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Your first big tour: how to prepare for the road

prepare for the road

Your first big tour: how to prepare for the road

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The moment you’ve been dreaming of since you started making music has finally arrived. You’ve put together a great show and you’re ready to hit the road, play a different city every night, make valuable industry connections, and gain lots of new loyal fans from all over.

But where to start ? For emerging artists, the long list of planning a tour can seem insurmountable. You have to create a budget, organize travel and accommodation, book venues and find similar musicians to play with, promote concerts in distant cities… and if you don’t have a team yet, you will probably have to do everything alone.

Fortunately, with the help of social media tools and useful statistics, planning a tour is more accessible than ever for independent artists. I’m singer-songwriter Maryze and I just toured my debut alternative pop album 8 across Canada. I organized it myself in a DIY way with my independent label Hot Tramp, and I learned some great lessons along the way that I want to share with you to make the trip easier and stress-free. This is a huge task, and you’ll need all the help you can get from your community, but if you remember a few key elements and get started early, your first big tour isn’t that far away. she might appear.

Draw the outline of your tour

First of all, where are you going on tour? (Or perhaps, more importantly, where does it make sense , at this point in your career?) If you’ve just released your debut album, it’s natural to want to showcase it in as many cities as possible , but crossing North America for several months may not (yet) be the right choice.

When planning your first tour beyond your usual local circuit, the key is to be realistic. Stopping in every legendary American city is a dream in theory, but do you really have a fanbase in the Midwest? Will there be spectators in Atlanta? In my experience, it’s better to plan a smart tour than one that’s overly ambitious. Especially if you’re the driver, you may get burned out driving long days to shows that aren’t worth it. Yes, the goal is to expand your audience, but an empty room won’t advance your career. Also, if you’re not used to gigging every night for weeks,

So how do you determine the most strategic tour dates?

These days, social media analytics and the Spotify for Artists app are among the most useful tools for musicians to learn about their audience, location, and interests. Exploring and leveraging this information is a great first step in understanding where to tour – and who to tour with.

In the Audience section of Spotify for Artists, you’ll find specific data on how people discover your music via the Source of Streams graph. It’s important to note if fans are mostly searching for your songs and listening to them through your profile, or if your biggest source of streams are editorial playlists. While these are great for racking up tons of plays, they won’t tell you much about where your fans are coming from; many editorial playlist listeners are just passive listeners who are already following the playlist, without necessarily following you.

It’s the listeners who save your tracks and add them to their own personal playlists who are the ones to watch out for – they represent much more precise and specific data. If a considerable portion of your audience comes from categories like “Your profile and catalog” and “Listener ‘s own playlists and library ,” you’re on the right track. By looking at listener demographics (major cities, major countries, age, gender, and artists they also like), you can determine logical tour dates.

Audience data from Maryze’s Spotify profile

Social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok offer similar analytics. I find that TikTok currently has the biggest impact, because its algorithm allows your art to be seen and heard all over the world, rather than just by those who already follow you. Being active on TikTok before you go on tour is a great way to reach fans and musicians in new places, whether that’s by posting content regularly, engaging with other creators, or going live. Every show I give these days, people come to tell me that they found me on TikTok!

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