Tour Plan Commentary
This tour plan is designed for the Leeds-based Alt-Rock band ‘Papercut’. The commentary discusses a debut UK and Ireland tour. Currently the band have not yet released any music on streaming services or platforms except for demos on SoundCloud. Having said that, they are amassing a slow but steadily rising online presence and following, with links to other Northern cities other than Leeds.
This tour has been specifically designed to branch the bands influence out from Leeds to other Northern cities whilst also strategically building on their Northern image and influence. As well as this, the tour has two dates outside of the UK to build an international base for the group. There are 8 dates in total, allowing for the group to engage and identify with new audiences, and solidify their place in the live music sector of the industry.
All the venues that have been picked for this tour have a max capacity of between 100 and 150 people when standing (no chairs needed for an Alt-Rock show). This allows the group to create their own intimate setting and connect well with their audiences. Also, it allows for realistic sale margins in cooperation with the venues, especially when you also think about the merchandising aspect of a tour.
Key Northern cities like Manchester, Newcastle and Liverpool allow the band to build up their following as all these cities have fantastic music venues which suit our capacity aims whilst also being well-known for putting on good events and shows, therefore bringing in a good audience size. As well as this, the tour starts and ends in the band’s hometown of Leeds as a finale to the tour. The decision to start and end the tour in Leeds was since for logistical reasons it makes sense as all 4 band members are based in Leeds. As well as this, it gives the tour a narrative for social media posts to promote the bands tour (e.g. TikTok’s and Instagram posts). The finale show in Leeds would be the most promoted one as that is when we could draw the biggest audience and therefore the band could make the most profit. As well as this, the band has two of its first “international” shows in Dublin and Belfast. These dates were added to begin the band’s international journey outside of the UK.
The UK leg of the tour has been logistically planned to minimize travel between cities and venues, both in time and expenses. Naturally, it starts in Leeds and from there it is only a one-hour car journey to Manchester with roughly £8 petrol cost. Then it’s the same again from Manchester to Liverpool with just an hour’s travel. Accommodation for both these dates is free on the cash flow spreadsheet as all four members have friends that live in these cities through university links that we can crash at in exchange for them to be on the guestlist. The days of the gigs should be noted as well. The opener in Leeds is on a Thursday as that is our hometown where we have the strongest crowd and is close enough to the weekend. The Manchester and Liverpool dates are on a Friday and Saturday night to bring in a strong weekend crowd to maximise possible audience size and therefore ticket sales etc. Then, on Sunday we travel up to Newcastle which is a 3-hour drive costing roughly £60 with fuel prices as they currently are. There is enough room for this in the budget. Again, accommodation for Newcastle is that the band has a friend who will let them all crash there for the two days.
The Monday after the gig is a travel day where we must get to Glasgow, a 2-and-a-half-hour journey on the roads from Newcastle where we play the Hug and Pint on Tuesday night. Again, for accommodation my nan lives in central Glasgow so we could all stay at hers with meals and no cost most importantly.
Then on Wednesday after the gig in Glasgow we must get the ferry across to Ireland. This day will most likely be the most stressful day as it has the most travel. First, we must drive from Glasgow to Cairnryan which is 2 and a half hours; then get the ferry from Cairnryan to Belfast which is another 2- and 15-minutes journey. Finally, another 2-and-a-half-hour drive from Belfast to Dublin. This will total roughly 7-8 hours of travel in one day traffic reliant. There was an alternative which was the Liverpool to Dublin ferry however this proved longer and more expensive.
Then, it’s the penultimate show of the tour in Belfast which is a two-hour drive from Dublin. After that show is complete on Thursday night, Friday will be spent getting the ferry from Belfast to Cairnryan and then a 4-and-a-half-hour drive back to Leeds. The Friday day of travel is a non-negotiable rest day for the group so we can put on the best finale show at Headrow House in Leeds on the Saturday night.
CASH FLOW SPREADSHEET
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TOUR PLANNER BOOK
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Professional Technical Rider
Marketing and Promotion
A marketing and Promotional plan that aligns with the tour dates starts by first promoting the shows with the venue and the promoters. This would consist of announcing them roughly 4 weeks before the first show. This would be done on the band’s social media pages (Instagram, TikTok, Soundcloud etc.) as a post showing all the dates as well as a short annoucement video with the band’s music on it. This would be kept to a maximum of 30 seconds to capture attention on short video platforms like Instagram and TikTok. On all posts and videos on all platforms there would importantly be a link to the ticket site where tickets are being sold. There may be light spending on online advertisements (maybe £5-10) targeting venue followers. Instagram has an option to do posts in collaboration with other venues; so, every post announcing a new show would be done in collaboration post with the venue that it is promoting, allowing all their followers to see the post.
