Booking and Tour Management for the Performing Arts

Introduction

The marketplace for the performing arts in this country is enormous. Indeed, according to the most recent Louis Harris survey, Americans and the Arts VII, the number of people who attend arts events (both performances and visual art exhibitions) has remained at an all-time high, despite the misconception that public support for the Arts has been on the decline. Audiences were attracted to performances sponsored by a variety of performing arts presenters ranging from the independent entrepreneur to colleges and universities, civic auditoriums, arts centers, performing arts companies, alternative spaces, and even service organizations like the YMCA.

The events they saw included opera, ballet, mime, theater, chamber music, solo instrumentalists, new music, orchestral music, and all varieties of contemporary dance, as well as work which involved collaborations between artists from a variety of media. Some of the productions involved large numbers of people on the stage and behind the scenes and featured elaborate sets and costumes. Other events consisted of a single artist performing on a bare stage. Clearly, there are eager audiences for all types and sizes of performing artists/companies, and somewhere in this country there is a place for every good performer to be seen and heard by the public.

The marketplace for the performing arts comprises a network of buyers and sellers, a continuum of supply and demand. One part of this universe is populated by performing artists/companies, another by presenters and the organizations they serve. Touring artists/companies sell their serv-ices—performances, teaching residencies, etc.—to presenters, who present these services to the public or use them within their own organizations (a master class, for example). The interaction of buyers and sellers in a competitive market is one of the principal economic activities of the performing arts industry, and at the center of it is a process known as booking.

Regardless of the art form or the geographic area of interest, the booking process necessitates that the artist/company must put together a package of services to offer to presenters, attach a price to these services, and communicate this information to the presenters who are most likely to buy. The desired end of this process is a contract for an engagement to perform, to teach, to create a new work, or any combination thereof which enables you to take your company, or product, on the road.

A prevalent myth among many in the performing arts is that in order to book an artist/company successfully, you must either already have plenty of solid contacts in the field or be related to Merlin the Magician. Neither is the case. Booking and the tour administration that follows after you have successfully put together a tour are very hard work, but both can be mastered. The purpose of this book is to help ease you through the entire process by guiding you step-by-step through the key questions you and your colleagues must ask yourselves before deciding to tour, describing all the materials you will need, and outlining in detail the booking process, the management responsibilities during a tour, and the administrative follow-up.

Every art form has unique qualities and requirements, and each individual company will have certain special needs. But the basic needs and problems of most touring groups are quite similar. Regardless of your company’s size or discipline, there are certain fundamental principles which you will need to observe in order to book and administer a tour effectively.

This book is designed to be used in two ways: (1) as a basic handbook for the people directly involved in touring, including those who may not have been exposed to the subject previously, those individuals or organizations contemplating touring for the first time, and those considering a significant change in the amount or method of their touring; and (2) as a general resource for administrative and financial staff connected with companies that tour who, although not directly responsible for booking or tour administration, wish to acquaint themselves with this component of the company’s overall program. The book should also be of interest to board members of touring companies as well as to presenters, whose relation-ships with the companies they produce will be enhanced by a better understanding of what the performing artist is up against when trying to do his best work in unfamiliar surroundings.

This book was originally published in 1986 as The Road Show and then updated in 1996 as Booking and Tour Management for the Performing Arts. This 2001 edition has been updated to include new information focusing especially on using the World Wide Web and computer software. While most of the planning and procedures for booking and tour management have remained the same over the past few years, there have been a few important changes; these are noted throughout the book. The chapters are arranged to follow the basic flow of the booking process and, if read serially Booking and Tour Mangagement for the Performing Arts will help you map out a coherent plan of action. Each chapter thoroughly and discretely examines a specific component of the field.

The text has been supplemented with chapters written by three real experts in their respective areas. Susan Farr gives important insights into what the booking and tour management processes look like from the pre-senter’s perspective. Art Becofsky discusses international booking and tour management and how they are both different and similar to what you will find in the U.S. marketplace. And M. Kay Barrell examines the technical end of touring, outlining what companies need to know about a presenter’s theater to give the most professional and technically competent performance possible.

Chapter 11, Trends for the Future, focuses on notable shifts and changes in the evolving marketplace of the twenty-first century. The trends are surveyed through interviews with working professionals in the field— presenters, managers, and funders. If some of the information in this chapter seems contradictory in places, it is not by accident. The way the marketplace is seen depends very much on the participant’s organizational size, geography, and artistic goals, among other factors. The purpose of this chapter is to illuminate the changes so that you can incorporate new market patterns into your strategy for going on tour.

By the time you reach the end of this book, you’ll have become aware of the questions and tasks to be faced, you will have learned many of the answers, and you will know where to look for the others.

