The Hood

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So, you and your band have been playing locally and have drummed up a bit of a following, but now you want to take it on the road?  Touring can be one of the best things about being in a band, and the experience you get from playing to different people in different venues along with the amount of time you spend together can really tighten up your act.  However, in terms of organisation there is a lot more to contend with than your usual, casually arranged local gigs.  Here are some tips to help you plan a great first tour:

Your Route

A lot of first tours come about because a show, festival or other gig opportunity comes up out of town (or even in another country) and it seems like fitting in some other dates on the way up there and back is a way to get extra exposure out of the trip.  This is a very good use of time and resources, and provided the basic things you need to make it possible are in place (everyone in the band is available, you can afford transport and accommodation etc.) then there is no reason not to go for it. Still, where you play and when needs to be carefully thought out and researched.

It seems kind of obvious that you want to keep the route around the country or countries as logical as possible (it would be a bit patronising to tell you that playing Exeter, then Glasgow, then Southampton would probably be a bad idea), but to get the best results do your research.  What else is going on in that city on that date that might draw people away from your gig?  Is there one significant live music venue serving the town, and if so can you get on there with someone with a big local following?  Don’t just get whatever gigs you can, think about it strategically and use social media to find out what the scene for your genre is like in each of your target towns, and network with other bands and venues in the city so you aren’t arriving with no connections.

Merchandising

It’s pretty unlikely, realistically, that anybody in a new town you’ve just played is going to buy merchandise for a brand new unsigned band (unless you have been very clever with your marketing and promotions and managed to create a lot of buzz about your debut in their area), so don’t expect to need to take a lot of expensive items like t-shirts.  CDs can be a way to make a little bit of money, but as CDs are a bit of a dying media you may not even choose to pursue that route.  What you should definitely have though, are some things you can give away which at the very least have your band’s logo and website address on them (or your Facebook page address if you don’t have a proper site yet) – stickers and promo cards are good for this, but the more creative you are the more it will resonate with the people at the gig.

To organise a tour for a wedding band or party band is the same principle, however you need to consider the dates you are offered and work around those, as if someone needs a wedding band in Berkshire, but the next gig is in Cornwall, you are not working effectively, ideally you need someone who wants a party band in Oxford then a date for a wedding band in Gloucestershire for example. Make it easy for yourself if possible and avoid spending more time than is necessary on the road between gigs.

Hi all, just wondering who went to the festival this year, how wet they got and which bands they saw, and of those who was best?

I obviously watched a lot of it on TV, but unfortunately wasn’t quick enough to get tickets myself.  Shame reallyas it’s not on next year, Oh well, I’ll have to get myself back down there in 2013.

I was browsing some old NME stories today and found a really interesting report from way back in 1998 regarding how the internet will change the way people access and buy music in the future, how right they were.

The story is based around the US independent label TwinTone Records (you can tell it’s old by the use of the name records in the company name!), back in 1998 they were in the throws of making all their music available over the internet, probably quite a bold move back then due to the bandwidth available to most home PC users and the fact that music downloading was completely unheard of to the average internet user.

I found the following quote to be pretty accurate:

“I guess I approach the music business from a slightly different perspective,” he says. “I’ve always been more technologically minded. My view is that, 15 years from now, everything will be pay-per-view. You’ll have an Internet connection and your video, your games, your television and your phone service will be operated from this one unit. You’ll get one bill per month and, if you want to listen to music, you’ll pay a few pennies per song. It’ll be the same with movies. You’ll be able to watch them for a couple of dollars uninterrupted or you’ll get them free with commercials.”

How right he was.  I download all my music these days, in fact just the other day I was having the “do I get rid of all my old Vinyl” conversation with a friend, he is adamant that he wants to keep his, whilst I feel that if I’ve not played any of them for about 15 plus years, I probably never will, of course, I’ll keep a few collectibles and favourites, but the majority of them I’ve since downloaded again anyway, some of them I’ve also bought on CD as a half way stage (they are all up in the loft now incidentally!)

I even watched  film on pay per view this weekend, not something which I do very often, and to be honest, I wish I hadn’t bothered as it wasn’t very good, but Paul at TwinTone was right, music and films are both available online (tv too) for very little cost.

So I wonder if he had any idea how big the whole online music downloading and piracy thing would become, with some bands such as pixie lott becoming famous because of youtube and the ability for people to download her music, whereas many larger artists are complaining that album sales have decreased due to illegal downloading. Personally I feel that if they reduced the price of an album more people would be inclined to pay for their albums and singles.

