This one will probably be a little less controversial than my last tip on The Flask, and as all my tips it doesn’t apply just to touring.  Remember, a tour is just like a local show except it happens in another city (how many people just called me “captain obvious” in their head right now).  My point is if you’re not yet playing shows in other cities yet it’s not like these tips aren’t valuable.  In fact it is precisely this that will get you to the next level in your career.

I feel where my crew, United States of Mind, differentiates ourselves from the rest of the pack is the fact that we are still not afraid to get our hands dirty.  When we have a show we print up hundreds of posters like you see in the picture above and we get to work by putting them up in local businesses and on the streets of high traffic areas.  Our bread and butter is the college campus.  Just think about it.  A place where so many people in your key demographic are clustered and they love discovering new things.  Also on some campuses there are a lot of kids from out of state so during summer vacation they will go back to their respective homes and spread the word about ya.

If you once again refer to the picture above you will notice that the flyer is show specific.  When you’re on tour it might be annoying to make a ton of individual flyers.  Therefore, it might be best to make a generic flyer with your web info on it, and leave a white space at the bottom.  It’s there you can fill out the specific show info with a marker.  I kept seeing indie rock bands do this and realized how genius it was.  I take a lot of cues from indie rock groups.  Here’s an example.

Now as you prolly already know it’s one thing to have the flyers, but it’s another thing entirely to actually do the work and there are no shortcuts.  Eventually you might muster up enough swag to have a street team, but you’ll still see me out there gettin it in like it was my first show.  Also it might be impossible to flyer in every city while touring because you might only be in that town the night before a show.  If that is the case send a few posters ahead to the venue when you book the show.  They’ll at least put them in their venue.  I’d also look to the opening act to help out, or hopefully you have made friends in that city and you can send them a few.  The point is do what you have to do to make people see them.  Until next time my people.