Advancing involves the concert tour manager (CTM) contacting the relevant promoters, organisers, and venues for the tour. The contact should be an exchange of relavant information about the touring party and production, arrival times, the schedule for the day, and to discuss any issues or challenges foreseen by either the tour manager or promoter/organiser. The CTM should advance each show well ahead of the concert date, before on-the-road management begins.
Advancing and pre-production take place concurrently – as I put things into place, I will keep the promoters and organisers informed.
For instance, the addition of extra musicians, content producers, or VIP coordinators may mean I have to travel in two sleeper buses, not the one. Promoters need to know to arrange parking for extra vehicles.
I take care of this activity by asking:
- Have they received our rider?
- What are the catering arrangements
- Is there parking for all our vehicles?
- How are the ticket sales?
The last point is important to me. I feel I am showing some concern for their efforts.
Concert promoters are professional too
Professional concert promoters and venues stage concerts for a living.
They promote concerts every day of the week, sometimes multiple concerts on the same night. There is probably nothing they have not encountered, and no incoming production should require too much adaptation of their usual operations. The advancing process is therefore usually easy; an informal exchange of information.
It would be easy to neglect in-depth advancing – all gigs are the same, right? However, I take the advancing process seriously and double-check all details with promoters and venues.
For instance, trucks over a certain weight require a permit to travel on most European roads on a Sunday. I will therefore always check that promoters have applied for the necessary permits as part of the advance process.
I don’t want my truck delayed because Sunday movement is not permitted for the driver.
Advancing the date and time for each concert
Another example of checking everything with the promoter: say your DJ has been booked for a festival. The contract or deal memo states that the booking is for a Sunday. I might assume the DJ is performing on Sunday evening, or even early Monday morning. However, advancing the show revealed that the performance is scheduled for early on Sunday morning!
The promoter was precise about the day in the deal memo – the show is technically on the Sunday. Assumption could have created many problems.
(This has happened to me, and I make it part of the advancing process to check dates and times of any contracted performance).
Sharing the information with the touring team
I enter information about times, venue addresses, parking restrictions, etc into a tour app such as Master Tour, Road Ops, or Daysheets.
I do this as I conduct the advancing, giving you, your artist, and crew a constant picture of the day-to-day schedule weeks ahead of the tour itself.