Planning a first Australian tour

A first Australian tour is a small logistics company that plays music at night. If you plan the nights first and the company never, the van becomes the manager.

This checklist is for bands, solo artists, and the friends they turn into unpaid production staff. It will not name a secret circuit. Rooms change. It will not invent a door deal or a capacity.

1. The route is the budget

Open a map. Place the dates you actually have, not the dates you want a poster to show. Measure driving hours, rest, and the first work call the next day.

Australia punishes optimism. Two cities that look close on a national map may still be a work day apart once you include load-out, food, and the hour you cannot legally or safely drive.

Perth is the extreme case: a crossing or a flight that can cost more than the fee. Read the rewritten heritage note on touring Perth before you accept a single isolated date.

Build one rest day if the run is long enough that ears and tempers will go. A rest day is cheaper than a hospital or a split.

2. The show is a written object

For each date, keep a single folder (digital is fine) with:

• Confirmation of date, city, venue name as they write it, load-in, soundcheck, set length
• Fee, door deal, or guarantee-plus — in the words they used
• Who pays accommodation and how many beds
• Backline, projector, or other specials
• Guest-list cap
• Cancellation and force majeure in whatever form they offered
• A human contact who will be on site, with a phone

If it is not written, it is not confirmed. A social-media comment is a mood.

Live Performance Australia is the peak body for sector-level live context. Your email thread is still the contract you have.

3. The rider is a request, not a personality

Send a technical rider and a stage plot early enough that the room can say no. List inputs, monitor needs, power, and safety (for example, a riser you truly need). Do not list a hospitality novella.

If you can accept house backline, say so. If you cannot, say so early, because hire and freight are route questions.

A hospitality rider should cover water, a genuine dietary need, and a modest landing after a long drive. Excess is how small rooms decide you are not worth the evening.

4. Labour is not “the band plus whoever”

Name everyone on the road: players, driver, tech, merch, support. Write whether they are employees, contractors, or genuine volunteers in a situation that allows that.

The Fair Work Ombudsman publishes the public rules on minimums, record-keeping, and the employee/contractor distinction. Read them. A first tour is not exempt because it is exciting.

Insurance belongs on this list: vehicle, public liability as it applies to your situation, equipment. This site will not invent a policy name. Ask a broker who understands live work.

If the run collapses into a personal crisis, Support Act is the music-specific relief organisation. Save the link before you need it.

5. Money without folklore

Build a sheet with:

• Transport (fuel or fares, tolls, parking, a second driver if hours require it)
• Accommodation
• Fees in and costs out per date
• Food that is not petrol-station mythology
• Wages or invoices
• Hire and freight
• A contingency line that is a line, not a feeling

Do not publish that sheet as if it were a national average. Do not invent a “typical guarantee”. Your sheet is for you.

Merch is stock, not magic. Count it out, count it in, write who holds the cash or the reader. Selling recordings of the night implicates works and masters — see releasing.

6. Sound, safety, documents

• Hearing protection in the same crate as DIs
• A first-aid kit you have actually opened
• Copies of licences you need (vehicle, any workplace checks)
• A printed or offline stage plot when the venue Wi-Fi dies
• A plan for the one person who gets sick at 11am

If you document the show, get permission. The galleries method exists so a camera is not an ambush.

7. Announce after the spine exists

Posters do not confirm rooms. They make cancellations louder. Announce when the route, the paper and the labour plan exist. Include the words a punter needs (city, date, on-sale location) without inventing a sold-out story.

If a date falls over, tell the remaining rooms. They are part of your reputation.

8. Get-out is a date on the calendar

The morning after the last show is still the tour: returns, fuel, wages, the inbox. Book it. A tour that ends with a 6am drive and a lunchtime shift is how people decide never to tour again.

Debrief while the problems are fresh. Write what the rider should have said. That note is the start of tour two.

Education version

A course can run a dummy tour: students build a three-date route, a rider, a labour list, and a risk note, without naming invented operators as fact. That is a guest-post we will take.

What we will not take: a reconstructed 2017 run with attendance figures nobody published.

When the first tour is a school of its own, the careers map is the next reading — because someone on the van is already doing a job that has a name.

Support, openers, and the bill as a workplace

If you carry a support act, they need the same kinds of paper you need, scaled: time, money, parking, merch table, a dressing-room or a chair. If you are the support, ask for those things once, in writing, early. Do not ask for them at 5pm from a car park.

A bill is a short workplace. Harassment, safety, and payment are not “tour stories” to be laughed off. They are reasons people leave.

Vehicles as production

The vehicle is a tool. Tyres, licence, rest, a second driver, and a rule about who may drive after a show belong on the sheet next to the set list. A first tour that treats the car as an afterthought will meet the afterthought at 2am.

If you hire a driver, they are labour. Fair Work still applies. If you are the driver and the singer, you are two hats — see working roles.

Weather, illness, and the decision hour

Pick an hour at which a date is cancelled so that people are not already on a road. Tell the room that hour exists. Tell the support act. Tell the driver. A heroic arrival that injures someone is not a story you want.

Pack a basic illness plan: who can drop a date, who can sing sitting down, who takes the vehicle home. This is not pessimism. It is how first tours have second tours.

If the event is bigger than a club — a festival or an outdoor civic date — read that organiser’s current artist guide. Do not reuse last year’s PDF as scripture.

Merch as stocktake

Print a count sheet. Start-of-night and end-of-night. One person owns the reader or the cash. If you take cards, test the reader on the afternoon of the first date, not during the encore. If you sell recordings, you are also in the releasing business for that night.

Do not leave stock in a green room you will not see again. Do not assume a venue can store a carton “until next year”.

The first tour is a school. Take notes like a student who intends to graduate.

Communications on the run

One thread per date, one shared sheet for the route, one person who may change the call time. When everyone can change the call time, no one sleeps. Put the on-site contact at the top of the note you can open offline.

If a date moves, tell support, crew, and anyone who bought fuel because of the old time. Silence is how first tours become last tours.

After the run, send a short thanks that is not a marketing email. People remember the last message more than the poster.

Aftercare with the rooms

A short factual email the next week — thanks, any damage, any lost stock — is part of the job. So is paying invoices you promised. Rooms talk. Crew talk. The first tour is also an introduction to people you will need when the second tour is real.

Contingency is a line, not a feeling

Write a number you can actually spend if a date cancels late or a tyre fails. Do not publish that number as a national average. Do not pretend the universe owes you a break-even. The line exists so you can say no while you still have a way home.