Routing a Tour: Why Travel Days Are Where Money Goes to Die

Tour routing is the order and geography of a tour's dates: which cities you play, in what order, and how the touring party gets from one to the next. Good routing keeps distances manageable, puts shows back to back where possible, and places travel days and days off where they cost the least. Because most touring costs are paid per day, routing has a large effect on whether a tour makes money.

That's why a tour's finances are often decided before the first show. Once the dates are booked and the contracts are signed, the expensive gaps are locked in.

Why every day on the road costs money

Most of a tour's costs are daily costs. They run whether the artist plays or not:

• Crew and band salaries or day rates
• Per diems: the daily cash allowance for food and incidentals
• Bus or van rental, and driver fees
• Truck and trailer costs, if you're carrying production
• Hotels
• Equipment rentals, often charged by the week or day

A show day earns income (the guarantee or door deal, plus merch) to set against those costs. A day without a show, whether it's a travel day or a day off, usually carries most of the same costs with no show income. So every non-show day has to earn its place, either because the travel genuinely requires it or because people need the rest.

That's the core idea behind routing: you're trying to maximize show days relative to total days, without breaking the people doing the work. For a broader look at the numbers, see how to build a tour budget.

Who routes a tour

Routing is usually led by the booking agent, who books the shows. The agent is balancing venue availability, offers from promoters, market strength and the artist's history in each city.

The artist's manager and the tour manager then check the routing against reality: can we actually get there, what does it cost, and is it sustainable? This is where a good tour manager earns their keep, because routing problems are much cheaper to fix before shows are confirmed than after. Our guide on how to plan a concert tour covers how routing fits into the wider planning process.

What makes good routing

Sensible distances

The basic aim is to keep drives between consecutive shows short enough that the touring party can make them without a lost day. What counts as "short enough" depends on:

• How you travel. A van, a sleeper bus and fly dates all have different limits.
• The roads and the territory. Some regions have long distances between markets; others are dense with cities close together.
• Driver hours. Professional drivers are bound by rules on driving and rest time. These vary by country and change over time, so check current regulations and your bus company's policies rather than relying on rules of thumb.
• Borders. Crossings can add unpredictable time, particularly with production gear and paperwork.
• Load-out and load-in times. A late load-out and an early load-in shrink the window for the drive.

Back-to-back shows

Back-to-backs are consecutive show days. They're the most efficient way to tour, because you're earning income every day while paying daily costs. But they only work when the drive in between fits in the overnight window, and long runs of them are hard on voices and bodies.

Avoiding zig-zags

A route that bounces back and forth across a region (north, then south, then north again) burns time and money on travel. Sometimes it's unavoidable because of venue availability, but it's worth questioning every time it appears.

Market spacing

Agents and promoters also think about spacing in a different sense: not playing nearby cities too close together, so that shows don't compete for the same audience. Some contracts include radius clauses, which restrict the artist from playing within a certain distance of a venue for a period around the show. That can force the routing to skip an otherwise convenient city.

Choosing how to travel

The mode of transport shapes the whole routing. The main options:

Our comparison of tour bus vs van vs fly dates goes into each in more detail.

Flights aren't as fast as they look

A short flight on a map can be a long day for a touring party. You have to count the whole door-to-door process: lobby call, the drive to the airport, check-in with instruments and excess baggage, security, boarding, the flight itself, collecting bags at the other end, ground transport to the hotel or venue, and the inevitable delays.

For moderate distances, a bus or van often comes out ahead on both time and cost once you count all of that. For long distances, or where water or borders get in the way, flying may be the only realistic choice. The point isn't that one mode always wins; it's that you should compare honest door-to-door times rather than the flight time on the ticket.

Travel days

A travel day is a day dedicated to getting from one place to the next, with no show. Some are unavoidable: crossing a large region, flying between continents, or moving from one leg of a tour to another.

To make travel days work:

• Plan the whole journey on the day sheet, including lobby call, flights, drives and arrival times.
• Account for time zones. Crossing zones can shorten or lengthen the day, and people need to know which local time each step is in.
• Think about the gear. If the production travels separately by truck, its route and timing may differ from the touring party's.
• Book hotels that make sense for the arrival time. A late arrival may need a guaranteed late check-in; an early one may need a day room. Our guide to tour hotels and rooming lists covers how to manage that.

Placing days off on purpose

Days off matter. People get sick, voices get tired, and a long run without rest wears everyone down. But where you put them changes what they cost and how useful they are.

Good places for a day off

• Combined with travel. If a long journey already means a non-show day, using it as the rest day can make sense, since you're paying for the day anyway. Be honest, though: a day spent in vans and airports isn't much of a rest.
• In a city where the hotel is affordable and comfortable, so people can actually recover.
• Before a high-stakes show, like a major market or a recorded performance.
• Where there's something useful to do, such as laundry, a doctor's appointment, gear repairs or promo.

Expensive places for a day off

• Between two shows that could have been back to back, especially in an expensive city.
• Somewhere hard to get out of, where the next day's travel is long anyway.
• On a sleeper bus with nowhere to go, which leaves people stuck rather than rested.

How to check a routing before it's locked in

Before shows are confirmed, it helps to put the proposed routing in front of you and walk it day by day. For each day, ask:

1. What happens today? Show, travel, day off, rehearsal or promo.
2. Where do we start and end? City, venue or hotel.
3. How do we get there, and how long does it really take? Door to door, with realistic buffers.
4. Does the timing work? Can we load out, travel and load in on time? Are drivers' hours respected?
5. Where do we sleep? Bus, hotel or a day room.
6. What does the day cost, and what does it earn?

Patterns jump out quickly: a run of long drives with no rest, an off day in an expensive city, a flight that would be easier as a drive, or a zig-zag that adds a day.

None of this math is hard. What's hard is seeing it all in one place, with shows, drives, flights and hotels on a single calendar, so the expensive gaps are obvious before the contracts are signed. Whether you use a spreadsheet, a wall calendar or a tool like Conductour that lays the itinerary out day by day, the habit that pays off is the same: look at every day of the tour, and make sure each one is there for a reason.