Tour Chess: a game of logistics
How a tour gets plotted before a single show is booked: dates from the band, a long stare at the map, a stamina check, and the flexibility to move a city when it will not fall.
When I first plot out a tour, my first step is to get solid dates from everyone in the band to get an idea of the time range I’m dealing with. There are six of us in AL1CE, and needless to say, scheduling for 6 adults really is like wrangling naughty pandas.
Start with the why
There can be different impetus for every tour that’s planned. Sometimes we’re offered a larger show or festival. Sometimes we’re overdue in certain regions and try to make a tour out of a certain region. A really fun reason is when we’ve released new art…we’re always very inspired to share out our new music, and we love getting to do that live on tour!
The main thing is to remember your “why” as you embark on the tour booking journey. The booking part itself can be stressful and a lot of work. Beginning the journey with a root that has inspiration is vital.
Stare at the map
Once I get an idea of time and geography, I spend a considerable amount of time staring at the map.
Everyone who books their own runs does this, and nobody has fully solved it. NITE have played the Canadian coasts for years and still get stuck on the middle.
From episode 39 · August 3, 2026
NITE
NITE on routing Canada, and the city on the map that never quite fits.
“Calgary is kind of hard, I’d imagine. Like, I was looking at the map the other day, like how would I route that? I guess you could play Spokane, Washington or something, but that would be a difficult routing.”
Know your band’s stamina
Every band has a different sense of stamina, and it’s important to be on the same page when it comes to traveling…especially because you’re going to be together in a small, moving rectangle for a period of time with questionable amounts of sleep and food.
In AL1CE we collectively have discovered that we don’t like driving more than 8 hours on a show day and generally need a day off at least every week or 2. Our tours tend to go from 2-4 weeks at a time. Some groups may need more or less rest. I’ve seen from our group that while we can muscle through our thresholds, we tend to perform at our most optimal selves when we average those numbers.
Those numbers are personal, and guests on the podcast have landed on very different ones. On episode 10, the rule for a five week run was a hard cap on drive time.
From episode 10 · March 17, 2025
Jennifer Parkin and Eric Gottesman!
Jennifer Parkin and Eric Gottesman on the five-hour drive cap that made a five-week tour survivable.
“The long drives kill you. When we did the Battlecry tour, it’s a five week tour, but I make sure there’s days off… no drives over five hours, the max that we will do to get to that next show. It’s just so draining and exhausting for everyone.”
The Russian White went the other way entirely, and would rather play an odd room than sit still.
From episode 17 · June 6, 2025
The Russian White
The Russian White on why a day off costs more than a weird show on the way.
“We don’t like days off on tour, because when we have days off we’re not playing any shows, people aren’t seeing our music, we’re not selling any merch, we’re not making any money… we’d rather play a show than not play a show.”
Neither of them is wrong. The point is that the band agreed on it before the van left.
Start small
I tell bands who are just starting out to start with small weekend regional tours to test the waters and get a feel for what it’s like to have shows that are outside your home town. In Mankind is Obsolete, we are all based in Los Angeles, so we started with small weekend tours that took us to Arizona and other parts of California. We slowly built our tours to going for a week, then weeks, month, then months, and finally a year at a time.
Bellhead still shape their runs this way, even with a lot of miles behind them: a full week out, a few days at home, then a long weekend.
From episode 38 · July 20, 2026
Bellhead
Bellhead on shaping a tour as two short runs with a breather in between.
“We’re out for a little over a week and then we’re literally home for like five days and then we go out for a long weekend again… two good runs.”
Target a region, and stay flexible
I like to target certain regions for each tour that I book. For instance, we just focused on the Pacific Northwest with a few southwest dates thrown in. I will put together sample routes using Google maps, and once I settle into the cities and dates, I input these routes into the Tourouter app.
When booking shows, sometimes certain cities will be difficult to book, and it helps to adjust those cities and routing if needed. Flexibility is key here. You might be surprised at how awesome a show can turn out in a different city that you didn’t originally plan.
Good routing is the thing a band notices most when it is done well, and least when it is not. Recapping the Divine Creatures run on episode 42, the first lesson out of the van was about the map.
From episode 42 · August 25, 2026
Nuda, SINE and Curse Mackey
Nuda, SINE and Curse Mackey on the run that worked because the routing did.
“The way the tour was routed, it was done well to where we weren’t grinding hard drives. Good job, Rona, on the routing.”
And flexibility is not only for the booking phase. Eli Lev built a run around a festival anchor, then the festival cancelled, a tire blew, and the transmission went. The plan became getting home in one piece.
From episode 23 · August 11, 2025
Eli Lev
Eli Lev on the tour where the anchor show vanished and the van gave out.
“So your anchor show at a festival got cancelled. Then a tire blew out, transmission blew out, missing shows… the mode was like, how do we get back in one piece.”
I do like to look at tour planning as a form of chess in which I’m thinking several steps ahead and trying to look at the big picture being a complete tour puzzle put together.