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Monday, September 25, 2023
Touring Hasn’t Just Gotten Much Bigger, But Much Easier Too
www.forbes.com: No other tour in history tops Taylor Swift’s towering colossus in terms of visual sensationalism. But in terms of the sheer Mount Everest-ness of mounting a major artist’s tour, the further back you go in time the more daunting it gets.
This seemed like a bizarre article to me, but it did still raise some interesting points. It was weird because it felt like it was just trying to put together a bunch of slightly related events in order to be an advertisement for a piece of tour planning software. It felt weird that a Forbes article was just an advertisement in that way. All that being said, I do think that this article brought up some interesting information about how much easier production management has gotten with modern technology. The idea of a shared folder to share design ideas in is something that I take for granted but could have hardly imagined 15 years ago. The ease of communication around the world, including video conferencing and transferring large files is trivially easy. Also, there is just more cumulative experience of putting on large productions, which can be drawn on as bigger and more ambitious tours are thought of.
What a crazy article! I don’t know if this is just a me thing, but I feel like after the pandemic, there’s now a super high demand for productivity and efficiency. I don’t think it’s a bad thing; rather, I think it’s an interesting trend that everyone’s talking about how to be more efficient. In our industry, everyone’s talking about cutting back work time, but at the same time we want to do more work, so the question is now coming down to doing more in less time, hence efficiency and productivity. I think technology is always a good tool, and seeing software like DaySheets getting developed to make jobs easier for people is always exciting. As this article pointed out, the earliest form of touring started hundreds of years ago, and it’s kind of extraordinary to see how systemic touring is now. As the industry collectively aims for better working environments, I have no doubt that there will always be improvements assisted by technology.
Taylor Swift is EASILY one of the best current touring and recording artists. last october/november, i tried myself to get tickets to her tour and failed miserably. after weeks of hoping for a fan pre-sale code, and getting one, ticketmaster crapped out on me after 2 hours of waiting in the virtual line to purchase tickets. but, my friend DID get tickets for her tour and told me that the staging for the concert was unlike anything shes ever seen before. Modern and current technology allows for people to imagine concerts at larger scales, and companies like Daysheets and Master Tour are trying to pave the pathway for more tour management apps and tech for touring artists. I also appreciate the fact that these companies want to lessen the stress of the staff on these tours. These apps are designed to take the load off the people who are constantly away from their families due to the touring life.
This article was fascinating. I always love learning about applications that make the job easier. I’m sure keeping people organized on tour is no easy feat– super long days, hundreds of crew members, many different venues, it is a lot to keep track of. Like most things, the age of modern technology has made this job more automated which in turn would hopefully make it easier. Or what probably happens which is free people up to do other things. With that said, I am grateful that applications like this exist because I’m sure it made the bounce back from Covid easier to achieve. The ability to manage things remotely was huge in getting people back on stage in a post pandemic world. Even going back a few decades we see how much harder getting a tour up could be. It is exciting to live in a world that is so fast paced but at the same time it is daunting to know that I will likely never be productive enough for the standards of our current society. I mean how could I be? I am not a machine.
In a day when music artists have the lowest startup cost in a long time, many just getting their songs populated through TikTok and releasing them later on spotify and having a lot of luck doing so. The ability to go on tour becoming more and more obtainable to these small artists is a massive hurdle that is a really good to see coming down. These apps making it easier to tour are already a welcome addition to the music industry but the fact that they are also making a very solid attempt to improve the mental health of artists is really impressive to see. As long as I can remember I’ve been told stories of how the industry doesn’t care about artists and that artists can’t tour or become popular without a detriment to their mental and often physical health. Hopefully this shift further continues and we see even more industries putting in effort to help their members.
5 comments:
This seemed like a bizarre article to me, but it did still raise some interesting points. It was weird because it felt like it was just trying to put together a bunch of slightly related events in order to be an advertisement for a piece of tour planning software. It felt weird that a Forbes article was just an advertisement in that way.
All that being said, I do think that this article brought up some interesting information about how much easier production management has gotten with modern technology. The idea of a shared folder to share design ideas in is something that I take for granted but could have hardly imagined 15 years ago. The ease of communication around the world, including video conferencing and transferring large files is trivially easy. Also, there is just more cumulative experience of putting on large productions, which can be drawn on as bigger and more ambitious tours are thought of.
What a crazy article! I don’t know if this is just a me thing, but I feel like after the pandemic, there’s now a super high demand for productivity and efficiency. I don’t think it’s a bad thing; rather, I think it’s an interesting trend that everyone’s talking about how to be more efficient. In our industry, everyone’s talking about cutting back work time, but at the same time we want to do more work, so the question is now coming down to doing more in less time, hence efficiency and productivity. I think technology is always a good tool, and seeing software like DaySheets getting developed to make jobs easier for people is always exciting. As this article pointed out, the earliest form of touring started hundreds of years ago, and it’s kind of extraordinary to see how systemic touring is now. As the industry collectively aims for better working environments, I have no doubt that there will always be improvements assisted by technology.
Taylor Swift is EASILY one of the best current touring and recording artists. last october/november, i tried myself to get tickets to her tour and failed miserably. after weeks of hoping for a fan pre-sale code, and getting one, ticketmaster crapped out on me after 2 hours of waiting in the virtual line to purchase tickets. but, my friend DID get tickets for her tour and told me that the staging for the concert was unlike anything shes ever seen before. Modern and current technology allows for people to imagine concerts at larger scales, and companies like Daysheets and Master Tour are trying to pave the pathway for more tour management apps and tech for touring artists. I also appreciate the fact that these companies want to lessen the stress of the staff on these tours. These apps are designed to take the load off the people who are constantly away from their families due to the touring life.
This article was fascinating. I always love learning about applications that make the job easier. I’m sure keeping people organized on tour is no easy feat– super long days, hundreds of crew members, many different venues, it is a lot to keep track of. Like most things, the age of modern technology has made this job more automated which in turn would hopefully make it easier. Or what probably happens which is free people up to do other things. With that said, I am grateful that applications like this exist because I’m sure it made the bounce back from Covid easier to achieve. The ability to manage things remotely was huge in getting people back on stage in a post pandemic world. Even going back a few decades we see how much harder getting a tour up could be. It is exciting to live in a world that is so fast paced but at the same time it is daunting to know that I will likely never be productive enough for the standards of our current society. I mean how could I be? I am not a machine.
In a day when music artists have the lowest startup cost in a long time, many just getting their songs populated through TikTok and releasing them later on spotify and having a lot of luck doing so. The ability to go on tour becoming more and more obtainable to these small artists is a massive hurdle that is a really good to see coming down. These apps making it easier to tour are already a welcome addition to the music industry but the fact that they are also making a very solid attempt to improve the mental health of artists is really impressive to see. As long as I can remember I’ve been told stories of how the industry doesn’t care about artists and that artists can’t tour or become popular without a detriment to their mental and often physical health. Hopefully this shift further continues and we see even more industries putting in effort to help their members.
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