C H A P T E R 1

Touring: An Overview

THE TOURING OF PERFORMING ARTS PRESENTATIONS MAKES LIVE CULTURAL attractions available to a vast and disparate audience throughout the United States and abroad. The concept of touring covers a wide range of activities which take place when a company leaves its home base to provide performances or other services to one or more audience groups. While tours are integral to the programs of many different performing arts institutions, touring can mean something quite different to a well-established organization from what it means to a small, new company.

Before considering whether a company should tour, the different types of activities that occur under the general label of touring should be defined.

• Run Out. A run-out, in the classic sense, is an engagement in a nearby town or city which does not entail an overnight stay. However, run-outs have also come to mean an engagement of a couple of days, which may take place quite far from the artist’s home city but is unconnected to any other engagement.

• One-Night Stand/Single Day Residency. A one-night stand is a single performance for one presenter as part of a tour. This visit can include additional activities which all take place on the same day (single day residency).

• Residency. A residency can best be thought of as a stay in one community for more than a single performance. Activities other than performance are often an important part of a residency. At times a group of presenters within the same community or in adjacent areas share a residency.

• Long-Term Residency. A long-term residency is a stay of one or more weeks at one location. Long-term residencies usually involve a considerable amount of performance and nonperformance activity.

• Tour. A tour is a series of performances and/or other activities performed by a company in different places on the road without returning to its home city. A tour can be made up of single performances, nonperformance activities, and/or residencies, and can range in length from a few days to several weeks or months.

To Tour or lot to Tour: Who Makes tie Decision?

This chapter is designed to help a company ask the tough questions it needs to answer before proceeding into the booking process (See Exhibit 1). In fact, the first few chapters of this book should help you to determine whether your company should tour at all and—if you decide that touring is an option—what you should tour, where, how, and for how long, as well as how much you should charge presenters. The aim is to focus the decision-makers in your organization on touring in general and, more specifically, what touring would entail for your company.

Decisions of this magnitude should be made in close consultation among senior artistic and management personnel and the board of trustees. (Solo musicians and singers will involve a different group in their deliberations, made up perhaps of the artist, the manager, and the artist’s teacher or coach.)

Artistic Staff

The artistic staff is concerned primarily with how touring affects the artistic product (i.e., does the company have specific work it wants to tour, how long will it take to prepare, is there time for rehearsal in terms of other things the company is doing, etc.). If a company decides to tour, then the artistic personnel proposes what work to present and helps to decide how the repertory or production(s) might be modified to be either more cost-efficient or more easily tourable. The administrative staff and board must also be thoroughly acquainted, from the very start of the tour planning process, with the artistic staff’s concept of the possibilities for, and limitations on, the activities the company will be able to provide on tour.

E x h i b i t 1

The Planning Process for Touring

Administrative Staff

The administrative staff concentrates initially on the costs of the proposed tour, the resources necessary to succeed, and the ramifications on other company activities. If the company decides to tour, management must construct a budget for touring the chosen artistic product, and propose where the company will tour and by what method of transportation. Management must also assess the product’s salability and the financial and logistical impact of its technical demands because, ultimately, it is responsible for booking and administering the tour properly.

Board of Trustees

The board of trustees is responsible for all fiscal and policy decisions affecting the company, and needs to be an integral part of decision-making throughout this process. The trustees not only must agree on such matters as funding any deficit created by a tour, but they also must help to determine whether touring, from a broad perspective, is in the best interests of the company and to assess how it will affect the company’s activities in its home city.

Touring Is Not for Everyone

Touring is not for every company, and certainly is never obligatory. No company should ever go out on the road just because it seems to be the thing to do. Rather, you should know in advance exactly why you want to tour and what you hope to gain.

Many organizations choose not to tour at all, or perhaps to tour only briefly every year or so. Several reasons are commonly offered by companies. One obvious reason is that they have too many ongoing commitments to take on new activities such as touring. If a company is a major cultural resource locally, the rehearsal, performance, educational, and outreach activities in its home base area can sometimes leave little or no time to tour. Or, in addition to its regular home base activities, a company sometimes may have a second home, another community in which it works on a regular basis for a portion of the year. In some organizations, artists have a large amount of regular outside work, and additional work weeks are not a priority.

Some companies can earn more income at home than on tour. As the manager of a ballet company said, Why should I take the company on the road, with all the headaches and extra expense involved, and bring in $40,000 per week in fees when we can sell $80,000 worth of tickets in the same week at home, do more performances, and my dancers can sleep in their own beds at night? In addition, all things being equal, a touring program which needs subsidy is less attractive to the company and its board of trustees than staying at home.