Of course outside of the scope of actual recorded material, any6 band still has the scope to make their living from playing live and selling merchandise, or making other public appearances, doing interviews and appearing on adverts etc, so it’s not that they don’t have the ability to make a very good living, even if their music is entirely downloaded.

If you would like to see party bands, corporate function bands, pop bands or wedding bands in wiltshire check out pop of ages a local wedding band.

The internet is absolutely flooded with companies these days, many of whom are all selling the same products and services to the same markets that they were a decade ago with traditional marketing techniques, things have moved on somewhat and trading (or at least generating leads) on the internet has not only opened up a whole new base of suppliers to the customers, but also a new base of customers to the suppliers. It’s about time that companies started to see this as a new opportunity, not just an extension of their original marketing strategies.

Lets take an example of a company who were traditionally selling bookings software to tourism companies and are based in Swindon UK. Many years ago they might send out flyers and brochures, then follow up with a call, then a software demonstration and hopefully get the business, they would probably get some consultancy work and an ongoing support contract out of it too. Because of the number of site visits which might be required, they would probably only market to companies in Wiltshire and the surrounding counties.

Nowadays they can market to the whole country, this can easily be done online, pretty much any company large or small already has a website, I’m not saying it’s a good website, I’ve seen some really bad ones recently myself, but they have a presence on the internet, which is a good start. The problem is many companies see this in the same way that they used to see a brochure, i.e. it’s there to point people to, wrong! It should be there to be found in the search engines by your entire market and a whole new one, after all, why only market to Wiltshire now, you can also target the Midlands and Scotland just as easily too, if your website is optimised for Google, if someone finds it, great they are a potential customer, because they were online looking for your products, so beyond your fixed overheads of hosting, domain registration, design and any search engine marketing, those leads are coming to you free of charge.

Combine all this with the fact that a lot of sales are now done in online demonstrations, so there is no need to drive up and down the country to do them, your cost of sale has just plummeted, then consider that large ammounts of consultancy and support may be able to be delivered on the internet and you can see how the market has just opened up to you.  Fantastic!

Or is it?

Remember, that all those competitors are thinking the same way! they may be ahead of you and already have the top positions on search engines, or they may be close behind and possibly have a larger budget for seo and online marketing, so what do you do?

This is where becoming niche really comes into play. Remember that our example company are in Swindon, Wiltshire and operating selling tourism software, with supporting services and training.  Obviously they want to retain the local business as being local is to some degree, a niche in itself.  However rather than only having the local companies to supply, they can sell nationally now, or possibly even internationally, so the software can be customised for specific niches, so within that tourism bracket it may be that there is a module for the hotel bookings sector, another for holiday camp management etc, so by becoming even more specific they can really start to clean up.

There’s more information on Swindon in Wiltshire, or the tourist or software industries, and general information about specialist industries and seo here.

When you are visiting India, the thing that attracts you the most is shopping markets in India that give excellent products for cheap prices. Indian products are famous around the world. Especially, India is famous for its beauty products, clothes, accessories, shoes, purses and Indian jewellery. People around the world go for shopping and ask for Indian products. Of course, these products are available around the world at very high prices but in India, you can find them at unbelievably low costs which attract lots of visitors to go there and shop crazily. Also, many of the products are not even exported out and so if you want them, you have no choice but to go to India to buy them. The price paid for the air fare is also worth it as you can not find better shopping any where else in the world for the prices as low as in India. Especially when you want to buy traditional clothes like sarees, markets in India are the best choice to turn to.

The famous markets in India include the chandni chowk, chowri bazaar, palika bazaar, chor bazaar, Crawford market and many more. It is the most renowned market in India which is located in old Delhi and is not only famous for the shopping and food but also for its historical value. Chandni chowk was given reverence by the Mughals as many of their processions were held there. In those times, the only magnificent market in India was chandni chowk which is a huge street and has Lal qila and Fateh Puri masjid, the places of great historical value in its surrounding. The area is now less privileged but still preserves its historical value and attracts tourists as many historical places are present there like great havelis (mansions) of legendary people which are sights worth seeing.

Chowri bazaar is a wholesale market of brass, copper and paper products which is also located in Delhi near the chandni chowk. Nowadays, the market is very congested and there is a rush of people especially in peak hours. The market is mostly saturated with paper products but also has brass and copper items like idols of the lords of Hindus. However, the paper products are the most famous here and they include greetings, wedding invitation cards, wall papers and anything made with paper.

