Music Industry Vet Launches Virtual Road Manager For Touring Bands

WWith record sales steadily decreasing each year, the live music business is an avenue artists still depend on to make a living and build a fan base. Trying to aid musicians in their venture, TourSavant.com introduces the Virtual Road Manager for independent bands, a program that provides web tools, online applications, and offline components such as a personalized MasterCard which features fuel and hotel discounts.

A brief tutorial on the site shows that the tool allows bands to automatically plan tours using a tour router (built on Google Maps API). This takes the hassle out of planning and booking, which I believe is true. The product is designed “to assist new artists who lack management experience to help move their careers from the garage to the arena.” You should note, however, that it can only be used for planning gigs across North America.

TourSavant.com logo

One of TourSavant.com‘s pleasant advantages is that it welcomes bands to contact them from the road for assistance with issues they may face. “I learned a lot about what these bands need while keeping the band Cactus’s going on the road for over six months… my passion for new bands led me to think about how to help others,” says music industry veteran Paul Rogers, who formed the site and business in late 2008. With his aid, Cactus’s moved from the garage to an industry showcase at the famous El Mocombo Theatre in six months time.

The site is a membership-based community. Features include GIGTONIGHT, a free service that sends a text message to bands within a four-hour radius of a venue available in the next 24 hours. The basic membership costs $12.50 per month and the PRO Level 24/7 band concierge is an additional $89 per month. Each membership comes with one personalized loadable TourSavant MasterCard, which has discounts at numerous gas stations and hotels (a very smart partnership, in my opinion).

While the concept behind the project and its features sound exciting, I’ve got only one complaint / advise to whoever is responsible for the site itself: get through with your design. Right now, it’s a mess, and such assumption isn’t acceptable nowadays – especially when you are asking for money to become a member of your website. A good example of how a service like this should look like is bandize.com, which seem to include lots of useful organizing and planning tools, but lacks some major TourSavant’s features (I shall test it out in the nearest future though).

Conclusion: once the site gets a serious redesign, I may start recommending this to anyone going to tour in the States.

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