Finally, touring is difficult and tiring for artists and the technical and administrative staff who accompany them. The physical and emotional stress involved in performing in a new theater every day or every couple of days may be more than a company can sustain. In addition, if other company activities take precedence, the administrative staff may not be able to cope with booking and administering a tour.

Some Good Reasons for Going Out on the Road

On the other hand, many companies do choose to tour, for a combination of reasons closely related to the type and size of the company, their sources of income, and their home base activities. The following paragraphs examine some of the primary reasons for going out on the road, in no particular order of importance.

Touring is a matter of survival for many companies. At-home performances and activities are limited by cost, audience size, and repertory. For dance companies especially, there is a limit to the number of works that can be offered during a home season, and there is a very small number of new pieces the audience will not have seen previously. Chamber music ensembles and solo musicians and vocalists must tour to develop national and international reputations.

For some more established organizations, touring enables the company to offer its artists enough work to persuade them to remain under contract. This can be especially important for companies based outside of large metropolitan areas. In many parts of the country, artists cannot easily get another job in their field. To attract and hold competent artists, a company must offer a contract for a substantial portion of the year, including a number of tour weeks in addition to the rehearsal and performance weeks at home.

For some companies, touring is an important means of building a regional image as a company committed not only to its art form, but also to its role as a community resource, developing audiences and providing essential nonperforming services in the region.

Companies also tour to become well-known. Touring generates name recognition among presenting organizations and audiences. It promotes visibility, which can translate into more effective fundraising, higher performance fees, a changed perception by a home audience (which sometimes begins to appreciate a company only when someone else tells them how good it is!), and the ability to attract better artists and gain recognition from regional corporations, national corporations with a presence in the region, national government funding agencies, foundations, and individuals.

Some companies tour simply because they are committed to performing in communities where there is little or no regular access to quality performance, to a particular art form, or to the work of a particular artist.

Artistically there are two distinct reasons to tour. First, composers, playwrights, and choreographers create work to be heard or seen by audiences. Similarly, people become musicians, dancers, actors, or singers in order to perform. Touring helps both types of artists to gain exposure for their work before the largest possible audience. Second, some argue that the road can provide a good place to hone, develop, or improve a piece of work as it is performed before a variety of audiences.

How to Decide Whether or lot to Tour

There are good reasons, then, both in favor of, or against, going out on the road. Making the decision about whether to tour should be included in your company’s overall planning process. The decision will be based on a careful evaluation of your company in several broad areas of concern. Below are some of the factors you will need to consider to reach the right decision for you.

Artistic Compatibility

First and foremost, you must consider whether the work your company produces is compatible with touring. If it requires an extremely complicated technical set-up, a bigger than usual traveling technical staff, extra set-up time, and/or a large group of artists, it may be difficult or impractical to tour. A large company is more difficult to sustain financially, but can usually manage a long tour better than a small company. Large companies have a greater number of people among whom they can divide artistic and technical responsibilities, making them less susceptible to illness, injuries, and burnout.

Is the company relatively inexperienced, or is it used to touring? Experienced companies will know how to pace themselves on tour and will have tricks to ease the strain of being on the road. How does your company add new work or productions? For instance, is the work created from scratch, as is the case with most modern dance companies, or are you working from an existing musical score or script? Almost without exception, a company whose work is originally conceived will require more rehearsal time, hence less time will be available for touring.

Finally, what about obligations at home? For example, the company or its members may be committed to teaching or other special projects and simply not have time to tour. You must sensitively weigh how much touring the company members can manage before their personal lives become disrupted, and they become too physically or emotionally exhausted to work well.

Financial Position

Does the company have ways to produce significant amounts of earned income other than by touring? If it does, then touring may be a less attractive option and the company can more easily decide to tour for shorter periods, or not at all. Does the company make or lose money touring? How much money to underwrite touring can be raised from government, corporations, and foundations that might not be forthcoming for other company programs? If the company tours at a loss, then the funds it can raise from a variety of sources for tour activities may make it possible and palatable to go out on the road.

What financial considerations will the company confront as a result of the artistic considerations just discussed (i.e., length of rehearsal period, length of home season, size of company, repertory, etc.)? Does the company have its artists under a contract for a set number of weeks for which they must be paid?

Can the company anticipate a long enough tour so that it can amortize its start-up costs? Can the company afford to spend the money to book and administer a tour—money for personnel, mailings, telephone bills, promotion, and booking conferences? Keep in mind that even before a tour begins a company may have to lay out at least fifty percent of its costs for booking, promotion, and production. What other major financial obligations does the company expect to take on?

Home Base Involvement

The amount of touring you will be able to do depends upon the demand for your services in your home area, which may be a town, a city, or several counties. Foremost among the factors that determine this demand are the size of the audience, the scope of activities in which you are engaged, and the number of other companies in your home area.

