A freind in a small "up and coming band" asked me how to book a tour. I figured some of you might have use for this info, too.

"When it comes to booking tours, we normally get calls out of the blue, and we don’t work with an agent. Festivals are great, but you have to have some notoriety to get them. The best bet for you that I can think of is “show swapping”. Find other bands in your genre in towns you want to play. Email them and ask if they want to swap shows: you book a show in Seattle for them, and they book a show in there town for you, etc. You can find these other bands on myspace.

You can also contact clubs directly, and negotiate terms, like this:

“Hi, I’m Johanna from ____ band and I am currently booking a tour. We’ll be in your town on the 27th of October, and we’d like to play your event”. For a first tour, don’t expect to get more then a couple hundred bucks a night. Here is the goal:

“Earnings from show” + “merchandise sales” > “cost of travel to that show” + “cost of hotels”

So like this:
Venue pays $200
We sell $300 in CDs and T-shirts

We drive from last gig, $125 in gas
Hotel $75 a night

Earnings = $500
cost of show = $200
Profit = $300!

Do this every night for two weeks, and your two week tour just made $4200 even though clubs only paid you $200 each. Also, cost cutting like sleeping at friends houses can be a huge break. We did a show in Salt Lake City were we drove, and slept with at friends bands house in town, and actually turned a decent profit – even though the venue was only paying a couple hundred bucks!

- Robert
Abney Park"