Vlog 143 Tour booking

This is the side of my work that I probably like the least. I have been taking care of Sliotar’s tour bookings for about 15 years now. It never gets easier… I am lucky to have Des taking care of the logistics, travel and accommodation. To ten care all of that and the actual concert booking would just be bit too much. I often daydream about getting someone to take care of all that for us. We have had few people help us along the way, and their help has been amazing. But still at the end of the day, the bulk of it is on my shoulders.

Independent touring is a tough game. There is no one there to take the hits when something goes wrong, everything comes out of your own pocket. I often get asked if I could help other bands, but the fact is pretty much all of our contacts are built based on Sliotar’s success. When people ask me if their band could get a booking in a venue we played somewhere along our tour, my first question is “will you bring a crowd?” It still amazes me every time when a band thinks that all they need to do to play a show is to turn up… Venues book you because they trust that by having your bands name on poster, people will come to the show. The only exceptions are the small pub gigs, which in most cases just don’t pay enough to sustain a tour. Our circuit is small, but precious to us and it took us several years of hard work to build it. Through those years many festival and a venue have come and gone.

And if you were to add up the man hours it takes to organise the tour, it would not make any sense to do it. So you have to do it for the love of it, and I do 🙂 Hopefully some day soon I get to do few solo tours as well 🙂

J.P.