What do the 'Viewing Options' do?
How can I add venues to a tour?
Can I have my TourPlanner calendar show up on my website?
What venue information am I sharing with everyone?
How can I see more information on someone else's venue?
Who else can see my venue information?
Who can make changes to my venue information?
What's the difference between 'Friends' and 'Contacts'?
What's the benefit of having 'Friends'?
The TourPlanner allows you to create a list of venues you intend to play. Then as you as you are working on booking those venues you simply 'update' the listing for each venue. That way, from one single page you can see all of the venues you are working to book, your email history with each of those venues, where you are in the booking process with each of those venues, your targeted date for that venue and any other notes you may want to give yourself.
On the left side of the page, you can see your calendar and how it is filling up, where you'll be at any point of the tour and what parts of the trip you still need to fill up.
Even if your 'tour' never goes beyond a days trip from your hometown, you can see how the TourPlanner can still help you to keep on top of things.
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First of all, click on the 'TourPlanner' link on the navigation bar. Then click to 'create a new tour.' Here you'll give a starting and ending date for the tour. You can schedule one month at a time, 5 weeks, whatever. You'll name the tour (i.e. 'August 2007' or 'Southeast US Spring'). Then each time you come to the TourPlanner, you have the option of choosing which of your tours you want to work with. Even if your tours overlap a bit, all of your dates will show up on the calendar on the left side so that you don't accidentally book a day twice.
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What do the 'Viewing Options' do?
By clicking the 'viewing options' link, you can select what information you want the TourPlanner to give you. Perhaps you are booking yourself and you only have time to do it one day a week. Well, you simply come in to the viewing options and choose to see all the venues that are not confirmed that you haven't contacted in 14 days. Then wham, that's what you see. You can email them all quickly, update the TourPlanner and you're done. No more venues slipping through the cracks because you forgot you emailed them 87 weeks ago.
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How can I add venues to a tour?
There are two ways to add venues to your tour. The best way obviusly is to add your own information. You do this by clicking the 'add new venue' link and giving all the information for that venue. Once you've added a venue once you'll always have it. So you can easily use it again.
Once you've added your venues, you click the 'my venues' link. There's a box to the side of each of your venues. You simply check the box next to all the venues you want to have in the tour, choose which tour you want to add them to and click 'add'.
You can also do this from the 'search' page. That way you can search for venues that meet very specific criteria and then choose to add them to your tour.
This is where the second way of adding venues to your tour comes in. Because you can also choose to add venues that other people have listed. Of course, this way you may not be able to see as much of the contact information, but if it turns out to be a good fit, then you can just add it to your list down the line with your own information.
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Can I have my TourPlanner calendar show up on my website?
Most likely YES. Some folks may have trouble with the code and such but you should try it anyway to see. The benefit of course is that as soon as you list a show as being 'confirmed' on the TourPlanner it automatically shows up on your website. You don't have to go add it somehwere else. You can even choose to have your dates that are on 'hold' show up as (tentative) dates on your calendar (if you want). On top of that you can control all the syle elements (font color, borders or not, layout etc)
To do this you click the 'website calendar' link that is on your Home page. Then just follow the instructions. If you have any trouble feel free to contact us.
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What venue information am I sharing with everyone?
When people do a search for venues, everyone can see the venue name, the venue website, the city and state and the MySpace address if they have one. We feel that this is a great benefit for making this a community while at the same time not just laying bare all the information that you have worked very hard to collect.
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How can I see more information on someone else's venue?
Well, you can email them, buy 'em flowers, maybe wine. There are all kinds of ways to contact people by clicking on their profile page. If you see that The Bob Wickam 8 Man Band added a bunch of venues that fit your style, perhaps you should try to get in contact with them and see if there might be some information that you have that they want. Then you can choose to be 'friends'.
Once you and The Bob Wickam 8 Man Band are 'Friends' you can see all of each others venue information.
(more info on 'Friends')
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Who else can see my venue information?
Only you and your friends can see the majority of information about your venues. The rest of folks can only see the name, website, and location.
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Who can make changes to my venue information?
ONLY YOU. If your friends notice that something is outdated, it is very easy for them to send you a message saying so. But only you can make the change.
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What's the difference between 'Friends' and 'Contacts'?
Friends are people who can see all of your venue information. You BOTH have to choose to be each others friend. Unlike some other networking sites, you can not simply go around and choose to add a godzillion friends a day. It won't do any good. Because when you add someone as a friend, they get NO NOtifacation that you have done so. In other words you still have to contact them and develop a friendship with them and convince them that it is worth it for them to go in and also add you as a friend. Once this has been done you will both be each others friend.
Contacts on the other hand are just folks you'd like to keep a tab on. Perhaps you notice that Bob Wickam is always adding killer venues but you got nothing to offer to make him your friend. You can chose to make him a contact. This really only helps in searches because when you do a search you can choose to see only your venues and your contacts venues. That way all those hacks that are putting in hack venues won't show up in your search. (you arrogant so and so)
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What's the benefit of having 'Friends'?
Sharing venue information. If you only make friends with people you trust, then every time you are creating a new tour, all of the work that your friend has done in that area will benefit you and vice versa.
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What if I don't want to be 'Friends' with you?
Then don't. It's that simple. You don't even have to feel guilty about it by having to press a 'decline' button or something.(guilt free decline?)
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How do venue and artist Searches work?
It's pretty self explanatory if you go to the search page. Couple cool things though. There are like 75 godzillion different searches you can do using different criteria. Find a solo, acoustic singer-songwriter venue or a full-band, punk reggae gospel place. Whatever you're looking for, it's easy to find.
Furthermore, on venue searches, you can choose to show all the venues that match your criteria, just your friends venues, just your contacts venues, just your own venues or any combination.
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