Pre-production

At a basic level, this involves deciding on quotes from splitter van companies and making sure the artist’s usual front of house (FoH) engineer is aware of the dates and available. Tours of larger capacity venues require more complex pre-production – I have experience and expertise at all levels.

Another example. I mention production rehearsals in ‘tour budgeting and financial planning’. It’s always a good idea to get all the musicians, crew, and equipment together in a dedicated space for at least a day, even for a splitter van tour of <500-cap venues.

I indicate this in the budget and then plan out the times, location, and duration in my pre-production phase.

Budgeting and pre-production are part of the same process and are interdependent. The two activities are part of a jigsaw – it is often difficult to budget for an activity or equipment rental without some other piece of information.

For instance: say your artist is performing at a major UK festival. Their deal states they will perform first on their stage, but the deal memo does not mention a specific time. Now you would expect a certain amount of travel on the day, depending on where your artist is based.

However, during the advance process, I (the tour manager) established that the stage time is at midday. The festival requires the artist, crew, and equipment to be on-site and at the stage at least three hours before stage time. (This three-hour window is standard for festival conditions and is typically three hours before the changeover time. There is no changeover in this case, as your act is first on).

The schedule from the festival therefore requires your artist to be at the side of the stage at 09.00 am. And, depending on the travel commitments, this may now mean your artist travelling the night before.

Which means another days’ wages, per diems, splitter van hire, plus a hotel for the evening. I would then have to amend the budget to include these new, probably unexpected, expenses.

You may need to send technical information to the various promoters. I can assist you with creating a rider (although the promoters should have received a rider-type document when offering a deal, otherwise they don’t know what they are ‘buying’).

I spent many years as a touring audio engineer, so I can also assist in preparing up-to-date input lists and stage plans to send to venues and festivals.

The pre-production rehearsal is an excellent opportunity to weigh and measure the artist’s touring equipment (instruments, backline, playback system etc).

These weights and dimensions (‘dims’) will be useful to whoever raises a carnet or organises ‘freight movements’ (sending equipment abroad by air or by sea).

You may or may not need a carnet for your artist touring abroad. Your artist may not be at the stage in their career where you anticipate freight movements. However, at some point your artist will/should perform ‘fly dates’ – one-off gigs reached by air travel. (Festivals in the very north or very south of Europe would qualify as fly dates – Sonar in Barcelona being a good example).

Fly dates necessitate your artist taking some equipment with them on the flight. The deal may include the promoter supplying backline, but the artist must supply their own instruments, pedal boards, and playback systems, which are not easily rented.

In all these cases – needing a carnet, freight movements, and fly dates – having up-to-date weights and dims will make everyone’s life a lot easier.

I recommend bringing in one of the specialised music touring freight companies, such as Freight Minds, Rock-it Cargo, or EFM, early on – even if it’s just to get weights and dims for fly dates.

The specialised cargo companies will come to your artist’s rehearsal space and measure and weigh all the relevant equipment. The company will also record a description and serial number for each piece, allocating it a number on a main manifest.

The company keeps this manifest on file, and it aids in raising a carnet and managing freight movements in the future..

At the very least, having a record of the dims, serial numbers, and a description of each piece accompanying the artist on their flight is invaluable for calculations excess baggage charges. (The information is also a godsend when – not if – equipment goes missing during flights.)

Finally, knowing the weights allows the tour manager to anticipate excess weight during the loading of equipment into a splitter van.

I try not to get involved in the organisation of merch. However I will anticipate the impact the merch operation has on the touring production.

Simple factors like the weight of the boxes of merch, the space they occupy, and (hopefully) the prospect of having to order extra t-shirts during the tour will be on my mind during the pre-production stage.