The Touring Musician: A Small Business Approach to Booking Your Band on the Road

The Touring Musician helps performers at all levels of experience to take control of their careers. Packed with practical information as well as amusing and enlightening anecdotes, this invaluable handbook guides musicians in apply sound business practices to band travel by evaluating assets; creating an action plan; researching, negotiating, and booking venues; arranging transportation and lodgings; managing personal and tour finances; and getting publicity.

Authored by Hal Galper, an educator and professional pianist with a virtual Who’s Who of musicians, this book introduces you to the successful career development and booking and tour techniques that he witnessed first-hand as a side man and that he later developed himself as a band leader, providing an inside look at the proven strategies used by some of the greatest names in music.

Included in this book: point-by-point advice on setting up a small business; 11 sample worksheets and checklists, in a ready-to-photocopy format, that will help to keep information organized; samples of the major types of legal documents involved in booking a band; a step-by-step chapter showing how to book and route a sample tour; and solid advice about researching venue contracts, negotiating gigs and fees, managing band finances, coordinating promotional activities, and much, much more.