Marketplace Competition

Everyone thinks—or should think—that the company he is associated with is special. But how does it really stack up against other companies in the outside world? Does your company have some exceptional ability or type of activity that presenters will want? If yours is one of a small number of companies which perform something quite unique, or if you have received recent overwhelming national acclaim, potential presenters may be attracted to your company.

Is your company competent and highly professional, and will its artists and technical staff be able to withstand the rigors of touring? Is the company administration ready and able to service the demands and needs of presenters?

A rational, objective analysis of the company will help you to draw the right conclusions. If you have favorably answered these questions, you can feel confident that your company’s product can capably compete in the marketplace. On the other hand, booking is a very competitive business, and not all companies will be successful in their pursuit of a tour.

Making the Decision

If the senior artistic staff, administrative personnel, and the board of trustees have honestly reviewed and realistically assessed each of the above considerations, then the company will have a pretty good idea of whether there should be a tour, or if the touring option should be postponed and reconsidered again next year when the company will again focus on its programmatic priorities.

The Ingredients of Planning a Tour

Apart from the artistic product, a tour is shaped by the combination of several distinct ingredients. The decisions your company makes about each of these ingredients will significantly affect the type of tour you book and your potential for success on the road.

What to Tour

Orchestras, chamber music groups, and solo musicians and singers will probably have little difficulty deciding what to tour. Each season, pieces will be added to your repertory. Sometimes special programs are prepared for specific situations. If you contract to perform as a soloist for an orchestra, it will be for a specific piece or pieces of music. Assuming that a string quartet has a well-rounded repertoire, whether it chooses to play Brahms or Beethoven will not have a huge impact on the facilities or logistical considerations of the tour.

Touring opera, theater, and dance companies are in a completely different position. They need to consider potential programs carefully from two vantage points—technical requirements and salability.

Naturally a company wants to tour its finest artistic product. Yet, from a technical perspective, you must determine the lowest common denominator in terms of the theater facilities in which the company can play. If the company thinks certain production standards must be upheld on tour, then it must be able to afford to carry lighting equipment on the road. If you plan to present work that requires several drops, you are limited to theaters with fly systems. Is this a realistic expectation? How complicated is your set-up? If your company is usually booked for single performances, and it takes two days to set up (the day prior to performance and performance day) you will be limited to a maximum of two or three performances per week. Will the fees you can charge for those performances come close to meeting touring costs? Can the cost of your fee, along with local presenting costs, be met by the presenters who traditionally book the company?

The choice of what to tour must also be based on an informed consideration of the kind of work in which presenters are interested. You will need to convince the presenter that he wants to produce your work in his theater, and he, in turn, will have to convince his audience to come see it. You certainly want to encourage touring a company’s best work, but if you have two equally excellent productions, one of which won a Pulitzer Prize for best play last year, then obviously that play will be a better candidate for touring.

Work involving nudity, profanity, and blatant sex, as well as work with strong sacrilegious elements, is still controversial in certain parts of the country. What may be absolutely fine in New York, Los Angeles, or other larger cities could be a real problem elsewhere.

It will also be necessary for the artistic staff to set limits on the services that can be provided and the tour schedule that will be permitted. For example, will travel, rehearsal, and performance ever be permitted on the same day? Will one-night stands be permitted? How much rehearsal and set-up time is needed on performance day? Can the company members teach or participate in residency activities on the day of performance? These decisions will affect every detail of the organization’s tour budget and schedule. Establishing the parameters of tour activity is one of the most critical contributions that the artistic staff makes to the organization’s long-term plan-ning, to the longevity of its artists, and to the viability of the organization over many seasons.

Going Out on the Road: How Long Should You Tour?

The length of a tour is based on many factors. Larger companies can sustain long tours more easily than smaller ones. Similarly, companies whose artists, staff, and technical people are used to touring can tour for longer periods than inexperienced groups. Naturally, how much work a company has in its home community, a second home, or a long-term residency base is also a factor.

The lifestyle of company members is also important. Long tours are not conducive to stable, rewarding personal relationships.

Review the amount of touring the company did last year, and whether additional work has been promised. How many engagements can be added if management does a really concerted booking campaign?

If your company is just beginning to tour, contemplate a brief tour or series of tours. A company just getting into touring is not likely to attract a large number of presenters.

Mapping Out a Tour

A company can tour nationally, regionally, close to home, or in a combination of the above. On a national tour, a company is usually presented for a brief period of time by presenters with whom it has had no prior relationship and who may or may not present it again. Exceptions to this general rule are very large institutions, such as American Ballet Theatre, which repeatedly tours to specific cities that have facilities, audiences, and presenting organizations large enough to support operations of this magnitude.

Some companies tour only within their own regions. In doing so, they try to