The Blog
10/1/2023
**TourSleeper: Your Ultimate Guide to Promoting Your Tour Dates!**

Greetings, new artists of TourSleeper! We are absolutely thrilled to welcome you aboard our platform. Your journey with us promises to be an exciting one, filled with opportunities to connect with fans and explore new horizons. To kick things off, let's dive into how TourSleeper works and how you can effectively promote your upcoming tour dates."

There are a few things that make TourSleeper a great option for touring music artists. First, it's affordable - it is free to hosts and artists! Second, it's convenient. Artists can list their tour dates and cities where lodging is needed directly through the website. Third, it's personal. Artists get to stay with real people in their homes, which can be a great way to meet new people.

  1. Connect with Local Hosts:


    TourSleeper is all about fostering a sense of community among artists and fans. One of the unique features of our platform is the ability to connect with local hosts who live in the areas where you'll be touring. These generous hosts are your key to comfortable and affordable accommodations while on the road. Here's how it works:

    • When you sign up with TourSleeper and provide your tour schedule, we spring into action. We send out emails to TourSleeper hosts in the locations you'll be visiting.
    • These hosts, often fellow music enthusiasts, open their doors to touring artists like you. They'll see your tour dates and decide if they can accommodate you during your stay.
    • This creates a win-win situation: you get a cozy place to stay, and they get the chance to host talented artists like yourself. It's a fantastic way to connect with local communities and build meaningful relationships.

  2. Leverage the Power of Social Media:


    In today's digital age, social media is an invaluable tool for artists to connect with their fans and spread the word about upcoming shows. TourSleeper makes it easy for you to harness the power of your online presence to promote your TourSleeper page. Here's how:

    • Share Your TS Artist Page: We've created a special link just for you, your very own TS Artist Page. This page showcases your tour schedule and offers fans a glimpse into your journey. You can find your unique link in your TourSleeper account dashboard.
    • Engage with Your Fans: Use your social media platforms to let your fans know about TourSleeper. Encourage them to sign up and follow you on your journey. Share stories, pictures, and updates to keep the excitement alive.
    • Create Buzz: As your tour dates approach, create buzz by posting countdowns, sneak peeks, and behind-the-scenes content. Your fans will love being a part of the journey leading up to your performances.

We believe these strategies will help you make the most of your TourSleeper experience. Remember, we're here to support you every step of the way. If you have any questions, need assistance, or just want to chat about your upcoming tour, don't hesitate to reach out to us. Your success is our success!

Best wishes for your musical journey with TourSleeper. Let's hit the road and create unforgettable memories together!

-The TourSleeper Team

6/22/2023
TourSleeper

Touring music artists have a lot to think about when they're on the road. They need to worry about their setlist, their sound, and their fans. But one thing they shouldn't have to worry about is where they're going to sleep each night. That's where TourSleeper comes in..

TourSleeper is a website that connects touring music artists with people who have space to spare in their homes. This can be a great option for artists who are looking for a more affordable and personal way to stay while they're on tour."

There are a few things that make TourSleeper a great option for touring music artists. First, it's affordable - it is free to hosts and artists! Second, it's convenient. Artists can list their tour dates and cities where lodging is needed directly through the website. Third, it's personal. Artists get to stay with real people in their homes, which can be a great way to meet new people.

If you're a touring music artist, check out TourSleeper. It's a great way to save money, stay comfortable, and meet new people while you're on tour.

Here are a few testimonials from satisfied TourSleeper users:

  • Kenny and Ellie both were so welcoming. Would stay with them again for sure! - Adrian+Meredith (Artist)
  • Frederick the Younger is a great band full of passion and wonderful people. I would not hesitate to host them again. - Aaron (Host)
  • Brian is such a gracious host. It's a great place to get much-needed rest while on tour. 10 stars! - Flagship Romance (Artist)
  • (King Taylor Project) were the perfect guests! This was my first experience hosting through TourSleeper. Very pleased! - Judy (Host)

So if you're a touring music artist, be sure to check out TourSleeper. It's the best way to find affordable, convenient, and personal accommodations while you're on the road.
- TourSleeper

06 Mar 2022
Hopeful

COVID-19 continues to impact all of us, from how people work to how we conduct our daily lives.

The conflict and cost of touring in a pandemic makes touring very difficult. Artists rely on concerts for their livelihood - but they face a precarious choice as live music returns.

The music of the Mountain Goats lives for touring. Fronted by John Darnielle, the North Carolina-based indie rockers have played more than a thousand concerts over their career. Live shows are "among the oldest things humans do", says John. "To gather is a communal, spiritual, and arguably religious experience."

For bands residing in the middle to outer tiers of fame, touring has another component that is just as vital as the communal, spiritual, and religious --- it is also an economic essential. So when COVID-19 vaccines started rolling out last year, accompanied by reschedulings of delayed concerts and announcements of new tours, many were relieved. Most artists depend on concerts as their main source of income. Having few shows or none over the past 2 years has been brutal.