Palika bazaar is another famous market in India which is always very populated with customers. The market is famous for selling electronic items and clothing, although it has got a reputation to sell illegal products like fake designer products, stolen products, pirated CDs and books and plenty of opportunity to buy Indian Bridal Jewellery, especially the Jodha Akbar Jewellery. Although, the market is always very crowded with customers, the number of customers has declined as there are a lot of new shopping malls that are opened in Delhi. However, if cheap prices is what you want, then palika bazaar is a good choice as the prices there are very low than those in the shopping malls.

In today’s fast paced world, the whole process of learning and eduction seems to be more high pressure too. Commercially available courses such as those in IT and software have always been pretty intensive, with numerous specialist training companies all around the UK, providing similar content to that covered in a college course in several months, squeezed into just a week. In fact, there are even courses which condense a number of these courses from what would be covered in 6-8 weeks down to 3 or 4. Examples being the MCSE and MCSD for Microsoft certification, they are often delivered in intensive classroom based environments by experts in their field, this is fine if you already have a pretty good understanding of the subject as most people who attend these courses do, they are often only really attending to learn how to pass the exam.

Back to the real world for those of us who actually need to study to learn something useful as opposed to just needing the certificate to say we have passed an exam. Typically the first place most people will look is at the local colleges or possibly universities dependent on exactly what you are considering doing. An alternative though is to consider finding your own private tutor, there are thousands of them across the country, many are teachers and lecturers who do private work in the evenings and weekends, or have perhaps recently retired and are doing it to bolster their pension a bit.

It may sound a little strange to go private, but the benefits can be huge, you firstly need to consider how far you will need to travel to a college or university campus to attend the training, you also need to think about how often you will need to make the journey, with the spiralling cost of fuel these days, you could find that if you can do it privately much closer to home, it could actually save you money.  The time saving could also be quite attractive too, if each time you spent a day in a classroom say 2 hours were spent covering topics you already know, then a further 2 are spent reiterating something for other people, you can see just how quickly your day can be taken up with not actually learning anything.  If you then add in the fact that you will always pick things up much faster in a one to one session, it’s not out of the question that with some extra very targeted reading and homework, you may only need to spend the equivalent of a day with them instead of a whole week in the classroom.

So why not visit local tutor, they have listings for the whole of the UK from English and Geography to physics and biology tutors, anywhere from London to Manchester.

Wiltshire is a county among many other great counties of the nation of England. Wiltshire has a rich and fascinating history, culture, landscape and tourism like any other county of England but in its own unique way. It is a ceremonial county located in the South West of England, land sealed and neighbored by the counties Hampshire, Berkshire, Somerset, Oxfordshire and a small number of others. With an area of about 3500 km square, Wiltshire has about twenty one towns and the only city.

Wiltshire is a historic shire. Alfred’s defeat Of the Danes and battle of Round way hill Devizes are some of the well-known battles fought in this great county. It’s not only known for battles but was also used to be branded for its extraordinary class wool merchandises. But now those wool mills are located at the museums and galleries but still appeal the holidaymakers.

Wiltshire County gives breath taking scenery and amazing landscape that attracts everyone to this place. With only one city and so many towns, the shire has a more pastoral beholding and has vast meadows covered with greenery vegetation and mounts. The climate of Wiltshire is moderate with loads of rains like most of the country but is milder than most of the other shires.  January is the coldest with 1 to 2 degree C and July August have the fieriest temperature of around 21 degree C. It shines in the summer more brightly than winter when it rains and snows mostly, with little or no sunshine at all.

Wiltshire charms its visitors with its rich cultural beauty and rich tourism spots. The top magnetism of the shire of Wiltshire is the world heritage site of Stonehenge and Avebury. Stonehenge is an old monument of stones circles in the mid of fields. Similar to Stonehenge is the sight of Avebury with its matchless stone circles. These cryptic circled stones were elevated in the prehistoric times and captivate the researchers and tourist likewise. Wiltshire entices historians, researchers and general public to it’s the vast museums and galleries. Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum is the one popular museum of many this city has. Quite a few country parks and country houses are scattered all over the County and attract those on vacation and tourists locally and abroad both to spend the summers peacefully. The abundant villages and towns of Wiltshire County have their own diversity and invite people to the market towns such as Swindon and Marlborough to manifest the great values and arts.

