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damagednoob

The current cycle for touring bands is this:

1. Create an album

2. Organise tour dates for just after the album release

3. Release the album

4. Go on tour

5. Rest

6. Repeat

For a US tour, you're not criss-crossing the country, going from New York to Los Angeles to San Francisco, e.t.c. Tour managers exist because they literally have to solve the Travelling Salesman problem for their clients. Tour buses are a thing because you're just driving to the next town/city along the way.

I'm not sure where RoadPony fits into this touring cycle or helps tour managers in their decision making. It seems to me that it will promote one off gigs without taking care of the logistical problems that bands face.

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That’s a very US-centric view and mostly concerns quite established artists with traditional band setups.

DJs tour all day every day, and the current trend in pop music is to just release as many singles and eps and albums as possible (look at the rapper Future for instance). Not too familiar with Jazz but my impression is it’s mostly life on the road as well.

As a former promoter in the EU, I can attest we have many great shows in my city which begin basically with just an email with an offer and a date and then it’s off to the races. Roadpony fits perfectly. Hundreds, thousands, if not millions of artists across the world would kill for that email. Artists are insatiable when it comes to opportunities like this. Mind you, “rock bands” are a thing of the past. People just pack a laptop and thats it.

Futher, touring bands love to squeeze another gig in. Its basically free money. If you’re going to a festival, and theres a roadpony thing going on to have you play a venue that is local, of course you would just go do that as well.

> If you’re going to a festival, and theres a roadpony thing going on to have you play a venue that is local, of course you would just go do that as well.

Assuming the festival contract doesn't specify exclusivity in the weeks surrounding (something that's actually quite common in my experience).

Exactly. It’s not as easy as saying “oh look, people want to see us” as it is bureaucratic red tape that a festival has to adhere to. Also, just because people want to see you perform doesn’t mean a venue does. Some venues will only take certain artists, others lack the space, all while more and more smaller to medium sized venues are closing. Music as a business is evolving to just digital content and marketing. It’s sad.

Yeah, there are things to consider. Everything also depends a whole lot on band size, country, city etc.

Regarding venues, being from a city with around 1 million people, it’s pretty much always a solvable problem. Theaters, movie theaters, music venues, gallerie, stadiums, rented stages... it is, in my experience, a very solvable problem. If it’s a big band, you throw money at the problem, if it’s a small gig, make something fun out of it. The concert only gets better if you put the act somewhere fun or unexpected. I’ve done shows in wine cellars, on ferries etc.

Sure, alternative venues are a lot of fun. I used to play in an open space, in a square, at the end of a cul-de-sac, coffee shops... these don’t necessarily warrant something like the OP’s solution though. I haven’t been in music in quite some time but when I was I would have killed for an app that connected me with venues rather than with fans. I had my own avenues for that. A website, MySpace, mailing list. Now I imagine it would be Facebook and SoundCloud and the like... I played punk music and because of that, venue selection was limited to those with the insurance coverage ;) Any mom & pop place quickly turned us down.

Cheers, sounds like good fun :) many venues these days are pretty much automated. Live Nation has direct access to the calendar of the most populat venue in my city. They dont consult the venue, they just add bands to the calendar. A venue-connecting app would do nothing for you in that (maybe specific, but not uncommon id wager, given live nations size) example.

This is a good point. However, I'm sure if you presented proof to a venue that you already have a large number of paying showgoers ready to see you in this city if you perform in the near future, convincing the venue to book you will be much easier than just an estimated head count or trying to use the numbers from your last area performance.

We're planning on working assistance to cover the venue/promoter costs as well. So given that the demand is high enough for the performer, I don't see why the venue would turn them down if they could present info like this.

Thanks for the feedback btw!

Very good point. You definitely have leverage showing up to a booking meeting with head counts. What guarantees do you have they show up though? I played a few gigs where we thought we would have more numbers. In fact that experience lead to us youngsters turning towards getting a college education instead of playing to an empty room. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for what you all are up to. My experience was 20 some years ago so it’s totally different now.

Yeah, that is common. I guess it also depends on the definition of “local”. If you’re flying from spain to play in Hamburg, playing in Berlin is not “local”, but would still make good business sense.

> "Mind you, “rock bands” are a thing of the past. People just pack a laptop and thats it."

The pandemic has been brutal to traditional bands who play real instruments, but no way are they gone forever.

I at least have gone the other way, I watch Facebook live performances or other recorded live things like Postmodern Jukebox or deWolff. I'm tired of the overproduced soulless studio music.

Or as one London session guitarist I know said of a number one Seal track he played on "97 tracks in protools for the lead vocals!"

https://www.billboard.com/charts/hot-100 Where’s the rock band.

Implying that the only musicians that tour are the ones on the Billboard 100 is a little disingenuous. There are countless "traditional instrument" bands from genres like indie/folk all the way to blackened death metal that are constantly releasing music and touring.

Also, love it or hate it, modern country music is extremely popular in parts of the US, and that's (mostly) traditional instruments as well.

Yeah i was being flippant. That said, it really is eye opening looking at hit lists. Also, i have deep respect for country, but even that genre is heavily influenced by trap and dance music these days. Wild.

