Booking and Tour Management for the Performing Arts

Rena Shagan

• Publisher: Allworth
• Year: 2001
• eBook ISBN: 9781621531548
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Performing Arts

This third edition of Booking and Tour Management for the Performing Arts has been updated to include information about the revolutionary new ways that performers, managers, and presenters are using the Internet to transform the business of booking live performing events. Special chapters by outside experts provide in-depth information about what presenters need from artists, the technical aspects of touring, the unique demands of touring abroad, and touring through the eyes of the artist. The book includes a Tour Manager's Resource Kit and numerous other ready-to-use sample materials, including a contract, letter of agreement, technical information questionnaire, performance checklists, calendars, schedules, tour budget model, technical glossary, and much more.

C H A P T E R 1

Touring: An Overview

THE TOURING OF PERFORMING ARTS PRESENTATIONS MAKES LIVE CULTURAL attractions available to a vast and disparate audience throughout the United States and abroad. The concept of touring covers a wide range of activities which take place when a company leaves its home base to provide performances or other services to one or more audience groups. While tours are integral to the programs of many different performing arts institutions, “touring” can mean something quite different to a well-established organization from what it means to a small, new company.

Before considering whether a company should tour, the different types of activities that occur under the general label of “touring” should be defined.

• Run Out. A run-out, in the classic sense, is an engagement in a nearby town or city which does not entail an overnight stay. However, run-outs have also come to mean an engagement of a couple of days, which may take place quite far from the artist’s home city but is unconnected to any other engagement.

• One-Night Stand/Single Day Residency. A one-night stand is a single performance for one presenter as part of a tour. This visit can include additional activities which all take place on the same day (single day residency).

• Residency. A residency can best be thought of as a stay in one community for more than a single performance. Activities other than performance are often an important part of a residency. At times a group of presenters within the same community or in adjacent areas share a residency.

• Long-Term Residency. A long-term residency is a stay of one or more weeks at one location. Long-term residencies usually involve a considerable amount of performance and nonperformance activity.

• Tour. A tour is a series of performances and/or other activities performed by a company in different places on the road without returning to its home city. A tour can be made up of single performances, nonperformance activities, and/or residencies, and can range in length from a few days to several weeks or months.

To Tour or lot to Tour: Who Makes tie Decision?

This chapter is designed to help a company ask the tough questions it needs to answer before proceeding into the booking process (See Exhibit 1). In fact, the first few chapters of this book should help you to determine whether your company should tour at all and—if you decide that touring is an option—what you should tour, where, how, and for how long, as well as how much you should charge presenters. The aim is to focus the decision-makers in your organization on touring in general and, more specifically, what touring would entail for your company.

Decisions of this magnitude should be made in close consultation among senior artistic and management personnel and the board of trustees. (Solo musicians and singers will involve a different group in their deliberations, made up perhaps of the artist, the manager, and the artist’s teacher or coach.)

Artistic Staff

The artistic staff is concerned primarily with how touring affects the artistic product (i.e., does the company have specific work it wants to tour, how long will it take to prepare, is there time for rehearsal in terms of other things the company is doing, etc.). If a company decides to tour, then the artistic personnel proposes what work to present and helps to decide how the repertory or production(s) might be modified to be either more cost-efficient or more easily tourable. The administrative staff and board must also be thoroughly acquainted, from the very start of the tour planning process, with the artistic staff’s concept of the possibilities for, and limitations on, the activities the company will be able to provide on tour.

E x h i b i t 1

The Planning Process for Touring

Administrative Staff

The administrative staff concentrates initially on the costs of the proposed tour, the resources necessary to succeed, and the ramifications on other company activities. If the company decides to tour, management must construct a budget for touring the chosen artistic product, and propose where the company will tour and by what method of transportation. Management must also assess the product’s salability and the financial and logistical impact of its technical demands because, ultimately, it is responsible for booking and administering the tour properly.

