have a conflict.

[00:01:14] James: It's not a confirmed show. It's not a planning show, so it's a hold. We're holding that date because one of the members can't do it. now. That said, there are times when we play shows potentially as a trio because we have two guitarists who both sing and they can both do each other's parts.

[00:01:30] James: So on occasion, they will take those duties over and will play as a three piece because we already play to a click. We have tracks, we have all that so we can have the second guitar. In the mix, totally fine. Not an issue. When we play the four piece, it's more of a full band experience with two live guitars, a bass and drums, but as a three piece.

[00:01:50] James: Then we have one live guitar, one tracked guitar, bass, and drums. And whichever singer is covering all the vocal parts except for some backing vocals. Like we're gonna try it for the first time next week a couple [00:02:00] weeks ago. By the time you hear this, I'm actually gonna be doing some backing vocals, which I never thought I would do because.

[00:02:04] James: I will be totally honest and say I cannot sing, but you know what? I can yell, don't sweat it a couple times. And, uh, our drummer might be getting in on the action as well, so that's gonna be really cool. Anyway, it's more of a discussion because we say, Hey, these dates on the calendar are free.

[00:02:16] James: What can we do here? So by blocking out all those non-negotiable dates, we know who is available and who is not available, which is more important, especially like we couldn't play a show without our drummer. we're not gonna do that unless it's like an acoustic show or something. But the same calendar also lists any potential shows or shows that we have confirmed or shows that we've played.

[00:02:37] James: Even And this way it's all on the same calendar. All we should do is look and because this is part of our project management, all of those calendar dates, if it's a show, have a checklist associated with them, and that helps us progress through the booking process, to the advance, the promotion.

[00:02:54] James: All that stuff is part of that checklist, which makes it really easy to systematize the shows that we [00:03:00] play. Now when it comes to keeping things up to date. If you decide to go down this route, which I think you should, you have essentially two ways that you can manage this calendar. Either everyone is responsible for adding their own outside commitments on dates that they cannot be there for a show, or one central person adds a.

[00:03:17] James: All of those blocked dates for everyone else. If you do a mix of both, that can be a little difficult, a little confusing. So I don't recommend that you should either say, Hey, everyone adds their own stuff. If you don't add it, you're available. Or one person adds everything and they will check if people are available or not.

[00:03:34] James: they both have pros and cons, but like I said, I do not recommend mixing them. Now let's talk about show statuses a bit. And this is how we set it up in our project management system. You could set it up differently if you want to, but the first thing is planning. So in this stage, it's like, Hey, we're talking about a show in this city on this date.

[00:03:51] James: Then after that comes the initial outreach phase. This is when we're reaching out to venues saying, Hey, we'd like a hold on this date in your city. [00:04:00] Can you accommodate? And if we're lucky, we get the first hold. If not, we get a second or third hold, which can be really annoying. Uh, Now, the next phase, as you probably guessed, is hold. And what a hold is, is essentially the venue has you on their calendar, but it's not a confirmed show. So if somebody else wants to come along and book that night, either they can get a second hold or a third hold or however many holds there are. Or they can challenge the hold.

[00:04:23] James: Now what's gonna happen there is if they're the second hold and you're the first. Then you just get directly challenged and typically you have 24 hours to respond. and you can either say, yes, we want the show or no, let them have it, which after 24 hours, they get it automatically.

[00:04:36] James: But if this other band is the, let's say fifth hold, Then all the bands above them on that ladder are going to get asked, and they have to get essentially four nos before they, as the fifth hold, can get that date confirmed at the venue. So it can be really tricky sometimes if you're in a busier market and there's lots of holds, So that's why it's important to start booking early so you can get those first holds and have first dibs on the dates that you want to play. [00:05:00] If you move from a hold to a confirmed show, that's the next step right there. This means the show is confirmed. You have some kind of deal in place. ideally all the details.

[00:05:09] James: You should get these all as part of your confirmation. You don't wanna ever show up to a show and say, Hey, what's the pay? You wanna have all of this ironed out, even if that means it's no pay. You just want to know all of the details upfront. Then once it's confirmed, you start working on your promotional efforts.

[00:05:23] James: You make sure that the venue knows when the on sale date and time are, when the ad break is, which is basically just the announcement of the show. All of that stuff absolutely needs to be coordinated in advance if you're doing a tour because you want it to all be at the same time. You don't want, Tulsa announces on one day and Oklahoma City announces the next day, and Chicago announces two days after that.

[00:05:43] James: You want them all to announce at the same time so you can announce your full tour. Then about two weeks before the show, you're going to do a production in advance with the venue, depending on how legit the venue is, this could be a true production advance and you're gonna talk about all the details or they just tell you what time to show up and where you can park [00:06:00] if you're lucky.

[00:06:00] James: That should be really the number one question to ask is where can we park and what time do we load in? that's so important. Then after the advance, you're gonna keep promoting that show unless it's sold out, in which case you just say, Hey, we're sold out.

