Creation Audio Labs

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Brandon Arora - Artist/Public Relations Creation Audio Labs Recently, I had the pleasure of running across a very cool website called TourSavant.com . Some of you guys know how difficult it can be to try to get together a successful and efficient set of gigs. Well this site makes your job much, much easier. I only wish this service was around back when I was trying to set up all the little tours for my band. I’ve been telling my friends about this and everyone has said the same thing: “What a brilliant idea!” So the natural next step was for me to share with all of you. I called up Paul Rogers and did a little phone interview and learned about him and how he came up with the idea. CAL: What inspired you to come up the idea of Tour Savant? Paul: I produced and was helping manage a band called Cactus's which started Touring the east Coast and into Canada in the summer of 2008. I was able to help them go from the garage to a label showcase at the world famous El Mocombo Theatre in Toronto (played by U2, The Police, The Rolling Stones, Elvis Costello among many others). They ended up on MuchMusic and doing very well in Canada and I realized that there are so many talented bands who could achieve more if they just had a little help in planning tours and saving money on the road. Thus the idea of TourSavant was born. CAL: What makes it different than some of the other band management websites? Paul: Well, we are really a virtual road manager which I don't think exists in this format. Having said that, I think there are 3 really big differences between us and the many great band help sites out there. 1) We have this amazing auto tour router which takes all the grunt work of finding a good route to go out and clubs to play, 2) we have a loadable TourSavant MasterCard with discounts at gas stations and hotels. In fact using this card can help pay for your membership in TourSavant if you tour regularly, Plus it’s a great way to track your spending since it is a regular MasterCard and can be used anywhere for purchases. The third big difference is that we actually want to hear from bands while on the road and we make an experienced tour road manager available to bands 24/7 by phone, text or email. CAL: Can you briefly tell me how the Tour Router works? Paul: Yes but I would have to kill you! Just kidding. The best way to explain it is to see it work at our site at www.toursavant.com under TOUR ROUTER button. But if I had to tell you about it, I would say that it takes in all the information you want to give it, like, where to start, where to end, what cities would you like to play, how far do you want to drive each day and how long do you want to go out. It already knows your genre and which venues are best (based on ratings) and then does the thinking about how to route you a good tour. EVEN MORE it gives you up to 5 venues which you can review in each city and simply click on the venue name to contact them by email right there. It also tracks your itinerary with directions and maps and you can easily go back and keep updating your confirmed gigs until the tour is ready. Then you can print or email the itinerary and directions. CAL: What is the TS Pro? Paul: This is the 24/7 live road management support you can buy for 30 days at a time. It comes with 90 days of site access in case you aren't already a member of TourSavant to help you use the router to plan your Tour. You then tell us when you want your 30 days of support to start and you can start calling us up for help. We also are making available some industry experts to answer questions. People like experienced band managers, lawyers and label people. CAL: Can you explain how the micro sponsorships work? (I know this is a coming soon feature, but it looked cool) Paul: It will be when we get it in place. I hate to say too much, but think of it this way: If you are playing in Cleveland on a certain date and are willing to hand out coupons for free slice of pizza during the show, or show up at the pizza place after the gig. Joes Pizza will "micro" sponsor you with cash, food or other goods for helping them. That's the concept and I think it is a very exciting future with ability to do coupons on cell phones and such which we are looking into as well. CAL: Are there any other things you want to highlight for the interview? Paul: A few things I have to mention. You can get a free account with limited access to our 20,000-venue database and tour router (no MasterCard sorry) BUT you can sign up for our GIGTONIGHT! feature. This is where we text bands in a 4-hour radius of a venue that has an opening in the next 24 to 48 hours they need to fill. That way bands that want to drive to a closer gig can get those text alerts free from TourSavant. We are also really excited about our summer 2010 TourSavant tour. We will be having the venues and other bands vote for the 4 or 5 bands we should take on a multi city tour with a real tour bus, hotels, the works. We hope to film it for airing on a music channel later next year. And of course we hope to do this like 4 times a year once we get going. It's going to be incredibly fun and awesome. We have gotten some great feedback from huge industry vets like Derek Sivers founder of CD Baby and Kevin Kookogey manager of Teleprompt/Warner Bros. MUTEMATH and are looking to do more with them hopefully later on. Lastly, I am a music addict and I am here to talk to anyone about their music or career any time. My personal email is Paul@toursavant.com. If you are in Nashville give me a shout and maybe we can have a coffee! Thanks so much for taking the time to get a hold of me today. www.TourSavant.com www.myspace.com/toursavant www.twitter.com/toursavant www.facebook.com/toursavant ~ Brandon Arora Creation Audio Labs

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