Board of Trustees

The board of trustees is responsible for all fiscal and policy decisions affecting the company, and needs to be an integral part of decision-making throughout this process. The trustees not only must agree on such matters as funding any deficit created by a tour, but they also must help to determine whether touring, from a broad perspective, is in the best interests of the company and to assess how it will affect the company’s activities in its home city.

Touring Is Not for Everyone

Touring is not for every company, and certainly is never obligatory. No company should ever go out on the road just because it seems to be the thing to do. Rather, you should know in advance exactly why you want to tour and what you hope to gain.

Many organizations choose not to tour at all, or perhaps to tour only briefly every year or so. Several reasons are commonly offered by companies. One obvious reason is that they have too many ongoing commitments to take on new activities such as touring. If a company is a major cultural resource locally, the rehearsal, performance, educational, and outreach activities in its home base area can sometimes leave little or no time to tour. Or, in addition to its regular home base activities, a company sometimes may have a “second home,” another community in which it works on a regular basis for a portion of the year. In some organizations, artists have a large amount of regular outside work, and additional work weeks are not a priority.

Some companies can earn more income at home than on tour. As the manager of a ballet company said, “Why should I take the company on the road, with all the headaches and extra expense involved, and bring in $40,000 per week in fees when we can sell $80,000 worth of tickets in the same week at home, do more performances, and my dancers can sleep in their own beds at night?” In addition, all things being equal, a touring program which needs subsidy is less attractive to the company and its board of trustees than staying at home.

Finally, touring is difficult and tiring for artists and the technical and administrative staff who accompany them. The physical and emotional stress involved in performing in a new theater every day or every couple of days may be more than a company can sustain. In addition, if other company activities take precedence, the administrative staff may not be able to cope with booking and administering a tour.

Some Good Reasons for Going Out on the Road

On the other hand, many companies do choose to tour, for a combination of reasons closely related to the type and size of the company, their sources of income, and their home base activities. The following paragraphs examine some of the primary reasons for going out on the road, in no particular order of importance.

Touring is a matter of survival for many companies. At-home performances and activities are limited by cost, audience size, and repertory. For dance companies especially, there is a limit to the number of works that can be offered during a home season, and there is a very small number of new pieces the audience will not have seen previously. Chamber music ensembles and solo musicians and vocalists must tour to develop national and international reputations.

For some more established organizations, touring enables the company to offer its artists enough work to persuade them to remain under contract. This can be especially important for companies based outside of large metropolitan areas. In many parts of the country, artists cannot easily get another job in their field. To attract and hold competent artists, a company must offer a contract for a substantial portion of the year, including a number of tour weeks in addition to the rehearsal and performance weeks at home.

For some companies, touring is an important means of building a regional image as a company committed not only to its art form, but also to its role as a community resource, developing audiences and providing essential nonperforming services in the region.

Companies also tour to become well-known. Touring generates name recognition among presenting organizations and audiences. It promotes visibility, which can translate into more effective fundraising, higher performance fees, a changed perception by a home audience (which sometimes begins to appreciate a company only when someone else tells them how good it is!), and the ability to attract better artists and gain recognition from regional corporations, national corporations with a presence in the region, national government funding agencies, foundations, and individuals.

Some companies tour simply because they are committed to performing in communities where there is little or no regular access to quality performance, to a particular art form, or to the work of a particular artist.

Artistically there are two distinct reasons to tour. First, composers, playwrights, and choreographers create work to be heard or seen by audiences. Similarly, people become musicians, dancers, actors, or singers in order to perform. Touring helps both types of artists to gain exposure for their work before the largest possible audience. Second, some argue that the road can provide a good place to hone, develop, or improve a piece of work as it is performed before a variety of audiences.

How to Decide Whether or lot to Tour

There are good reasons, then, both in favor of, or against, going out on the road. Making the decision about whether to tour should be included in your company’s overall planning process. The decision will be based on a careful evaluation of your company in several broad areas of concern. Below are some of the factors you will need to consider to reach the right decision for you.

