Thank you to Gideon Hogan
The funny thing about touring is that the really important work usually happens long before anyone walks into a venue.
Pre-production and advancing probably aren’t the most glamorous parts of the job, but they’re usually the difference between a smooth day and one that creates problems to be solved at every turn.
A good advance is basically problem-solving in advance, and that’s where experience is everything.
Knowing which questions to ask, which details actually matter, and usually having a fairly good idea where things are most likely to go wrong before they do.
Looking at timings, access, hotels, travel, settlements, parking, credentials, guest lists, curfews and all the other bits that seem small individually, but become very noticeable when they’ve been missed.
What people probably don’t always see is how much of that process is a team effort.
Tour management, production, accounting, logistics, promoters, agents, local contacts, everyone feeds into it in one way or another.
No single person has every answer.
The good days usually come from good people communicating properly and staying ahead of things together.
Of course, touring being touring, something unexpected will still happen anyway, usually around the time you think you’re having a great day.
Proper prep gives you room to deal with it all calmly instead of firefighting from the moment you arrive.
When a show day runs smoothly, people often assume it just came together naturally. It didn’t.
It’s usually because a whole team spent weeks asking awkward questions beforehand.
