How I Book DIY European Tours as an Independent Musician
You have recorded an album. You are proud of it. You want to tour Europe. So you start Googling venues, and you realize you have no idea where to begin. You do not know who to email, what to write, how much to ask for, or whether anyone will even open your message.
You send a few emails into the void. Nobody responds. You start wondering if your music is just not good enough.
It is not about the music. It is about the process. And nobody teaches you the process.
I play saxophone and keys in SVIN, an experimental trio from Copenhagen that has been around since 2008. We mix jazz, avantgarde rock, and ethnic drone music. We have eight-plus albums, a Danish Music Awards Jazz win, and have toured most of Europe since 2011. Roskilde Festival, Eurosonic, By:Larm, Sharpe Festival. None of that happened because an agent made a phone call. It happened because we sent a lot of emails, built a spreadsheet, followed up, followed up, followed up, and did not give up.
Our first tour we went 8,000 DKK in the red. Here is what I have learned since then.
Pick your region
Do not just think “Europe” and start emailing everywhere. Start where you have contacts, press coverage, or an audience. Ask yourself: have you gotten reviews in that region? Do you have contacts there already? Is it known for having an audience for your kind of music?
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If you have a network somewhere, start there and work outward. You might end up in Madrid even though you started in Berlin, as long as it makes sense geographically and you are not zigzagging across the continent for no reason.
Do your research
Look for artists who make music similar to yours and see where they have played. This is one of the most effective ways to find the right venues. If someone in your genre played there, there is a good chance the booker is open to your sound too. Use Google, Songkick, Facebook. Ask around in your own network.
Be realistic but optimistic about venue size. If Rammstein just played there and there is room for 2,000 people, think twice about whether it is worth your time. You will end up spending extreme amounts of time contacting people, so you might as well be honest about your level.
Put everything into a shared Google Sheet or Notion database so the whole band can follow along and help with the booking.
The rest is in the guide
The research is just the beginning. The real work is in finding the right person to email, writing something short enough that they actually read it, following up without being annoying, negotiating the deal so you know exactly what you are getting, and networking on the road so your next tour books itself.
I wrote all of it down in a step-by-step guide based on years of doing this with SVIN. It includes a real booking email example, a spreadsheet system, and the networking approach that took us from 8,000 DKK in the red to touring most of Europe.
You can get it here: DIY European Tour Booking Guide on Gumroad