Artistic Compatibility

First and foremost, you must consider whether the work your company produces is compatible with touring. If it requires an extremely complicated technical set-up, a bigger than usual traveling technical staff, extra set-up time, and/or a large group of artists, it may be difficult or impractical to tour. A large company is more difficult to sustain financially, but can usually manage a long tour better than a small company. Large companies have a greater number of people among whom they can divide artistic and technical responsibilities, making them less susceptible to illness, injuries, and burnout.

Is the company relatively inexperienced, or is it used to touring? Experienced companies will know how to pace themselves on tour and will have tricks to ease the strain of being on the road. How does your company add new work or productions? For instance, is the work created from scratch, as is the case with most modern dance companies, or are you working from an existing musical score or script? Almost without exception, a company whose work is originally conceived will require more rehearsal time, hence less time will be available for touring.

Finally, what about obligations at home? For example, the company or its members may be committed to teaching or other special projects and simply not have time to tour. You must sensitively weigh how much touring the company members can manage before their personal lives become disrupted, and they become too physically or emotionally exhausted to work well.

Financial Position

Does the company have ways to produce significant amounts of earned income other than by touring? If it does, then touring may be a less attractive option and the company can more easily decide to tour for shorter periods, or not at all. Does the company make or lose money touring? How much money to underwrite touring can be raised from government, corporations, and foundations that might not be forthcoming for other company programs? If the company tours at a loss, then the funds it can raise from a variety of sources for tour activities may make it possible and palatable to go out on the road.

What financial considerations will the company confront as a result of the artistic considerations just discussed (i.e., length of rehearsal period, length of home season, size of company, repertory, etc.)? Does the company have its artists under a contract for a set number of weeks for which they must be paid?

Can the company anticipate a long enough tour so that it can amortize its start-up costs? Can the company afford to spend the money to book and administer a tour—money for personnel, mailings, telephone bills, promotion, and booking conferences? Keep in mind that even before a tour begins a company may have to lay out at least fifty percent of its costs for booking, promotion, and production. What other major financial obligations does the company expect to take on?

Home Base Involvement

The amount of touring you will be able to do depends upon the demand for your services in your home area, which may be a town, a city, or several counties. Foremost among the factors that determine this demand are the size of the audience, the scope of activities in which you are engaged, and the number of other companies in your home area.

Marketplace Competition

Everyone thinks—or should think—that the company he is associated with is special. But how does it really stack up against other companies in the outside world? Does your company have some exceptional ability or type of activity that presenters will want? If yours is one of a small number of companies which perform something quite unique, or if you have received recent overwhelming national acclaim, potential presenters may be attracted to your company.

Is your company competent and highly professional, and will its artists and technical staff be able to withstand the rigors of touring? Is the company administration ready and able to service the demands and needs of presenters?

A rational, objective analysis of the company will help you to draw the right conclusions. If you have favorably answered these questions, you can feel confident that your company’s product can capably compete in the marketplace. On the other hand, booking is a very competitive business, and not all companies will be successful in their pursuit of a tour.

Making the Decision

If the senior artistic staff, administrative personnel, and the boa...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Editor’s Notes
• Introduction
• 1 Touring: An Overview
• 2 Booking: An Overview
• 3 Preparing a Budget for Touring
• 4 The Booking Brochure
• 5 Targeting the Presenter
• 6 The Nitty Gritty of Booking
• 7 Booking Meetings
• 8 Contracts
• 9 Promotion
• 10 Tour Management
• 11 Trends for the Future
• 12 What Presenters Need from Artists by Susan Farr
• 13 Touring from a Technical Viewpoint by M. Kay Barrell
• 14 The Road Show Abroad by Art Becofsky
• 15 Touring: The Artist’s Viewpoint
• APPENDICES
• Index
• AbouttheAuthor