Your not going to replace a 58 Gibson Les Paul with a laptop :-)

Ok possibly you could use an amp simulator to replace some of the ancillary gear.

I think this is more a case of the laptop being the 21st century guitar, than any instrument being "obsoleted". The trends in popular music have followed a min-maxing of physical logistics, loudness of sound, and timbral flexibility relative to the era and setting:

The railroad preceded the rise of the large, Sousa-style marching band, which also made use of the loudest instruments of the era(brass). After electric amplication set in you got an era of radio crooners and smaller-piece popular groups, which ultimately gravitated towards the now familar guitar-keys-drums arrangements by midcentury as the nascent rock band could fit that gear on a bus and get a wide timbral variety with use of amplification and effects without relearning the instruments. The guitar in particular has a good ergonomic profile while also being amenable to amplification and effects, hence the stereotype of the "travelling guitarist" coincides with its central role in large arena rock productions where a three or four-piece plays to an audience of tens or hundreds of thousands.

The laptop fits in with the trend by being even smaller, more portable, more flexible. It fills in nearly every need for back-up, so a solo act can sound as big as desired. And it can be used in its own right as a performance instrument, though computer keyboards aren't tremendously expressive interfaces in the way guitar strings are. (For that, there is always someone selling some kind of new controller interface idea. Though they have a habit of not sticking...)

> DJs tour all day every day

And that's a very DJ-centric way of looking at. A DJ might be able to have an itinerary like Dublin -> Frankfurt -> Birmingham -> Prague but when it comes to a band and all their equipment, they generally would look for a route that minimises travel-time and cost.

> I'm not sure where RoadPony fits into this touring cycle or helps tour managers in their decision making.

It provides strong confirmed information on where the fans are. With it the tour manager can know for certain how big a crowd they can expect in each city before they even start planning. Its up to them after this to decide where to go and where not to go to make the tour viable.

> It seems to me that it will promote one off gigs...

Why do you think so? I don’t see the fan pledges as binding on the band. If a band runs an album release campaign and when the numbers are in they can see that they have 10 fans in Miami and 10 fans in Anchorage and nothing else that just means that they are not ready for touring yet so they won’t.

The kind of information RoadPony can provide is especially usefull on the margins. You don’t need to be a genius to know that huge band in a huge metropolis will find enough interest. But it might show if the time is right for a smaller band to start touring, or might show which smaller cities are viable tour stops for the huge band.

You're right. The about page offers more information specifically aimed at performers which addresses my concerns about 'routes': https://www.roadpony.com/about/

Again, tour managers don’t route tours. This entire thread is classic HN... interesting perspectives, but mostly a bunch of ‘smart’ people trading notes/ideas on topics/industries they know nothing about and/or read about once and now feel confident speaking on incorrectly.

> It provides strong confirmed information on where the fans are

You mean like promoters who put up guarantees? Pretty sure it’s not difficult to figure out which markets acts should travel to... follow the money...

It sounds like you've got a bee in your bonnet about terminology. Surely there's one entity that decides how to route the tour. If so, who does it? If not, how does it work?

You hit the nail on the head!

Hey thanks for the feedback! RoadPony would be step 3.5 in this sequence. I'll try to explain how it's intended to help.

It isn't meant to solve all logistical hurdles when it comes to touring but rather give agencies/artists more accurate insight into where they can be most successful as far as revenue and draw.

You'd be able to see what fans (and where they are) are willing to pay for a tickets to the show (because they already have via the bid on their city) in select areas. The performer can then look at this data and see, for example, "it looks like we have a strong fan base on the east coast due to the requests/bids we've received on these east coast cities"

Now the band knows that if they book on the east coast in those cities, they're at the very least going to collect the money that was generated via the bids from RoadPony. These fans are already invested so they're more likely going to show up to the show as well.

It's gives you the opportunity to validate markets in cities before you even book them. You'll still have to book the show in those cities, but you'll now know that your efforts are much more validated if you used the data provided by RoadPony.

Hope this clears things up. Let me know if you have any suggestions!

They could easily build in rules to accommodate this and even add a marketplace for companies who can bid to organise lighting rigs and venues and all other associated tour activities. I think what they are building could eventually be thought of as a control panel for bands (any bands) to be able to plan AND finance their tours with their fans. It’s completely genius if they take it far enough (and probably a billion dollar company if they get it right)!

Very US centric and very bias towards established acts with a large following.

That is not the cycle for every band. I'm sure there are plenty of bands willing to travel a few hours for a one off gig, especially in smaller countries. Bands where they may be fairly popular online but haven't done any tours as yet.

I perfectly fits my experience in Germany, so probably not US- but established-band centric (as in: they make money off spotify, though not necessarily enough to live off of it).

Bookings almost exclusively go through the band's agency, 6 to 12 months in advance. Tour logistics are a major part of costs on the band's side. Smaller bands without an agency usually also only have a very small local following, meaning not enough guests to pay the people at the venue, meaning the mostly are not booked by the venue, outside of labor-of-love events of some employees at the venue.

Tour managers don’t route tours...

That is misleading.

At most levels of band-organizational development, the person who is the tour manager is also the person who routes the tour.

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