Now, as artists are planning tours again, let's remain hopeful that the worst is behind us. And let's help each other now more than ever as artists get back to doing what they do best, entertaining audiences. We need to be proactive in creating coalitions between artists and fans like never before --- together we're stronger!

Musicians have been out of work for a while now, and we are eager to get back to doing what they do best --- entertaining audiences. The most critical challenge in performing live now: keeping everyone safe. For as long as needed, please follow all COVID-19 local laws or guidelines when using TourSleeper.

Let's support our artist community and stay safe!
- TourSleeper

King Taylor Project
King Taylor Project
11 Jun 2018
On The Road With TourSleeper - Article 3

Touring is a funny thing. At once inspiring, invigorating, monotonous, and exhausting, life on the road is an integral part of career building for a musician. It's how we grow an audience that will sustain our career, and it's how we figure out what our songs mean to people outside our hometown. In an age of digital insularity, when constant contact on social media can create the illusion of connection, there remains no substitute for personal, physical presence as a performing artist.

This whole journey is about connection. Musicians actively build reliable careers not by obsessing over a "big break" provided by a chance encounter with a label executive; nor by hoping to make it to air on a reality television show; but by grinding out steady gigs that sharpen our tools, by forging personal relationships, and by engaging a growing audience with energy and commitment. I think my life's work includes a duty to deepen my perspective and refine my craft so that I can connect a listener to a moment, enhance presence and elevate emotional experience. In that regard, I suppose, a musician is never really "off duty," because an honest mission to elevate consciousness will not be restricted to the stage.

TourSleeper can play a vital role in this mission to connect. King Taylor Project just recently stayed with our first TourSleeper host who joined "in the wild," by which I mean she had no personal first-order connection to the platform. It was an exciting stay for two reasons: First, it's great news that people with no direct relationship to the TourSleeper team are starting to discover the platform on their own. Second, this individual was the ideal TourSleeper host. Her positive energy extends to the environment she has cultivated in her home. There is an openness and ease to her interpersonal style, and she possesses an undeniable generosity of spirit. She is hospitable and nurturing. In other words, she is a natural connector. The product of her hospitality was a well-rested and emotionally centered band, who then departed her front steps to perform in our best possible condition.

This is exactly what the TourSleeper community aspires to.

It is our responsibility to give you our best performance, even in the most challenging conditions. When the conditions are nurturing, our best becomes even better. Thanks for reading—we'll see you on the road.

- Joshua Taylor

King Taylor Project
King Taylor Project
10 May 2018
On The Road With TourSleeper - Article 2

This morning I got to do some farming. Okay, by "farming," I mean this city boy spent maybe an hour or so helping with feeding chickens, moving an outdoor pen, and stacking hay. My band is staying on the family farm of friends who live in rural New Hampshire, and today it's almost hot but for the light breeze that finds its way through the still dead branches of these mid-spring New England woodlands. I sit now in a lawn chair on the gentle slope of a three-acre clearing behind the family home, amidst a circle of debris from last night's grilling of very local sausage.

In the two weeks since I last wrote from the road, we've gigged our way through Georgia, North Carolina, DC, New York, and Boston, and we most recently stayed with TourSleeper founder Dan Bergeron. We had the chance to do an episode with him for our podcast series, The About!.. Podcast, and we talked quite a bit with him on and off mic about TourSleeper's growing ecosystem. More than the finer details and ever improving mechanics of the website, I find myself thinking about the kind of person who participates in something like TourSleeper.

As an independent musician, a huge part of my job is to figure out what kinds of people are likely to provide financial, logistical, and moral support to keep my career going. I'm not a marketing guru, and I'm not especially interested in becoming one, but I have to put some amount of energy into figuring out the difference between a one-time compliment in a bar and an invested supporter. It's always nice to give a randomly assembled group of people a good time, but starting from scratch every night at one of a handful of local clubs with tiny, fixed entertainment budgets is by itself insufficient to build a sustainable career in the arts. The challenge for many of us is that trying to get an enthusiastic listener to provide concrete support feels... well, sleazy.

How do we motivate people who just had a moving experience as a result of our performance to buy a t-shirt or consider supporting via sustained pledges or periodic lodging via a direct patronage platform like TourSleeper or Patreon ? One of the things I've learned by sleeping on the couches and floors of kind strangers is that even in an age of increasing isolation and mass self-aggrandizement, people still crave individual connection. Experienced travelers and travel hosts especially value being helpful and receiving help.

We've stayed with folks on this tour who have hosted hundreds of travelers, and some of them have mentioned wanting the opportunity to host more touring musicians. I think that has to do with the rather uniquely heightened focus on social exchange for which musicians are conditioned. Every performance is a social exchange, and in my opinion the best performers create the richest shared experiences. Enriching social experiences are what non-commercial travel hosting is all about, so it makes sense that experienced travel hosts might develop a particular interest in musicians. The point is, there appear to be enough people out there interested in helping independent artists for a platform like TourSleeper to work. So, as for my original question: How do we motivate people to support? It turns out, we just ask.

