Tour manager
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A tour manager is the person who organises a schedule of appearances of a musical group at a sequence of venues. The tour manager has responsibilities to the band, their management and to the other members of the team who are involved in a tour.
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[edit] Accountability to the band and its management
Being a tour manager for a rock, pop, or rap group entails many responsibilities. First, there is a responsibility to the band and their manager or management company. Typically, band members have invested a major portion of their lives to become a success in the music industry and they require a dedicated person as a tour manager who has their best interests at heart when making plans and decisions involving the band, the management company, the record company, the agents, and the venues which the band is scheduled into playing while on tour.
It is the tour manager's job to book hotels, make travel arrangements, and ensure that everyone is on time all the time for each person's specific duties. This includes both the members of the band, the local record company representatives, and the members of the road crew in conjunction with the production manager who the band has hired for the tour. Typically, a tour manager may be responsible for the logistics and productivity of 10 to 20 people on a small scale tour. This extends to dozens of people in the case of a full-scale major arena tour. These tours may last anywhere from 6 weeks to 2 years on the road, living on the sleeper buses with the rest of the crew, depending upon the popularity of the band and their ability to sell out venues based upon their current and past success.
[edit] Duties of the tour manager
There are a number of individual duties which must be performed by the tour manager to run a smooth and successful tour. For instance, it is often the responsibility of the tour manager to be the first one up every morning, in order to make wake-up calls to each band member, depending upon what time he or she likes to wake up before the transport leaves for the next city each morning.
The tour manager will liaise with the manager, day-by-day, to check for possible changes to the itinerary, and to keep up to date with the band's most recent performances.
Most days of a tour require a trip to the next venue, which might typically be up to a 12 hour journey by tour bus. The travelling time may be the only opportunity for the tour manager to undertake much of the administrative work of the job: paper work, phone calls, and planning for the next few days. This may include confirming and re-confirming hotel reservations, radio and television interviews, meetings, and sound checks and show times at each city and venue for the current tour.
Generally speaking, a Tour Manager is also a Tour Accountant (depending on the scope of the tour; larger tours will have a dedicated Tour Accountant, who works closely with the Tour Manager).
[edit] Welfare of the band and crew
It usually falls to the tour manager to keep the band members and the crew happy while they are hundreds, or thousands, of miles away from their homes and their families and lives. It takes the adept skills of a juggler and a psychologist to keep everyone satisfied and on top of their game to produce the best possible show night after night after night.
Most tours, to be profitable, must have shows six of seven nights a week, which eventually begins to take its toll both mentally and physically (tour managers state that this typically happens around the fourth or fifth week of a tour). Examples of symptoms that are quoted by tour managers include the spreading of colds, requests for wives and husbands and girlfriends and boyfriends to join the tour, and a general feeling of claustrophobia and selfishness, arising from spending so much time together in such confined spaces as hotel rooms, tour buses and concert venues. It is part of the job of the tour manager to keep everyone working as a team and to calm all fears, heartaches, physical ailments, and talk of desertions.
[edit] Rewards of tour management
There are many rewards associated with the role of tour manager. For example, there is the opportunity for extensive travel to major cities of the world. The role is also highly-paid, at least in the case of major tours of popular bands. For many people, there is also reward in the company and culture of musicians.
