Tour Schedule/Planner
Tour Schedule/Planner Commentary
This tour plan and commentary contains the information for the tour of Harry Dennis (myself).
This tour has been organised in conjunction with my album release. Currently based in Leeds and Liverpool, I have a small following of 500 on social media (Instagram and Tik Tok). We will aim to increase the number of followers (and monthly listeners) on this tour by promoting the new album.
The venues I have chosen are on the smaller side with capacity of 50-300. All venue packs will be in the appendix below. I have saved the key dates for the bigger cities. For example, Dublin and Liverpool are on the Friday and Saturday. This is ideal for exposure as the bigger cities will attract new people. It is also more likely for people to hear music on the street and want to go into the venue and watch that band perform.
“The Best Live Music Cities in the UK Ranked – Tickets9 Blog”(2026) ranked Liverpool at number 6 and Leeds at number 7 noting that is is best for “indie, grassroots and overall quality of venues”.
This is one of the reasons why I have chosen to do a northern tour. I also have more of a following in the north. Whether its friends, family or followers the majority is between Liverpool, Birkenhead and Leeds. Therefore the northern tour will be ideal for a debut tour and album release. With a European tour coming next summer. Another reason for the northern tour is that I have been to a lot of these venues and have experience with the staff and the set up. Which is important as I know what setting I am about go in to.
Our target audience for this tour is students/ young adults (18-28) this is the demographic that has the most interaction with my social media page and my music. In order to market to a specific demographic, social media will be an essential tool. Different ways of marketing such as reels, photoshoots, and other types of content would be important to getting more of a following. As well as posts on the tour and of the tour. For example, with fans and in the tour van will make interesting posts.
To start off with the marketing aspect of the tour. The plan is to consistently post on instagram, tik tok, and other social media platforms about the tour. Posting teasers of new music, dates of the tour, support bands, venues and times of the gigs are essential in marketing as it creates awareness of my brand. The support band posting will also market it to a different demographic. As well as paid ads on these platforms that will increase exposure of my music.
The Aida model is a good tool to follow to gain a following. After attracting attention through the points above, the second step is ‘interest’ of the audience where I will post polls or do live Instagram sessions to attract interest from my audience. Demand (or desire) will always be high if a limited number of tickets are available. This will be posted about on my story so people know the amount of tickets left on sale. The limited supply of tickets will make my audience want to buy the tickets as soon as possible so they don’t miss out.The last step of the Aida model is action. The link to tickets and the website is very user friendly which is so important in buying tickets, you don’t want the people who follow and support you to have a poor experience booking tickets. It should be exciting, not stressful.
Sponsorship opportunities and local outreach is also important in expanding your outreach. Record signings, fan meet-ups etc are a great way to involve the local community in a tour and this is also something I will be taking part in when I go on tour next year in Europe. Having this scaleable plan for my music is something I’ve tried to think about when planning this tour.
I am only selling t-shirts on this tour because it’s my first tour and I can see what the reception is to the merch before printing more. My website will sell similar merch for people after the tour is finished, but will be slightly different as the limited edition will sell quick. The merch will be the picture of myself on the poster with the tour dates on the back and my name on the front. Making it stand out is important for exposure and recognition. Merch will also be close to the door on the merch stand. PRS and PPL will be an important aspect of this tour too as I can get some money back from playing my own songs. This is included in the cost spreadsheet.
Cash Flow
Financial Commentary
The information for the Dublin and Newcastle venues are estimated in alignment with the other venues. This is because I wasn’t able to get the information from either of these venues. Emails are linked in the appendix below.
For photography I am going to get family members or local photographers to take pictures for me. Each one will be qualified and dm’d about it weeks before the tour. But supporting up and coming photographers is also important to me.
Myself and the crew are able to do promotion ourselves and this would be the job of our back line technician Beth as she has a background in promoting bands social media. The type of promotion we would do would focus on short form content on streaming platforms such as instagram.
Hodge (2026) says that “mastering a single platform allows for higher quality, consistent content…” this is what we will be doing as instagram is where I have the most followers.
Printing the set lists beforehand is another way to save money. I can do this for free and will print off enough for the tour. We also do not need a rider for this tour. As it is my debut tour I don’t want expenses on this and if I go back to these venues on my next tour then I will request to have a rider.
Ticket prices vary between cities, the bigger ones, naturally, have a higher price. For ticket sales, I have estimated it at 60% of ticket sales. This is a reasonable turnout and a good amount as we still gain a profit even if we only get 60% attendance in each show.