[00:06:12] James: Thanks so much everybody. you play the show and then at that point you move it to completed and that is the final phase. And then you can close out that task in your project management app, but you still wanna keep it there.

[00:06:22] James: You don't wanna delete it because there's probably information. That you wanna look back on in the future. So definitely keep that just, archive it or market as complete, depending on what project management software you're using. Now, when it comes down to coordinating plans, like I was saying, it becomes more of a discussion when you're working with your band in instead of working with another artist.

[00:06:43] James: again, this is a new development for me because as a tour manager, I'm used to artists saying, Hey, this is when we're going on the road, what can you get us? So there's a few questions that you need to ask, and this is going to be really up to the band and what your demographics are. But the first one is where, so which cities [00:07:00] are we gonna hit?

[00:07:00] James: Right now we're looking for nerves in the Northeast. So Burlington, obviously hometown market gonna be good. we can draw 20 people there. Easy. Other markets. Boston, you know, I went to school there, so maybe I can bring out like three to five. Our guitarist lives down in Long Island. So Long Island, New York.

[00:07:16] James: Maybe he can get a bunch of people there because he goes to school there. And apparently a lot of people at his school wear our shirts. Super cool. There are other markets in between where it's like, well, you know, I know one or two people, maybe they would come out to a show. Let's figure this out. But the main thing is you need to discuss where you're gonna go on this tour.

[00:07:32] James: You also need. To understand what kind of technical capabilities your band has and what you need from the venues. So for nerves, because we do have backtracks in the form of synths and piano and that kind of stuff, we need a PA that's going to be able to do the full band, especially since we also don't carry amps and cabs.

[00:07:52] James: Now we can use stuff. If we need to, but we prefer to go direct. We have our own board for our monitors, but we [00:08:00] need a venue that is gonna have enough channels, typically 12 to 16 for the entire band to play. The PA needs to be powerful enough to amplify us all because there's no stage volume aside from the drums, so it makes a huge difference to play a basement show.

[00:08:16] James: We can't do that unless we bring in a bunch of extra gear, whether that's amps or our own PA system, versus playing a legitimate venue. And if you don't understand the difference of your production capabilities and your production needs, that's gonna be a hiccup that you don't wanna find out the day of the show.

[00:08:33] James: You need to have this all planned out in advance and only go for the venues that can meet your production needs. Again, like I mentioned a second ago, where do you have friends? Those are gonna be the places you wanna play. And also lodging. Where can you stay? If you have a friend to stay with, that's fantastic, cause that's gonna save you at least a hundred dollars a night in hotel costs.

[00:08:53] James: Now, I know a lot of people say, oh, just sleep in the van. You know, NRVS we're all around 30's Like our youngest is 27 and our oldest is, I believe [00:09:00] 33. So it's not really the kind of vibe where we're like, oh, we can just crash anywhere. We at least want like a couch or something to crash on, but, A real bed is much, much better.

[00:09:11] James: that's another thing to consider when you're planning out your tours as part of your budget, which we'll talk about in a second, is plan your shows around where you're gonna have good results, but also try to find places that will give you a good place to stay without breaking the bank. So now talking about breaking the bank.

[00:09:27] James: For this tour specifically, I budgeted $25 per show for promotions. And then we had the discussion of a vehicle. Do we take our own and caravan or do we rent a van? So what we did is we researched rental prices at multiple rental agencies. I also checked Turro, which is like a car sharing app. It's kind of like Airbnb for cars.

[00:09:49] James: I looked at a camper van site, which actually had a really good deal, but the pickup was so far out of the way. It's like a three hour drive from where the band is based. It would've been just a nightmare to pick it up and drop it off. So [00:10:00] we didn't do that, but. The other thing to consider if you're going to rent is make sure that you either get unlimited mileage on your rental or get enough mileage per day. That you're not gonna go over and that per day, you know, it does add up for the entire tour.

[00:10:15] James: So if they say 200 miles a day and it's a five day tour, that's gonna be a thousand miles. But then if there's an overage charge, like one of the camper vans I was looking at, there was a 55 cent per mile overage and we were gonna be about a hundred miles over. that would've cost us an extra $55, so you have to factor that in.

[00:10:31] James: But ideally, get unlimited range if you can, because that's gonna be the better deal when you're doing these long drives. You don't want to pay a per mile fee. That's just not fun. On the other hand, if you are taking your own. Vehicles set aside a day rate for your mileage, so you basically calculate how much mileage you're gonna get and multiply it by the federal reimbursement rate in 2023.

[00:10:56] James: That is 65.50 cents per mile. That might change by [00:11:00] the time you're listening to this if you're not listening in 2023 or even last year, 2022. They did change it mid-year, so that can happen as well. Always check the current rates and double check with your accountant to make sure that you're doing things right.

[00:11:12] James: But you can set that amount aside in your budget, and then at the end of the tour, get the actual mileage you drove and reimburse yourself that 65.50 cents or whatever it is by the time you're doing your tour to cover your personal vehicle expenses. Then you're also going to want to look out for your fuel, which is a super simple formula.