Do you participate in TourSleeper? Would you consider it? We'd love to have you.

- Joshua Taylor

King Taylor Project
King Taylor Project
20 Apr 2018
On The Road With TourSleeper - Article 1

As I sit in the beautiful central Florida countryside on the back patio of my bandmate's parents, I enjoy the momentary serenity. A bright, mild sun glints off barn roofs while horses cluster in twos and threes in the shade of trees swayed by a spring breeze, tails swishing and heads bent to feed on the thick grass. Days like this come intermittently when you tour an electric trio around the country in a Prius. We live simply and travel efficiently, with our own zip-locked-gas-station-hot-water-ready coffee grounds and ice-pack insulated lunchmeat. We play to half empty bars more often than to packed clubs. We meet kind patrons, energetic artists, weary bartenders, witty sound engineers, and suspicious service station clerks. We stay with friends and family and we couch surf. That last bit is one of the most interesting aspects of our touring.

As an independent band that enjoys paying our bills on time and keeping the electricity and water running back home in the pricey city of San Diego, we tour with intensity and forego unnecessary expenses like hotels. Like most indie musicians, we often stay with strangers who generously open their homes to us. They offer conversation, warm showers, a place to wash our clothes, and enthusiastic attendance at our shows. Until recently, the only major organized community for connecting with such folks has been Couchsurfing. We love their platform, which is why we love what Dan and his team are doing with TourSleeper, a new platform we're proud to be part of.

TourSleeper is similar conceptually to Couchsurfing, but aims to fill a surprisingly untapped space—housing touring indie musicians. As true lovers of music, Dan and his wife Kim are frequent hosts of touring bands through TourSleeper, and of their own extraordinarily well organized, effectively promoted, ticketed house shows. These forms of support are examples of direct patronage, an historically important economic model in the arts which has seen a lot of recent innovation brought about by technology and a shifting music industry paradigm. My wife Sandi and I run a band called King Taylor Project, and we see direct patronage as the future of our entire career. Over the coming weeks I'd love to tell you about TourSleeper's place in that patronage model, and I hope you'll consider joining us on the platform if you're not already on board.

- Joshua Taylor

1 Mar 2018
TourSleeper Welcomes Canadian Artists and Hosts

TourSleeper is now open for business in Canada!
For artists, you can list your Canadian tour dates manually and link your Bandsintown tour schedule with Canadian dates (along with your U.S. tour dates).
For Canadian hosts, you can subscribe to get alerts when artists are touring near your home town. Sign up now to support touring artists in Canada!
https://www.toursleeper.com/fbsubs

1 Feb 2018
TourSleeper Design Services

Introducing TourSleeper's Design Services. Our in-house graphics team now works directly with Artists to consult, design, and produce any branding, logos, graphic t-shirts, posters, print or digital promo you might need for your next big show.
Fill out the form for a quote.
https://www.toursleeper.com/design/

Marie Danielle
Marie Danielle
11 Dec 2016
TourSleeper.com - Making the road friendlier for musicians

After a 3000-mile drive from Los Angeles I rolled down the idyllic tree-lined streets of North Attleborough, Massachusetts on the way to my bed for the night. I pulled up to a cobalt blue cottage that looked like it was painted by Norman Rockwell. I had found the place at an Airbnb type site. Free, and for musicians only - TourSleeper.com connects fans with bands on the road looking for a place to stay. I didn't really know what to expect when I rang the doorbell of the charming house with its perfectly manicured lawn, but this much was certain - it was definitely going to be better than sleeping on an air mattress in my van.

That's one of the hardest parts about touring. Never knowing exactly where you're going to wind up. It's also one of the most exciting parts - the spontaneity, the uncertainty. But it can cost you. In peace of mind and definitely in money on those nights when you wind up springing for a hotel. TourSleeper's promise had me signing up immediately. A free place to crash on the road? Sounded good to me. I figured there had to be a catch but it was exactly what it claimed to be and more.

When the door opened and I was greeted by my lovely and generous hosts, Dan and Kim. They led me in, offered dinner and drinks with some friends they had invited. I soon felt very much at home as I shook off the weariness of the drive that had brought me there. I spent the night in a huge room with a private bath and one of the most comfortable beds I have ever slept in.

On my second of two nights staying with Dan and Kim, my guitarist joined me and was given his own amazing room. Dan and Kim came to our gig and the place was packed with the new friends we had met the night before. It was the perfect way to kick off a tour. The next morning, band and hosts shared an excellent breakfast together and we headed down the road rested and well-fed.

Not only did TourSleeper.com find me a lush place in a state I had never been to, but I made friends and gained fans organically, without working the room hawking CDs after a show. The site offers a great service. But it also offers something bigger and less tangible - it fosters a sense of community that may be the only thing that can save the DIY music scene.

           
TourSleeper