DJs tour all day every day, and the current trend in pop music is to just release as many singles and eps and albums as possible (look at the rapper Future for instance). Not too familiar with Jazz but my impression is it’s mostly life on the road as well.
As a former promoter in the EU, I can attest we have many great shows in my city which begin basically with just an email with an offer and a date and then it’s off to the races. Roadpony fits perfectly. Hundreds, thousands, if not millions of artists across the world would kill for that email. Artists are insatiable when it comes to opportunities like this. Mind you, “rock bands” are a thing of the past. People just pack a laptop and thats it.
Futher, touring bands love to squeeze another gig in. Its basically free money. If you’re going to a festival, and theres a roadpony thing going on to have you play a venue that is local, of course you would just go do that as well.
Assuming the festival contract doesn't specify exclusivity in the weeks surrounding (something that's actually quite common in my experience).
Regarding venues, being from a city with around 1 million people, it’s pretty much always a solvable problem. Theaters, movie theaters, music venues, gallerie, stadiums, rented stages... it is, in my experience, a very solvable problem. If it’s a big band, you throw money at the problem, if it’s a small gig, make something fun out of it. The concert only gets better if you put the act somewhere fun or unexpected. I’ve done shows in wine cellars, on ferries etc.
We're planning on working assistance to cover the venue/promoter costs as well. So given that the demand is high enough for the performer, I don't see why the venue would turn them down if they could present info like this.
Thanks for the feedback btw!
The pandemic has been brutal to traditional bands who play real instruments, but no way are they gone forever.
The railroad preceded the rise of the large, Sousa-style marching band, which also made use of the loudest instruments of the era(brass). After electric amplication set in you got an era of radio crooners and smaller-piece popular groups, which ultimately gravitated towards the now familar guitar-keys-drums arrangements by midcentury as the nascent rock band could fit that gear on a bus and get a wide timbral variety with use of amplification and effects without relearning the instruments. The guitar in particular has a good ergonomic profile while also being amenable to amplification and effects, hence the stereotype of the "travelling guitarist" coincides with its central role in large arena rock productions where a three or four-piece plays to an audience of tens or hundreds of thousands.
The laptop fits in with the trend by being even smaller, more portable, more flexible. It fills in nearly every need for back-up, so a solo act can sound as big as desired. And it can be used in its own right as a performance instrument, though computer keyboards aren't tremendously expressive interfaces in the way guitar strings are. (For that, there is always someone selling some kind of new controller interface idea. Though they have a habit of not sticking...)
Ok possibly you could use an amp simulator to replace some of the ancillary gear.
Also, love it or hate it, modern country music is extremely popular in parts of the US, and that's (mostly) traditional instruments as well.
And that's a very DJ-centric way of looking at. A DJ might be able to have an itinerary like Dublin -> Frankfurt -> Birmingham -> Prague but when it comes to a band and all their equipment, they generally would look for a route that minimises travel-time and cost.
It provides strong confirmed information on where the fans are. With it the tour manager can know for certain how big a crowd they can expect in each city before they even start planning. Its up to them after this to decide where to go and where not to go to make the tour viable.
> It seems to me that it will promote one off gigs...
Why do you think so? I don’t see the fan pledges as binding on the band. If a band runs an album release campaign and when the numbers are in they can see that they have 10 fans in Miami and 10 fans in Anchorage and nothing else that just means that they are not ready for touring yet so they won’t.
The kind of information RoadPony can provide is especially usefull on the margins. You don’t need to be a genius to know that huge band in a huge metropolis will find enough interest. But it might show if the time is right for a smaller band to start touring, or might show which smaller cities are viable tour stops for the huge band.
> It provides strong confirmed information on where the fans are
You mean like promoters who put up guarantees? Pretty sure it’s not difficult to figure out which markets acts should travel to... follow the money...
It isn't meant to solve all logistical hurdles when it comes to touring but rather give agencies/artists more accurate insight into where they can be most successful as far as revenue and draw.
You'd be able to see what fans (and where they are) are willing to pay for a tickets to the show (because they already have via the bid on their city) in select areas. The performer can then look at this data and see, for example, "it looks like we have a strong fan base on the east coast due to the requests/bids we've received on these east coast cities"
Now the band knows that if they book on the east coast in those cities, they're at the very least going to collect the money that was generated via the bids from RoadPony. These fans are already invested so they're more likely going to show up to the show as well.
It's gives you the opportunity to validate markets in cities before you even book them. You'll still have to book the show in those cities, but you'll now know that your efforts are much more validated if you used the data provided by RoadPony.
Hope this clears things up. Let me know if you have any suggestions!
That is not the cycle for every band. I'm sure there are plenty of bands willing to travel a few hours for a one off gig, especially in smaller countries. Bands where they may be fairly popular online but haven't done any tours as yet.
Bookings almost exclusively go through the band's agency, 6 to 12 months in advance. Tour logistics are a major part of costs on the band's side. Smaller bands without an agency usually also only have a very small local following, meaning not enough guests to pay the people at the venue, meaning the mostly are not booked by the venue, outside of labor-of-love events of some employees at the venue.
1. Create an album
2. Organise tour dates for just after the album release
3. Release the album
4. Go on tour
5. Rest
6. Repeat
For a US tour, you're not criss-crossing the country, going from New York to Los Angeles to San Francisco, e.t.c. Tour managers exist because they literally have to solve the Travelling Salesman problem for their clients. Tour buses are a thing because you're just driving to the next town/city along the way.
I'm not sure where RoadPony fits into this touring cycle or helps tour managers in their decision making. It seems to me that it will promote one off gigs without taking care of the logistical problems that bands face.