8 Keys to Becoming a Successful Tour Manager
Managing tours can be wildly difficult. It’s not for the faint of heart.
The days and nights can be long, and it’s easy to become discouraged out on the road.
But if you follow a set of guiding principles, your job will become easier, people will respect you more, your team will achieve great results, and you’ll go farther in your career.
I’ve been a tour manager for the last 12 years, and I want to share with you 8 things that helped me succeed along the way.
1. Secure Your Job
First, it’s important to secure your job.
I always tell young tour managers, “You can’t effectively take care of other people unless you take care of yourself first.”
And that starts the moment you get contacted about managing a tour.
You need to know exactly what you’re expected to do and how much you’re going to be compensated if you complete the job and do it well.
This concept of knowing how much you’ll be paid may seem elementary to you, but I’ve seen so many touring crew (including myself) get so caught up in how cool the job is that they forget to clarify how much money they’re going to make.
If you jump into managing a tour without first clarifying your job description and compensation, you’re setting yourself up for future disappointment and possible resentment - forcing you to regret working your dream job.
2. Learn the Artist’s Vision
The second key to becoming a successful tour manager is to learn the artist’s vision for the tour.
You can better prepare for a tour when you know the overall vision.
This includes the whole touring process - travel styles, production, personnel, spending, culture, vibe, etc.
And I recommend learning all of this before you start doing any planning, budgeting or advancing.
When you learn the artist's vision, you’ll be able to make quick and easy decisions about what has to happen in order to execute each show.
Plus, you’ll be able to anticipate what your artist needs before they even realize they need it.
3. Communicate Well
The third key to becoming a successful tour manager is to always communicate well. Great tour managers are great communicators. On the phone, over email, and in person.
There are three general guiding principles that I like to follow when communicating in my job: be quick, be concise, and be considerate.
These principles are especially important to remember while sending emails, but they also carry into other means of communication as well.
First, let’s talk about being quick.
Respond quickly when someone reaches out to you.
We’re working in a fast paced, constantly changing industry and our communication should reflect that.
No, you don’t always have to be on your phone or in front of a computer, but don’t neglect your email or texts about an important subject.
The longer you wait to communicate about a problem, the bigger it can grow. Second, be concise. Get to the point. Be direct.
You’re going to be very busy on the road, and the people you’ll be talking with are just as busy, if not busier.
Managers, agents, and labels have rosters full of artists that have different schedules and teams to attend to.
So be concise, but don’t leave out anything important - which may seem contradictory.
You’ll need to learn to filter through the information, communicating only what is essential.
It’s also important to learn how to read and write emails without tone.
Being short ≠ being rude.
Most people aren’t being rude when sending an email that says a single sentence like, “Please send.”
Being concise helps us maximize our time. Sometimes that means sending a really short email.
But being concise does not give you permission to intentionally be a jerk.
Even if you’re at odds with someone you’re working with, rude communication is always looked down upon and will never fare well for you.
Third, be considerate.
Think about these things when communicating to your team:
Who is my audience?
Does this person need to know all of this information?
How should I communicate with this person?
Consider who you’re communicating with. Are you communicating with your crew? Your manager? Your artist? A venue representative?
For example, you may only need to communicate a schedule to your crew, but you may want to communicate every detail to your manager.
You may want to make sure your artist’s personal email isn’t copied onto a chain with the venue staff when going over production details.
One of the most important things to learn when communicating is how to communicate with your artist.
You need to learn how they like communicating.
Every artist and team you’ll work with will communicate differently.
So you’ll need to learn how everyone likes to communicate and then adhere to those standards.
Tour managers and production managers are typically expected to be better communicators than other types of touring professionals.
But no matter what job you have on the road, if you communicate well with all parties, people will love working with you.
Remember to be quick, be concise, and be considerate in all of your future communication.
4. Follow Up
Key number four, follow up on all show details. You can’t assume promoters, production personnel, and venue representatives will always know what you need.
I didn’t learn this until I made a huge mistake.
About a year into my career as a tour manager, I got a call to go on the road with an artist.
On my first day as the new tour manager with this artist, we showed up around 10AM to headline a large US festival.
Everyone was excited because it was a warm, gorgeous day and we were about to play for over 10,000 people.
Then the stage manager brought me some bad news. There were no instruments on the stage, backstage, or waiting for us on a truck.
We had flown to this show, and typically when you fly to a show you have to rent backline locally.
I realized in that moment I had forgotten to follow up on ordering backline for the show.
Through some quick and creative problem solving, we found the right instruments and saved the show.
But unfortunately, my first weekend with a new artist quickly became my last weekend with that artist.
If only I had followed up on the backline order.
Not following up on that ONE detail cost me my job, over $20,000 of income that summer, and an important business relationship.
Don’t make the same mistake I did.
