SHR5E018P~001 Case Study
Case Studies
Promoters and Tour managers are both crucial roles in the production of concerts and tours across all venue types and sizes. I will be exploring both roles, with additional primary research into the role of a promoter.
Case study – Promoter
In essence, the role of a promoter is to provide a “vital link between artists and audiences, orchestrating live events that captivate fans” (AMW, 2024). They bridge the gap between venue owners and the artist, arranging and negotiating the terms and conditions of an event for both parties and making sure tickets are sold and accounted for. Once the venue and artists are booked and the event has been planned, the job of a promoter can also involve negotiating ticket prices and pay rates, as well as an element of marketing and budgeting for the band and venue. Although the artists have a level of their own responsibility to bring an audience to the event, it is also the promoter’s job to make sure this happens. Because of this, it reiterates the need for a level of marketing knowledge, as this can make sure that the promotional work for the event reaches the correct demographic of potential ticket buyers, with the goal to expose the artist to as many potential new fans as possible. The role involves a creative ability to be able to predict the potential success of an artist, to see that they are an act worth their time and money, especially at the smaller scale gigs that generate less profit. According to Berklee (n/d), “promoters need to be as disciplined as they are passionate”, in order to keep an event operating to its highest potential, both financially and for the audience enjoyment.
Promoters are not always directly attached to an artist or a venue, but often venues do have their own in-house promoter, and record labels can act as promoters for their signed artists. This often varies based on the type of event being promoted. For example, venues such as clubs may have their own promoters to promote events such as club nights and DJ sets.
Promoters can work either independently or as part of a larger company or organisation. Examples of bigger promotion companies include Live Nation and Festival Republic. These companies are usually responsible for events such as bigger festivals and concerts in larger venues. Reading and Leeds festival, for example is ran by Festival Republic to promote the event as a whole, rather than finding the acts to play. Smaller promotion companies include more local independent promoters such as Not a thing (Leeds based not-for-profit promoter) and 360. Sally Bryant, a promoter from Leeds based Futuresound group describes the key essentials of being a good promoter as being “really organised, quite a positive person, determined to solve problems” (n.d).
The local independent promoters typically work with smaller DIY bands and grassroots venues, and usually work freelance. Dan Akers, who runs Not A Thing (Leeds based independent promoter) does this job purely as a hobby from the passion of getting new small artists a platform and opportunity to perform and gig for money, without taking any profit himself, and often losing money. In the 24/25 academic year, Akers announced that he contributed £13097 of his own money into promoting new Leeds acts in small grassroots venues around the city, while paying out £26475 to performers and marketing.
For further primary research, I attended a venue tour and Q&A at Howard Assembly Rooms, with manager and promoter Tony Green. His main advice when choosing a venue to promote a gig for was to “take small gigs and overfill them”. This is because it can be useful to build your audience in this way without spending unnecessary amounts on venue hires before it is necessary. He also recommended to plan smaller events alongside the main events to compliment them, for example doing a jam session in a smaller room after a folk gig.
Case Study – Tour Manager
As the name suggests, a tour manager is the person who is responsible for the smooth running of a tour from all aspects. The role spans across a multitude of responsibilities, from ensuring band well-being, to getting from venue to venue on time. It is a very extensive and highly demanding role that often requires being on the road for long periods of time and working very unconventional hours. The core roles involve advancing every show and overseeing the crew working on each tour date to ensure all their needs are met and that operations are running smoothly. For the band in particular this includes the hospitality aspects as well, such as ensuring that riders are correct, and that accommodation and catering is accounted for. The role also includes communicating with the venues and venue staff, and coordinating load in and outs and soundchecks.
Importantly, tour managers create and hold schedules for the tour overall, as well as daily itineraries. Often alongside tour dates there are also other appearances scheduled, aside from standard gigs, such as record shop signings and radio interviews which have to be incorporated into the overall tour schedule.
During a tour, there will be a tour budget from the tour or band’s accountant. It is the responsibility of the tour manager to ensure that all expenses are kept within this budget, regardless of any problems or issues that could arise. This involves keeping accurate records of both incomings and outgoings. On smaller tours, it may be that the tour manager is having to take on far more responsibilities than mentioned than if the team was bigger and the budget was higher. It is not uncommon for tour managers for smaller budget projects to have to do jobs such as manning the merch table and box office on top of all the other matters at hand. The tour budget should also include “per diems”, which is the daily spending money for each member of the band. This covers meal costs and miscellaneous spendings.
Tour managers can work on a weekly or daily flat fee, but can often be paid a percentage of what the artist is making as well. They may also be allocated a per diem, and can make extra money from the show advances. However, the smaller the team, the less people there are to pay, hence why tour managers are often left with a lot of these other roles on top.
Although touring is often spoken of as a fun and exciting opportunity for both the managers and artists, it has also built up a reputation of being incredibly taxing and highly draining for both, due to the intensity of the workload of performing and travelling every night. Experiencing this burnout herself, Suzi Green, tour manager of Clean Bandit, Placebo and PJ Harvey, believes that tour management also involves a duty of care over the band, and she values the importance of well-being with the bands she tours with. She says that it is her priority to “enable artists to tour in a manageable way that is viable both physically and mentally”, and that “as a lifestyle, it [touring] must be empowering and inclusive for everyone. Touring needn’t be hell.”