The merch is costed at £5.64 per printed shirt from AM custom clothing. (6). (I am only printing 249 t-shirts as I’m estimating that only 25% of people in each gig will buy merch. This equates to £1,404.36 which I am comfortable paying.
Insurance on van comes with the hire of the van which is ideal in keeping costs low. The driver of the vehicle is going to be crew members so we won’t have to pay for a driver.
In the current budget we make £622.22 which is a good profit for a debut tour.
Technical & Logistics
Stage Plot
Channel List
Logistics
As myself and my crew live on the Wirral and in Leeds, it is ideal that we start the tour off in Leeds. Collecting the van in Leeds and starting the tour off with a great venue is essential in having a good tour.
The route on this tour is designed to get the best coverage possible. After Leeds we travel to Newcastle, which is our smallest venue, however its a good second venue for the tour because it gets exposure in that city. I still have a following there but it is smaller than in Leeds so that is why I have decided on a smaller venue. The next stop on the tour is Birkenhead, again home venue which will be ideal for social media content, as well as attracting a larger audience. Therefore this is one of the bigger venues. The next day is a travel day where we will travel to Holyhead. And a ferry over to Dublin (1). The next day is Dublin, again another big venue where it can attract more people.(9). Finally the last day of the tour is Liverpool, this will be another high attendance venue as I have a following here as well. (All hotels (7),(8),(10) used for this tour will be linked in the appendix as well as route(2), fuel prices(4) and van images(3).
My band and crew consists of myself (Vox), Jack (Guitar), Olly (Bass), Tom (Kit). As well as my tour manager Natasha Griffiths and my technician Beth Harwood. Having a larger crew would allow people to focus on one role at a time, however we have chosen to have a more tight knit crew as we can fit into a smaller van and also have multiple roles in the tour, therefore saving money.
For each tour we will be having support slots. Each supporting band will be local to the city. This gives up-and-coming bands a chance to perform for a larger group of people.
We are on a 6 day tour with 5 being gig days. The travel day will be used as a mental health/ chill/ content day. This is important and will be explained further below.
The PR and promotional content will be essential in marketing myself properly. Including interviews and fan meets in the mornings on tour.
The van we have hired is a Ford Transit and has 6 seats and plenty of room for all of the gear. Driving times for each member of the crew will differ as each member has different levels of experience so therefore myself, Jack and Olly will be driving in shift patterns of 90 minutes each.
We will be using an ATA Carnet (5) which includes the equipment we will have on stage.
A lot of research has been put into deciding hotels based on distance from venue, cost, parking etc. the hotels were selected over Airbnbs because of this.
The van was also chosen over cars because of cost of hiring, fuel, amount of space in the vehicle. Compared to two cars which would have been uncomfortable and would have cost more.
Projections
Artist well being is a massive part of being on tour, and to combat different mental health problems we have implemented a few techniques such as a rest day and time off during the day. Crew members have until 11am most days to check out of the hotel but can get up earlier and they have that time to do what they see fit. The reason why we only have one day off is because its only a 5 day tour and one day is enough for members to have a rest, do some promotional activities and reset for the last 2 gigs.
Good sleep, diet and rest is essential for a healthy crew, and is vital in having a good tour as even if one member is feeling off, the whole crew will shift in their dynamic. This can be costly for both the member and the band, but it can also be costly for the audience. A bad dynamic can ruin reputation and be damaging for the artist.
Contingency plans such as extra leads and cables have been addressed to make sure that, if the venue doesn’t have good quality cables and gear, we can still play the show.
All of our gear is insured and stored in the lockable van in car parks and spaces that are safe in that local area. Making sure that if anything does happen to them, we aren’t losing money and can get replacements if we need to.
Other plans such as travel delays have also been accounted for by booking morning travel. This is important as, if there are any ferry or transport delays, we can still get to the venue in time and not have any issues.
Reducing costs in this tour is very important which is why I have decided to stay in our house in Leeds on the first leg of the tour and in our own houses when we go to Birkenhead. This is ideal for cost saving as we don’t have to pay for hotels on 2 days of the tour. This also means there will be a profit which can be used in case there are any emergencies or unexpected costs. If we do not use this profit, it will go toward my European tour which will be the following year.
Action points for the tour manager to address would be checking in with the crew one by one and making sure they are all on good form, phoning hotels and the ferry company in advance to check that everything is going according to schedule and checking with the venues about parking, time slots and load in. This is, again, to make sure everything is going to plan.
The van will be packed exactly the same so we will know where all of the equipment is. This makes it easy for us to know if we are missing anything and helps to lower chances of mistakes like leaving equipment behind.
