Create a Music Tour Market Plan

Series Summary

A concert tour is a series of concerts by a musician, musical group, or some number of either in different cities or locations. In the world of popular music, these concert tours can become enormous enterprises that last for several months or longer, are attended by hundreds of thousands or millions of people, and bring in millions of dollars in ticket revenue. Different portions of lengthy concert tours are known as legs of the tour. Concert tours are often administered on the local level by concert promoters, or in some cases by performing arts presenters.

Booking a music tour may be a little more difficult than it seems at first. It helps to learn from those in the music business who have gone on tour themselves in order to make sure that mistakes are minimized and that the tour is effective. In this free video series, our expert will teach you how to book a music tour, as well as provide a number of tips to make everything go smoothly. From creating a marketing plan to finding and booking music venues, these video instructions will teach you everything you need to run a tour. You'll learn how to make press kits, how to use a publicist, and how to be professional in your performances. When run properly, a music or concert tour can be very effective in earning money, gaining new fans, and re-affirming relationships with fans you already have.

Video Transcript

"ATHENA REICH: In this clip, I'm going to talk about how to create a marketing plan for your music tour. You don't want to just go out there and expect people will come. I mean, you really want to create a special angle to target on niche audience. For me, what I did, I've toured for three years; I always took the angle of a woman's rock tour, kind of in the vein of Lilith Fair. So, I would make a poster; for example, this was--I called it Sirens Wild Ride. So, it wasn't just the Athena Reich tour but it--it was something larger than myself. And I marketed here and my touring partner and--so it really targeted women, feminists, guys who just like women who rock, that kind of thing. So, you really need to think of a specific angle, who's your audience? And what's going to put you above the rest? What's something that's going to make you stand out from the crowd. Create posters for that. Really think about that marketing plan. For example, in this tour, I talked about it--it's not just a tour but it's a fair. I invited women's groups to come and set up tables and things like that. So, really, try to make it a festival, something different. "