A tour manager (or concert tour manager) is the person who helps to organise the administration for a schedule of appearances of a musical group (band) or artist at a sequence of venues (a concert tour).
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Background
The performances on a concert tour will be booked by the band’s booking agent who will work with concert promoters to place the band in suitable venues and festivals in a time frame and territory agreed with the band’s management. The individual concert promoters will agree the financial, technical and hospitality requirements of the artist and offer the booking agent a "deal" for the show. The tour is announced and tickets put on sale when all the tour dates have been agreed.[1] As modern concert touring involves complex financial, legal and technical arrangements, the booking agent or artist manager will approach a concert tour manager to organize the logistics of the tour. Concert tour managers are usually freelancers working on a tour-by-tour basis.
Duties
The tour manager will be given the itinerary for the proposed tour by the booking agent. Working from this itinerary the tour manager will engage in following three activities: budgeting, advancing and on-the-road. [2]
Budget
The itinerary should also contain information about the potential ticket income (“fees”) for each show. Using this information the tour manager can produce a budget for the tour, calculating costs for crew wages, per diems, accommodation, transport, sound, lighting and video equipment, visas and work permits, rehearsals and other expenses such as booking agent commissions.[3]
Advancing
Advancing is the process of contacting each promoter and venue to ensure the entire artist's technical and hospitality demands will be met and to resolve any problems the promoter or venue can foresee. During the advancing process the tour manager will check contact names and addresses, arrival times, equipment load-in times, sound check and performance times, any supporting/opening acts and live music curfews. This information will be collated in a 'tour book' which will be issued to all the travelling band and crew.
On-the-road
The tour manager will travel with the band on the tour. The job on the road varies depending on the type and success level of the act. The following activities and responsibilities are part of the band tour manager's day-to-day workload:
- Overseeing hotel departures on time
- Settling accommodation bills
- Overseeing travel arrangements; i.e. band and crew onto the bus or to the airport in good time
- Paying per diems to band and crew
- Overseeing venue arrival - double-checking hospitality and technical arrangements
- Arranging up-to-date running order with venue and promoter
- Overseeing promotional activities; i.e. TV, radio and press interviews at the venue or at other locations
- Supervising any support or opening acts
- Ensuring venue is ready to open on time by supervising sound check times
- Liaising with transport department regarding the next days' travel
- Ensuring all acts perform on time and for the allotted time
- Settling performance fee with promoter and collecting any due cash
- Ensuring all touring equipment is re-packed and loaded back onto tour transport
- Preparing band and crew schedule sheets for the next day
- Overseeing band and crew on to appropriate overnight transport or to next hotel
- Reporting this show's attendance figures to management and booking agent[4]
References
- ^ Waddell, Barnet, and Berry: This Business of Concert Promotion and Touring: A Practical Guide to Creating, Selling, Organizing, and Staging Concerts (Billboard Books, New York, 2007), p19.
- ^ http://www.tourconcepts.com/tourmanagerdef.html What does a Tour manager do?
- ^ Reynolds: The Tour Book (Cengage Learning, Boston, 2007), p 13
- ^ http://www.tourconcepts.com/tourmanagerdef.html Tour Concepts
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