[00:11:35] James: take your total mileage and divide it by your vehicle as miles per gallon. And then that's going to be the number of gallons you need. Take that number of gallons you need and multiply it by the current gas price plus, let's say 50 cents. So like right now gas is, I believe 3 59 is what I paid the other day.

[00:11:52] James: So I would add 50 cents and say, okay, now it's 4 0 9 times the amount of gallons that we need. It's basic math [00:12:00] and it really makes it so much more accurate to do this and put it in your budget. But also you have that 50 cent per gallon buffer, so if the gas prices go up, you're gonna be safe. You're not gonna be really badly in the hole.

[00:12:12] James: Yeah. You know what? Maybe they'll go up more than that. I've only had that happen once, and that was right at the start of the attack on Ukraine where the gas prices just skyrocketed. at that point that was unfortunate. Like, well, I had a 50 cent buffer, but it just went up so quickly that. It didn't work out for those tours, like unfortunately, no one really could have seen that incredible price increase coming, but it is what it is.

[00:12:32] James: You buffer that in. And I also do typically say 10% extra miles, cuz you know you're gonna drive around from hotels or wherever you're staying to the venue, all that stuff. So just budget an extra 10% on the mileage that you calculate. Next up is tolls. I budget $20 a day flat. sometimes you're not gonna have any tolls.

[00:12:52] James: Other days you're gonna have a bunch of toll. So averaging it out $20 a day over the tour, you should have enough to cover that. Same goes for parking [00:13:00] $20 a day. Sometimes you're gonna have to pay parking, sometimes you're not. Really depends. Meals, this is what's called a per diem, basically just means per day.

[00:13:08] James: And this is per person. I allocate $20 from the band fund for those people to eat. And yeah, I know people would have to pay for food out of pocket when they're at home, but it is more expensive when you're on the road. A lot of people don't eat out three meals a day, but. When you're on the road, you kind of have to, or maybe you have leftovers if you're lucky.

[00:13:26] James: So $20 per person isn't really that much, but it's kind of the standard for the lower levels of touring. So just be sure that you're aware of this and. Make that decision with your band if you're gonna cover per diems or not, in my opinion, they should always be covered because a well-fed band is going to perform better and you're making a huge investment into this tour.

[00:13:48] James: So you might as well go a little extra and make sure that your band is going to perform at the best possible level by making sure they're fed. Cuz you don't want the one person who doesn't have any money[00:14:00] and they're just exhausted and starving on stage. They look grumpy cuz they're hangry. All that.

[00:14:05] James: When you could have just said, here's 20 bucks for food. It's really up to you how you handle this, but I always recommend passing out those per diems. Then hotels. If you don't have places to crash, be sure to budget at least a hundred dollars per night for hotels or really motels if we're talking about a hundred dollars.

[00:14:20] James: And that's gonna be, you know, four people to a room. Some hotels might not allow that, so then you need to get two rooms. But ideally, find a place that'll allow four a room. They'll give you a pullout bed or a couch or something so you can spread out a little bit and not all have to double up, but. Really a hundred dollars is like the absolute bare minimum.

[00:14:36] James: If it's less than that, you're not gonna be very comfortable. You might run into bedbugs, that kind of stuff. And then last but not least, miscellaneous. I allocate $50 per day for miscellaneous expenses. This is anything, flat tire needs to be repaired, that goes towards it, strings, sticks, drum heads, whatever it is.

[00:14:54] James: You have a little bit of wiggle room in the budget for those miscellaneous expenses that just pop up. to [00:15:00] wrap this all up again, this is something that we've talked about in the past on the show, but from a different framing because as I said earlier, when I tour manage foreign artists, it's very different from.

[00:15:11] James: Planning out a tour for my own band I've discovered. so I have to say I'm very glad that I did join a band, even though I said I never would because it's giving me a new perspective into these things, and it is. A different framework that I'm looking at, these tours that I'm planning for nerves at versus tours that I plan for my clients, and it's probably gonna change how I do plan tours for my clients.

[00:15:30] James: I'm gonna ask at least a few more questions to make sure that what I'm doing for them is truly what they want. So I hope that this episode has given you an idea of how you can plan out your next tours. But also, I wanna shout out that when it comes to booking shows, the number one thing that promoters are gonna wanna know is your history in their market.

[00:15:50] James: So if you don't already have it, head on over to Bandhive Rocks slash History to get the master show log template. And this is an amazing spreadsheet [00:16:00] where you can log every single show you play. And it will track all kinds of data for you. It'll track the attendance, the merch income, it'll track your per head, which is, you know, how much merch you sold per person in that room at that night.

[00:16:13] James: All kinds of really useful data that you can use to show promoters and just kind of to study for yourself to see which markets you're most effective in. It's totally free. Head on over to Bandhive Rocks slash History to get your copy today.