Following on from this, Green decided to start her own mental health support group, designed for touring musicians and touring crew called “The Back Lounge”, inspired by the area at the back of the tour bus where “the late night interesting divulging conversations happen” (Suzi Green, 2022). Through starting this group, Green found that “everyone that has been on a tour at some point has felt lonely or isolated, or like they haven’t fit in for whatever reason”. Tour managers with this attitude are integral to keeping touring safe and ethical for the artists.
Role Comparison
I am currently working alongside second year Leeds Conservatoire indie/alt rock band Cab Driver. As a music business student, I have been managing their social media accounts and assisting with the general business side of their band. They have recently started playing gigs in Leeds, with 2 gigs at Royal Park Cellars, and a gig at Lending Room so far this academic year. Because of this, I have decided to plan a hypothetical event for them, from the perspective of a promoter, as a band of this size as a stand-alone gig does not require any tour management. A goal of theirs is to eventually play a headline show at Oporto, so I began researching into this venue.
I frequently attend gigs at this venue, so I was already familiar with the place itself, and I was already aware that it is an ideal venue for a band of their style. Oporto has some headline shows coming up for bands such as The Kites and Tough Cookie, both of which are inspirations to Cab Driver. Unfortunately, I did not receive a response after contacting the venue to request an artist pack, but I was able to access one from 2021. Although this may be slightly outdated, I have decided to base my figures on this as it is the most accurate representation I could find.
Using this pack, I found that the hire fee is £10 per hour, equating to around £80 for the entire event from load in to load out, which also covers a sound and lights engineer and PRS. Door staff costs an extra £7.50 per hour, so in order to keep the costs down, I would offer to do this for the band.
To increase ticket sales, there will be a support acts playing a 30 minute set, and Cab Driver will have an hour headline slot. The support act I have selected will be Wintons, another indie band at Leeds Conservatoire.
A close friend of the band, Max Morton, would take pictures of the gig for free, as well as promotional pictures to be used to advertise the gig, as he is eager to build his portfolio, which eliminates another potential cost. The marketing costs can be kept fairly low for this, due to the bands being Leeds Conservatoire based, allowing them to use university printing facilities for just 9p per poster. 100 posters could be printed for just £9. These posters can then be put up around popular student areas such as in the university social spaces and corridors, as well as around Leeds city centre (record shops, vintage shops, bars etc) alongside frequent social media posts.
A lot of the other additional costs such as catering, accommodation and crew can also be eliminated due to how local the band are to the area, however I will still be leaving a budget for miscellaneous items such as broken equipment. This will be £50.
Oporto has a capacity of 125 standing in the live room, of which I would sell 110 tickets, and keep 15 for holds (5 per band). As most of Cab Driver’s audience are students at Leeds Conservatoire, I would aim to keep ticket prices as low as possible while still making a profit. In order to cover these costs, I would price the tickets at £10 each, which is a very similar cost to Cab Driver’s previous ticket prices.
I have decided to guarantee the musicians a flat fee to begin with, using the recommended pay rates from the Musicians’ Union. I have calculated that a reasonable rate would be around £65 per musician for just over a 1 hour set, equating to a minimum of £248 for the headline band, and £124 for the support band playing a 30 minute set, as both bands have 4 members. The rest of the profits will be paid as a 75% percentage deal to Cab Driver.
The number of ticket sales to break even is 52, which for a size of this band and venue is very doable as this is under half of the whole venue capacity. This means that if the event sold out, based on the percentage deal, the final profits would result in another £481.75 to the artist, and £147.25 to the promoter.
Through planning this hypothetical event, it is apparent how important both promoters and tour managers are to musicians, especially those that are at the earliest stages of their careers and playing grassroots venues such as Oporto. Most bands do not have the time or the knowledge to handle the pressures of arranging gigs for themselves, so it is crucial that these roles exist. The planning has also made it clear how similar the roles of a promoter and a tour manager can be, especially at smaller venues.
Show Budget
Final Settlement Sheet
Bibliography
Akers, D. (2025). Instagram. [online] Instagram.com. Available at: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DOLTZLHDBye/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA== [Accessed 5 Nov. 2025].
AMW (2024). What Does a Music Promoter Do? [online] AMW. Available at: https://www.amworldgroup.com/blog/what-does-a-music-promoter-do [Accessed 5 Nov. 2025].
BBC (n.d.). How to become a music promoter: Sally’s story. [online] BBC Bitesize. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zbd7vk7 [Accessed 5 Nov. 2025].
Berklee (2019a). Concert Promoter | Berklee College of Music. [online] Berklee.edu. Available at: https://www.berklee.edu/careers/roles/concert-promoter [Accessed 14 Oct. 2025].
Berklee (2019b). Tour Manager | Berklee College of Music. [online] Berklee.edu. Available at: https://www.berklee.edu/careers/roles/tour-manager [Accessed 13 Oct. 2025].
Green, S. (2022). Suzi Green | Life On The Road. 11 Feb.
Healthy Touring (n.d.). Home. [online] Touring. Available at: https://healthy-touring.com/.
Musicians’ Union (2010). Live Music Industry Support | Gigs & Live Performances | The MU – Musicians’ Union. [online] Musiciansunion.org.uk. Available at: https://musiciansunion.org.uk/working-performing/gigs-and-live-performances/live-engagement-rates-of-pay/casual-stage-rates [Accessed 5 Nov. 2025].