Even if everything has already been confirmed weeks in advance, following up on all the details 24-48 hours before the show will help keep small items from falling through the cracks.
5. Stay Organized
The fifth key to becoming a successful tour manager is to stay organized.
A huge part of being a great tour manager is knowing how to organize the flow of many different types of information.
At times you might feel like you are drinking from a fire hydrant with the amount of information being thrown at you, but you have to stay organized.
There are many different project management apps you can use to stay organized, but I recommend simply using Google Sheets.
It’s free, it’s customizable, it’s collaborative, and it’s in the cloud - meaning you always have the information you need at your fingertips.
In case you’ve got an event coming up and you don’t have a good advance sheet, I want to share mine with you.
I’ve organized arena-level tours, mini-festivals, single shows, and live stream events all with the same sheet.
Click here, download it, and customize it how you want by clicking File > Make a copy.
6. Keep a Great Attitude
Key number six, keep a great attitude!
No one wants to be around someone who’s a drag on the road.
In our How to be a Tour Manager course, I teach about what it means to be a good “hang” on the road.
Touring is extremely interpersonal. You’re always surrounded by people you have to live and work with.
How you interact with others and how you respond to tough situations on the road will ultimately determine whether or not you will be hired again by that artist.
Touring professionals who are in extreme demand typically have good attitudes and are enjoyable to be around.
I said it earlier, touring is not for the faint of heart. There will be days on the road where you will just want to scream (or cry).
Learning how to be extremely optimistic and keep your stress levels in check even in tough situations will be a major key to your future successes on the road.
7. Don’t be afraid of conflict
You may strive to always have a good attitude, but you can’t be afraid of conflict. That’s key number seven.
I’ll be the first to admit, engaging in conflict is not fun. But it’s absolutely necessary! Because nothing great can ever be done without engaging in some form of conflict.
You can’t hike up a mountain, lose weight, win a ball game, learn something new, or manage a great tour without engaging and navigating through some type of conflict.
The word conflict has a bad connotation; it gets a bad rap. But did you know that conflict within a team can actually be healthy?
If you’ve built trust with your team and your team respects each other, conflict becomes more than just an argument.
With trust present, conflict ultimately becomes the pursuit of truth or the pursuit of the best possible outcome in a scenario.
So if you are in pursuit of the best possible outcome in a scenario, why wouldn’t you confront someone if they’re hurting the vision or the goal of the team?
Why wouldn’t you have a conversation with someone who is not helping your team (or tour) achieve great results?
Learning how to actively address conflict head-on rather than sweeping it under the rug is going to help you overcome many tough situations in every part of your life, and it’s going to help you manage a more successful tour.
8. Continually Improve Yourself
Lastly, you have to continually be improving yourself.
Why do you need to continually improve yourself?
Because you are a product.
You get paid in exchange for what you’re worth and for the services you provide.
And if you want to keep getting hired and paid more money on the road, you have to continually be improving the value of the product or service that you provide.
For example, say you only know how to push cases and pack a truck. Well, you’re only economically worth about $15 bucks an hour.
And if you know how to set up and tune instruments properly, you’re worth a little more.
If you know how to lead a crew, you’re worth a bit more.
And if you can manage a tour, mix a show, lead a crew, set up instruments, and make sure every piece of gear is in top working condition every night, your value will keep going up and up and up.
You as a product become way more valuable because you are able to provide more services.
You save the artist money because they don’t have to bring out multiple people on the road to do all the jobs. You’ve got it covered.
You save the artist money because you keep all their gear in working order.
You give your team peace of mind because they know they can count on you to lead them on a tour.
And when you can prove that you save the artist lots of money, they’ll have no problem increasing your pay.
Because to them, working with YOU is a great investment, rather than working with someone else who doesn’t think like you.
I’m sure you get the picture here.
No matter what job you have, you are a product on the market, and you should continually be improving your skills and services to increase your value.
Once again, here are 8 Keys to Becoming a Successful Tour Manager:
Secure your job.
Learn the artist’s vision for the tour.
Communicate well.
Always follow up on all show details.
Stay organized.
Keep a great attitude.
Don’t be afraid of conflict.
Continually improve yourself.
A Great Way to Improve Your Skills
If you’re ready to up your game and learn how to lead your team on the road, join Tour Management Made Easy. It’s a program for young tour managers with bi-weekly coaching sessions and access to our How to be a Tour Manager course. It could be the best thing you’ve ever given yourself.
Whether you’re a current touring professional or a student dreaming of becoming a tour manager, Tour Management Made Easy will help you gain the knowledge, the tools, and the confidence to be able to hit the road and successfully manage your next tour.
When you enroll in the program, not only will you immediately start gaining a new skill that’s valuable to artists on the road, but you’re also going to learn tips, tricks, and step-by-step processes that will make people love working with you. Plus, you’ll be surrounded by a community of people who are growing together.
