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[luxlisbonblog]

10 Things you didn’t know about a DIY band Tour...

N.B Our UK tour starts very soon >>>>>GET YOUR TICKETS HERE

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10 Things you didn’t know about a 100% DIY Band Tour…

On our tours we are the band, support band, promoter, booking agent, band manager, roadie, tour manager, financiers…you get the idea….all in one. No-one else is involved. So there’s alot to it and a few people have suggested I update a little thing about i wrote about it. Let's dive in! 

1. Recording songs to play

Of course the FIRST thing to do is to record some new songs to play! We'll have a new EP out very soon called 'Change (To Stay The Same). This is our latest single 'When You Need Somebody'.

2. Planning the tour dates

It takes a fair amount of time to research appropriate venues for each City, especially if we have never been. I’ll tend to try and take recommendations from our lovely fans in each City. The size, cost, facilities (stage, PA, projector/screen), proximity to the city centre.

Then we send out an email to our fans in nearby postcodes asking if they’d pay in advance for the show. If there are enough people to make it work - we’ll book the show. This is cool. 

We do all the booking, promoting etc ourselves, so then it’s a case of contacting the venues, finding suitable dates, booking, arranging payment, signing contracts, planning a tour schedule and listing and promoting all the shows - this needs a fair bit of website/graphic design huffing and puffing for a non-techie like me who doesn't know what he is doing. Youtube tutorials are your friend I find!

 3. Selling the Tickets

We setup our own site to sell the tickets ourselves rather than use a big ticket site.  

Basically this is because it is the only way to charge no ticket fees.

I detest them. And so do you. Urgh. They are the absolute worst part of the gig going experience in my book. Put you in a right bad mood. 

Also, doing it this way also means we can communicate with folks ahead of time, making sure they know all the songs by sending them over, even unreleased ones, when gig day comes. This helps the enormously we find.

4. The Soundperson

We can’t afford our own "Soundperson" to travel everywhere with us (this is a very important role - someone who controls the levels and the quality of the sound using the mixing desk while you are playing, some people call them the extra member of a band) - so we have to liase and talk to the Venue’s Soundperson as best we can. That means more conversations and making documents…like this one…

Because essentially we have quite a complex set up and bank of equipment to re-create our songs live. 

5. Band Equipment and Setup

We have 4 vocal mics, 3 different guitars feeds, 3 seperate keyboards, a digital sampler and jamies drum kit to set up (as well as Trumpet, Saxophone, Violin and extra backing vocals when budget allows on bigger shows) - in addition to in-ear monitors radio feeds to hear what we are playing best we can. So 2 hours or so is needed to set up and test all of this (and there will always be a problem, you can bet your house on it!). 

There’s also bit and bobs of stage equipment like Tom’s Electronic Drums, Keys and Mic Stands, Spares, Projectors, whole sports holdalls of wires and adaptors of differing colours and uses (sometimes we need 50m+ to rig up the projectors at some reticent venues!) 

…and you can always bet on something going wrong. Tom’s trying to remember whether it’s the Red or the Green wire he shouldn’t cut here…

6. Projections and Visuals 

The projections and visuals we use (syncing up with the songs as we are playing them) are also a vital and non-negotiable part of our show.

Anyway…for each tour there are new visuals to prepare/amend. Chris Tongue from Dead Ready who does all our videos has already done the lion’s share here, but I also have to employ hours of some abysmally slow Final Cut Pro “skills” to adapt them for the live show. 

The hire and set up of the extra equipment required to make that happen can be tricky, as not an awful lot of bands use this sort of thing, but it’s cool. It’s worth it. 

For example, here is Charlotte with wor friend Daveyboy hovering and taking his projected bow! 

7. Lighting 

Sometimes there are also lights to consider, and as it is normally only for certain shows, and venues mostly don’t have specific lightpeople - hiring and liasing with a freelancer to handle that side of things. 

8. Merchandise

I guess there is research, design, finance, pack/price up and transport of the merchandise for the show too, where we'll set out our proveribal (and literal). Bit like this. 

