Concert touring THE SHOW
MUST GO ON: KEYS TO SUCCESS
ê Attention to detail is important – a slip-up on the travel logistics can make or break a good music tour. Good housekeeping is essential on the road.
ê Nothing is unreasonable when it comes to business travel in this sector, from extremely late check-outs, to early check- ins and a host of other requests.
ê Discretion is an imperative for a lot of business travel – however for musicians and celebrities it is especially important.
ê It is essential to have detailed knowledge of the artistes – know your musicians’ foibles. There is nothing worse than booking a meat-heavy restaurant and the main artistes are vegans.
ê Travel buyers and their TMCs are on hand 24-7, 365 days of the year with mobile phones always switched on – it’s that kind of personal business.
ê There are significant differences in dealing with very well established musicians who are treading a well-worn path on global tours, versus those starting out.
ê This is a specialised business, and travel buyers and their agents need to ensure significant resources are allocated – in terms of people, time and money – to make it work.
ê Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes: sector trends, traveller tracking and data reporting are increasingly required by music travel buyers.
ê Music and media travel buyers are increasingly focusing on their travel budgets. The sector has evolved to become more business-like when it comes to touring.
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ê Live shows represent a bigger proportion of income for many artistes and they are touring more, as album sales drop.
ê The appetite for live shows has also grown within the general public, thus creating a higher demand for tickets to shows.
The three key issues our entertainment teams strongly focus on are market knowledge, client relationship building and communication.
Nigel Parkinson, general manager, Altour “The good thing is that it’s not a
seasonal business – tours are going on all the time,” explains Brian Locke, owner of music travel specialist The Tour Division, which is a member of Tzell Travel Group. Certainly this year many superstars
are touring, from Roger Waters with ‘The W
all Live’ to Paul McCartney, but
also a greater diversity of bands offering pop, rock, hip hop and even classical music. Both veterans and newer artistes are also travelling extensively, and that means more bookings of flights, hotels and ground transportation. Globalisation has helped the tour
and travel industry. Not only are people appreciating artistes in remoter corners of the globe, bands are also playing gigs there as well, from Baku to Bratislava. With more direct flights and better global air connectivity, it means these destinations are also easier to get to. Ante Giskeodegard is organiser of Sommerfesten, a Norwegian music festival that hosted British artistes Travis and Gabrielle among others in July, on a small island called Giske, near Alesund in the northern fjord area. “Logistics and organisation are everything,” she says. “We’ve seen this event grow from 30 people to 30,000 in the last nine years.” It’s the reason why a number of British travel management companies (TMCs) active in the music and media industry are seeing a sector in rude health and in contrast to other industries – and expectations for 2013
are even bigger. “There is a hunger for it out there, there are many more doors now open to tours,” explains Locke. Over the last few years the music tour sector has also become more professional in how it books, manages and scrutinises travel plans. “Budgets are incredibly important now and we have to provide very detailed breakdowns of costs for music tours,” says John Gianquitto, chairman and CEO of The Appointment Group (TAG). TAG’s concert tour division is
Music By Appointment, whose general manager, Caroline McCann, adds: “Tour managers increasingly value reporting. It’s playing a significant part in our relationship with them – it means they have all the figures so they can assess the efficiency and profitability of a tour.”
GET YOURSELF CONNECTED And it is not an easy sector to either grapple or make money in: “Business tends to be almost exclusively word of mouth and many of our client relationships, particularly with tour managers, date back many years,” says Nigel Parkinson, general manager at Altour. Agents have to offer a 24/7
personalised service, yet not every TMC can allot such a significant resource. Often on larger tours there can be up to three teams of roadies leapfrogging each other from city to city, building and deconstructing the stages.
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NEXT TIME you send your road warriors off on a trip, don't forget to load up their iPods with these top travel tunes...
IGGY POP The Passenger
TOP TEN FOR THE ROAD 9 GLADYS
5
THE CLASH Should I Stay or Should I Go?
3
THE DOORS Riders on the Storm
4
THE BEATLES Ticket to Ride
THE ROLLING STONES Route 66
6 7
KRAFTWERK Autobahn
PREFAB SPROUT Cars and Girls
8 10
KNIGHT AND THE PIPS Midnight Train to Georgia
DAFT PUNK Around the World
DIONNE WARWICK Trains and Boats and Planes
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2012
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