We did it!
We crowdfunded our Indiegogo campaign, and we organized the performance in a city that we had to fly to.
While we found a lot of success from the tour, there are a few bumps along the way. Many of the things that happened to us were unexpected, unpredictable, and out of our control. Here is a list of things that my colleague and I learned that we hope you can keep in mind when you set up your tour:
When you're flying for your tour, make sure you have a Plan A, B, and C.
Even we planned our flight schedule 3 months before our tour. What we didn't plan for was a Nor'easter flying out of Boston a week and a half before the first day of Spring. Thankfully, we got the last flight out of Boston, but we were trying to come up with other solutions to get to Chicago. Whatever the situation is, expect the unexpected!
You don't always have the luxury of rehearsing.
We're grateful to have friends in Chicago helping us borrow and volunteer their space to rehearse. But, what if there was no space to rehearse? As a violinist, you have to always be ready. Which leads me to my next point...
You don't have the luxury of changing the conditions of the venue.
If it's too hot, too cold, too bad!
Not enough time to get used to the space? Sorry...
Each venue has their own rules about using their space for dress rehearsal. They didn't make an exception for us and treated the duo as if any other performer was about to give a recital days before. We had to be flexible and adjust our ears to the acoustics quickly. Some parts of the performance were successful, and some weren't. But you have to move forward and make the most of the situation.
Lastly...
Trying to overcome travel fatigue.
This was a big one for us. With traveling back and forth from space to space, we spent a lot of time in the car in Chicago traffic. (The kennedy-edens merger will always continue to be the worst merger I know of in highway architecture). More in the time + less time practice room = lots of stress.
We'll learn from this experience to make it an even better tour later 2018!
I hope our experience will help you avoid a lot of the trouble's we faced. Liked what you read? Get the conversation going!