More often we have to arrange to pay someone local to actually do the selling on the night too - we’re normally too busy packing up and down, but we try to man the stall ourselves when we can - it’s cool to meet everyone! 

We’re in negotiations to make this little guy our full time merch dude, but he is a bit reticent at this point. That’s Bruce the cat. He’s named after Springsteen, not Forsyth in case you were wondering. 

9. Rehearsal

We tend to tour in chunks. So some time may have passed since our last show. A rehearsal is needed! We take a good few days over it. Although it would probably take less time if we didn’t always devote the first day to 5 hours of “throwing rock shapes”. 

For bigger shows we also rope in some good friends to play extra parts with us, so we’ll need to rehearse with them too.

Alex on Sax (in a new song ‘When You Need Somebody’) :-

Elliot on Trumpet and Basia on Violin :-

 and Dickon, Rob and Ben from that band Careless Sons on BV's (who will also be supporting us on the tour on these dates below, thanks for info boyz :)

Decide the setlist. And away we go….It’s often a bit of a squeeze. 

10. Right...the Tour is on! - A typical day

9 = Wake in whatever accommodation we’ve arranged. Surrounded by equipment. It’s usually a Travelodge*. I think Charlotte is on commission or something :)

11 = Have now sourced and consumed a decent breakfast** - like this one at the Long Play Cafe in Newcastle. Ace Coffee. Average Ringo Starr Solo albums.

11.30 = Pack 2 Travelodge rooms of gear into 2 cars. This picture obviously isn’t outside a Travelodge. 

12ish = Set off a'driving. 

3ish = Arrive at Venue. Often venue has no parking. Unpack all gear onto pavement. 2 Drivers head off to find parking. 2 of us stay and move the stuff inside.

3.30 = 2/3 flights of stairs done. Gear is all in the venue.

3.35 = Set up. The stuff. Put on a cuppa. This’ll take a while.

4.30 = Deal with whatever problem has reared it’s head today. There is always one. Or nine. 

5 = Soundcheck. Looks a bit like this. 

6.15 = Remember that we haven’t eaten. Get that sorted. Gotta be back at the venue by 6.45.

7= Doors open. Nervous. It’s not always quite like this, but this was one of our our Scala Show. Deal with ticket/gueslist ‘issues’. Always fun. 

7.30 = First Act. Charlotte usually opens for us, playing her own songs. Normally 3 bands. Normal curfew 10.30ish. So 3 hours on call.

9.15pm Gig Time! Lux Lisbon Set time 1hr 25m

10.35pm =  Offstage. A total blur until about 11.45pm but during that time, chatting with folk, merch stuff, celebratory drinks, packing down what took us 3 times as long to set up earlier, reverse stairs trip, re-locating/driving back cars, loading up and setting of to next Travelodge will all have been ‘achieved’

Midnight-1am = Arrive at Travelodge, unpack gear into rooms again. Look forward to realising what essential piece of equipment we left behind in 6 or so hours time. 

And Breathe!

PHEW!

As I said at the start we are doing this all again in April 2017.

In Glasgow, Newcastle, Manchester, Brighton and London.

Here is a little poster. It has information on it. Like a typical promotional poster. It’s self explanatory in almost all respects. OK, in all respects.

 >>>>>>>>AND YOU CAN GET YOUR TICKETS HERE

That’s enough of that now. 

Take care and as ever you can hit reply and I’ll answer any q’s. 

Stu (from that band Lux Lisbon). 

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*In the interests of 2016 BBC-esque balance….‘other budget hostelry option are available’. 

**Note: Essential. And enjoyable. I love a breakfast and very much subscribe this this Thomas Babington Macaulay quote -

“Dinner parties are mere formalities: but you invite a man to breakfast because you actually want to see him”

P.S Tell your pals. They can get our music free to DL/Stream here - http://luxlisbon.com/listen or point send them to our latest single (http://luxlisbon.com/whenyouneedsomebodyvideo)

Copyright © Stuart Rook All rights reserved.