8 How to Get the Shows

The Tour Book is about playing live. So far in this book you have learned about contracts, technology, technical terms, and who does what at a modern concert. None of this matters, though, if you don’t go out and actually play some shows.

However, before you get all excited and rush to book shows left, right, and center, you need to ask yourself two questions:

Why do you want the gig?

Do you have an audience?

To help explain the reasoning behind these questions, I want you to read an example of one of the hundreds of emails I receive every week, this one from a guy who we’ll call “Brad”:

“Hi, my name is Brad. I am the bass player in my band. Basically, my band is trying to get support slots on tours with more established bands—not massively successful artists, but bands that were recently in the same situation we are and are now attracting attention. We have no manager and we are releasing our CD with our own money. I have been checking into the possibility of touring through Europe. We have done some research and think Europe may be a good idea for us. Can you please send information that can help us to calculate our costs for a tour that consists of 40 shows in 60 days? How much do we get paid and how is that calculated? What about promotions and advertising? Will the music press do articles on us to help in the promotion....”