The next phase of the strategy would be to build up more momentum for the tour roughly 2 weeks before it starts. This would be done by announcing any local support acts, as well as more posts on social media showcasing content like the band rehearsing for the upcoming tour, teasing new material that will be performed to simultaneously promote our music as well as the tour. Another idea is city/region related posts. These specifically target the area of each individual show, perhaps showcasing the band in cool places/tourist attractions in each city.
Then, the week of the shows in the “final phase” of the marketing/promotional plan the goal is to sell as many of the remaining tickets as possible, creating an urgent tone to do so. This will be achieved through daily content like countdown posts with a low-ticket warning, again pushing the links to buy tickets on all the posts. As well as this, there would be more snippets of rehearsals and countdown posts to each specific gig (Like “One week to go till our gig in ……”).
Once we begin the tour and gigs, content will be uploaded every 2-3 days of the live shows like soundchecks, and crowd videos and travel clips of the band. This puts all the focus of the viewer on the tour, and again on all these posts there would be links to buy tickets to the remaining shows on the tour.
Merchandising and Licensing
Merchandising on this tour is not an option for the band as it is not in our budget. This is our first tour, and we do not have any real merchandise. However, if we were to have merch it would consist of cheap to make things like t shirts, posters etc. As well as this, as soon as the show is over, the whole band would be over to the merch stand to promote it and meet everyone who came to the gig and do signings etc. This would help sell merchandise more. Another good idea is venue specific merchandise, like t shirts that have the venue and date of gig. As well as this, we could sell signed setlists. These sorts of items that are specific to the show the fans saw will sell more and at a higher price as they are of greater value to them.
This brings us onto direct fan monetisation ideas such as early entry, meet and greets and VIP bundles where you get to meet the band in the green room, backstage passes and signing etc. As the tour progresses, there will be softer revenue streams from which we can get income. By having some dates filmed professionally by a photographer friend of ours’s, Nick, we can reuse that content on YouTube, as well as creating short form content that could potentially go viral on Instagram and TikTok. Through these forms of content, we could also get sponsorship if it gains online traction. Another form of soft revenue income could be if we recorded a small live EP of the tour, with maybe 3 or 4 original songs that are our best ones and most commercially viable. By releasing this on streaming platforms like Spotify, Soundcloud, Apple Music etc through DistroKid and promoting it post tour on the band’s social media pages, we can create another income stream for the tour.
Licensing opportunities could include the partnerships found on tour. An example of this would be the hire van from Enterprise. The company would maybe offset either fuel costs or even the van hire cost itself for promotion on the bands tour through our social media posts: this could include tagged content or their logo on posters promoting the shows (“Tour sponsored by ……”).
Potential Pitfalls and Action Points
With this being the band’s first proper tour going to many cities for the first time, as well as an entirely new country, there are of course lots of opportunities for pitfalls. Financial pitfalls that could potentially happen are that not enough tickets are sold in every city to continue in budget and eventually break even or make a profit at the end of the tour. However, the action points to prevent this for the tour manager are keep ticket pricing consistent – It should be £8-12 in advance on the ticket links that we will have to heavily promote on all our social media pages in collaboration with the venues. Then on the door on the night of the show, the tickets should be priced between £10-12 to make a bit more money. This means if we go off our fee deals with most of the venues which is a 70/30 ticket split the breakeven point will be around the 30-50 tickets sold mark. For example, if we sold 80 tickets for a show then we would have £800 gross which after venue cuts and costs would be £400 – £550 to the band, equating to at least £100 per member. By the end of the tour, this means the total artist profit could potentially be £2.5k to £4k. Of course, the bottom line is it all relies on our promotional marketing strategy working well.
Logistical pitfalls could include van breakdowns, weather (if there is a bad storm then the ferry trips may get cancelled). In this unlikely event, we have specifically made sure the day where we travel on the ferry from Ireland back to Leeds, which means we haven’t got to get to the gig by the next day, we can always wait for the storm to pass or find alternate transport. In this unlikely case, it will rely on the traffic not being bad to get to Leeds on time.
Another pitfall is artist wellbeing on tour. It is for this reason that on the majority of tour dates our accommodation consists of friends and families’ houses. This means we won’t be left alone in hotels after and before gigs and there will be a family-oriented “vibe” after and before gigs, meaning everyone is in good moods being surrounded and looked after by their mates and family members.
