Last updated: Sep 30th, 2024
With Making Music’s upcoming online event ‘Touring with Your Music Group’, we drew on party leader advice and inspiration to show the 10 best ways on how to prepare for your music tour.
Read on.
Table of Contents
5: Include Safety and Financial Security
7: Prepare with ‘Plan Ahead’ Payment Plans
Understanding your youth, school or adult group tour on a personal basis is key to getting your music trip off the ground.
And if you are a youth or school group, knowing your group age and what keeps them engaged, excited is important. Overall, keeping students busy is key, which is why a packed itinerary works well.
And if you’re a solely adult concert tour, knowing their lifestyle is important. A retired group means they’re likely to be able to enjoy things at a slower and longer pace. Whereas a group in their early 30s with young kids means they might want a condensed, shorter tour.
Don’t worry too much though, as when you talk to us we can assess together to find out what works for you.
“Look at the group in front of you and understand what’s going on in their life to allow them to go on tour”
Mary Bourne, Singing It Back
Like other industries, the pandemic was catastrophic for tour operators. But, with most of the travel restrictions over, we are seeing unprecedented demand for touring.
Which is why, enquiring and planning your music tour early is vital for your best chance of booking your desired trip. We recommend at least 12-18 months in advance as we’re seeing tours for 2024 and enquiries for the year after.
But we’ve a fierce desire to get you back touring. So, contact us now and we can start talking.
Fundraising at home before your concert tour is a great way to subsidise or supplement your music trip. Plus, if a youth or school trip, introducing the idea to parents/guardians of your students means they see the benefits of their children taking part in a fundraising programme.
Adults usually have financial means to afford your concert tour. But, being able to practice your setlist in fundraising activities and concerts increases your groups musical prep and also gives funds to your party to help buy a night out, restaurant meal or down-time excursion.
There are other ways to raise funds as well, with some listed below:
“We raise up to £12,000 to subsidise members coming along by busking”
Melanie Stapleton, Tapton Youth Brass Band
Safeguarding your youth, school or adult music tour is vital for any successful trip.
If a youth or school concert tour, you’ll need to show your headteacher or committee the trip is safe and beneficial for students, staff and the school. Also, tour attending staff and adults must be DBS checked.
Which is why, we’re a part of The School Travel Forum (STF), which is a benchmark for best practice in school travel, and The Learning Outside the Classroom (LOtC), which is a national accreditation from the STF giving you confidence in the quality of the educational experiences we offer.
For more on safeguarding with students, see our blog ‘9 Top Tips on How to Plan the Perfect School Concert Tour’.
Adult music tour? Then, while DBS checking isn’t necessary on all trips (unless you’re a custodian to people with health conditions or impairments) you want to be sure of safety and financial security for your trip, which we’ve covered in the next section.
You should always travel with reputable brands who are properly accredited and provide substantial safety and financial security packages. This means, in the unlikely event your tour funds are in question, hotels aren’t what were promised, or on tour staff aren’t DBS checked, you will be covered.
Thankfully, our Safety Management System Policy makes sure of:
Plus, to keep your finances secure, we’re ABTA and ATOL certified. Both mean that if your tour operator fails, your money is protected and can be recouped. Further, if you’re on your trip already, there’s help available to get you home.
Another plus is our trusted relationship with Aviva, who give you added peace of mind with their purpose-built insurance for tour travelling. And to add, travel insurance is a must on our tours, however, we don’t mind if you pick another certified insurer – just let us know.
“Rehearsal time is important”
Ian Blenkinsop, City of Bristol Choir
Practising your set list 12 to 18 months in advance means you can turn up to your venues ready for your performance opportunities. Also, it gives you time to build relationships with your ensemble, which adds another layer to your successful tour.
Next, if your group are instrument led, there’s the challenge of transporting and storing your equipment. And with size, financial situations and legal restrictions all part of your gear transportation, it can be overwhelming.
So, we can advise of the polices (dependant on your coach or airline company) for your instrument transportation. Further, we also arrange instrument hire whilst on tour, giving you peace of mind your equipment is safe at home whilst still being able to perform on your music trip.
A great way to prepare for your youth, school or adult music tour is booking early as it gives you and your group time to plan ahead with payment plans.
Which means more are likely to be able to manage the finances so they’re able to join your tour.
We’ve got loads of examples where we’ve worked alongside party leaders to maximise the chances of people coming along. Whilst we’re proud of all our tour partnerships, a New York trip we planned together with a party leader working to a payment plan budget of £57 per month to make sure a school could have the trip of a lifetime, is one of our favourites.
The beauty of working with Rayburn Tours is you get access to knowledge you may not have had before.
As they are usually performers as well as travel specialists, with multilingual skills and territory knowledge, they know the best routes and venues suitable to your ensemble type—meaning they can guide you to help achieve your tour objectives.
So, call us today and we can start talking.
One of the cornerstones of a great concert tour is the destination. And you may have an idea of where you want to go already. But to give you the best footing selecting the right location we’d ask:
Your dream destination might not fulfil or gel with you as you might like. For example, choosing Vienna for your laid-back, secular band tour might not fit with your tour objectives as it’s a space known for history, classicism and sacred performance spaces.
So, to fulfil your wants of a relaxed, secular music tour, we’d recommend a destination like the Rhineland as there’s a strong tradition of band-playing, local participation and an exciting mix of bandstands and market squares to perform in.
“Rule of thumb, don’t go on tour with anybody other than Rayburn”
Jason Andrews, Rednock School
Planning a tour top to bottom can be challenging, especially alongside your personal and professional lives. So, using a specialist tour operator is a real win in taking the weight off your shoulders.
Reputable concert tour operators help with:
And as expert tour operators for the past 55 years, we’ve tailor-made quality, amazing and unique music trips for over five decades.
So, don’t wait, enquire now, and we can start planning your concert tour today.
We take great pride in creating fantastic content to share with our customers and anyone who happens to land on our website. See below for links to both our Adult and Youth Concert Hubs and keep checking back as we’ll be adding more content as we produce it!
Built from the sound up, and specifically tailored to youth & school groups. We've got a new FREE resource and some inspiring reads.
You might be thinking, what's in score? Filled with tips, advice and inspiration, you're bound to find something of interest!