Music Funding 101

Touring With Less Band Members

Going on the road is a game of trying to save money. In the sponsored-band world, it's also a game of trying to expose the band name and the sponsor name to as many places and fans as possible. This cannot be done easily if you are trying to tour with a ten-piece band. You have to slim things down. Why, you ask? Wouldn't you want the tour to be represented by the same band members as performs in the hometown band?

Not really. As opposed to a non-sponsored band whose main goal is to perform as well as possible in front of as many people as possible, the main goal of a sponsored band is to expose the sponsor's name; and while you do want to expose the sponsor's name to as many people as possible, exposing the name does not necessarily require a performance, much less a performance involving every single band member. So if you can slim down the size of the band that is touring, and thus spend less money each day, then you can apply that extra money to additional days and additional cities of touring.

And thus you enter an area ripe with negotiations. The band is going to want to tour/perform with all the current members, whereas the sponsor is going to want less. The band might want to hire a local player in each city (to "fill in"), and the sponsor might not want to pay for it. The band's lead singer might not be available to leave her hometown for more than a few days at a time, whereas the sponsor might want the band on the road for weeks at a time. For bands in the position of having a sponsor who can fund a tour, it really becomes important to be able to match these things up. Hopefully TalentFunding.com will help with this.

Certain genres of bands have an easier time leaving members at home; singer-songwriters and jazz vocalists are two examples. The heavier genres like rock and metal have a tougher time. Solo hip hop artists are very easy to tour, but larger hip hop acts are difficult because most of the members have vocal parts which they feel are needed. Generally speaking, the vocal performers will need to perform, followed by lead guitarists as the next most needed. Bassists, rhythm guitarists and drummers are more easily left out, since they could be filled in locally.

More likely than filling-in locally however, is the option of doing different arrangements that don't require all the members. Not necessarily an "unplugged" or acoustic version, but a slimmed down version nevertheless, usually with less energy and volume. Remember that what you are doing is putting together a "package" that can be presented to new places and fans that will otherwise never get to see the band perform. For the band, the whole point of the sponsor's help is to get to be able to perform to a much, much larger number of people. This larger group of people has no idea of what the band "normally" does. They only know what gets presented to them that day. And if the tour can't be negotiated properly with the sponsor, this new group of fans won't get to see any members of the band at all.

CD sales, sold at each show, are a strong reason for touring with less band members. Remember that the CD is recorded with the full production, so during the performances the band can announce the fact that "our CD has some extra great players on it"; this will be an extra reason for fans to buy the CD.

And don't forget, if radio is part of your campaign, it will be playing the full-production version of the music. So again, when the band is performing live, they can announce that fans can call the station to request the song "that has some extra great players on it." After all, you always want to give people a reason to call the station.

The main point to remember when negotiating the tour is that you start with the number of cities/days/shows that need to be played. Then you look at how much money the sponsor can pay to cover these areas. From this, you can figure out how many members can tour, (you can figure the overall production costs, too.) If the band is not happy with the result, then maybe a different sponsor would be more suitable.

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