Wiltshire has people with unique taste and distinct culture and sights that show the same. Most eminent amongst these is the Salisbury Cathedral in the city of Salisbury. This cathedral with its huge structure was constructed in the medieval times and has an eccentric structural design that captivates the spiritual people most. Wiltshire is customarily gorgeous and pulls tourists to a number of festivals and playhouses as well every time that depicts the rich culture and people of Wiltshire. Prominent among these are the festivals of Larmer Tree and the Wootton Bassett Arts Festival. The county is a must see in England.

For tourist information on the local towns in the area such as Marlborough (the widest hight street in the UK can be found in Marlborough) see the visit Wiltshire site, it’s the local government resource for the county.

The historical past that surrounds the Stonehenge monument near to Marlborough and Salisbury in Wiltshire, is so strong in its call for tourists that thousands of people go to visit there every year. Not only the stones attract the visitors that are so old but also the mysterious reason for why it was made. People go there and see the amazing Stonehenge erected there and catch their breath while in their minds they try to think of any other theory they can come up with to add to the list of possible reasons of its existence.

It looks especially beautiful at sunset and just before sunset when the atmosphere is the most pleasant. What remains today in the Stonehenge are pieces of stones which are arranged in a particular order, the reason of which is also a mystery. When it was made actually, it was a massive circle of heavy stones that ranged to 60-80 stones and was a breath catching sight. There are pictures made by historians to show how it looked like at that time and how unfortunately most of it is ruined and what remains is a very small part of it. It was destroyed because of weather conditions like rain, thunder and floods and also because of the construction for tourist infrastructure in the area. Even if it is such a small part but it still attracts so many tourists. Imagine how the world would have been delighted if the original was still preserved. It is really an astonishing site which speaks loudly of its rich history.

Stonehenge was made in many stages and in every period there were alterations to its arrangement and design .if you define the Stonehenge, they are just pieces of heavy stones that are put up in ground but still it inspires such awe. Why? Maybe that is because the stones are so old and the people really sweated a lot when making this beautiful work of art. The Sarsen stones in the Stonehenge each weigh 50 tonnes and people pulled them down using ropes to erect them in the ground where they are situated today. And the other reason for its attraction is the particular order in which they are made. The circle and the horseshoe, it all surges curiosity in the visitors. There is also the religious value of it as people believe it was made for some religious reason and so people still come here for worshipping and for religious celebrations.

The monument was first made in 3100 BC which is 500 years back. At that time it was only Aubrey stones which are deep and huge openings in chalk in shape of circles. After 1000 years, people brought heavy stones from up the mountains to make the Stonehenge and arranged them in a double circle. After a short time, in 2000 BC, people fetched heavier stones using ropes and made an outer circle. In 1500 BC, the stones were restructured and rearranged in a circle and horse shoe, the remains of which are located in today’s England.

To visit the area you can stay in Salisbury or if you want to also stop by to see Avebury and the long barrow at West Kennet, you may find that Marlborough provides a more central location for the average tourist trip.

OK, I have to say, that was the busiest Christmas and new year in history. I was planning to get back on here over the last couple of weeks and update the site, but it seems to have been one of those Christmas breaks where I saw everyone and went to every party going!

It started on Thursday before Christmas with a friends birthday and then just carried on, I’m not complaining by any stretch of the imagination but I’ve reached the end of two weeks off and am absolutely exhausted. Sounds like I’m bragging but it really did get to the point when I woke up on new years day and thought, thank god I don’t have to go out again today, and the thought of another drink turned my stomach.

So here we are, in another year and facing the prospect of the UK recession stretching out for another year, although it does seem to be looking a bit more positive, but once all the cuts come in I expect there will be further belt tightening going on. I just hope the interest rates don’t go up too much before we have recovered fully, or that could well beat any recovery back pretty quickly.

Anyway, I just thought I had better write something seeing as it’s a new year now, I hope to actually think of something interesting to write soon, if so I’ll be back and write it out.  If not I may still come back with another post, but don’t expect anything interesting lol.

Ok, so I’ll keep this first post fairly brief as it’s really just going on in the remote chance that someone finds the site before it has been optimised or has much content on it. I’m also going to to play around with some blog plug ins (little bit’s of software which make the blog do things), I’m going to start off with something for SEO as I guess that is the most important, then try a few which o clever things such as adding the title of related posts below a single post, so it should lead you on to other related content very easily.

So you may be wondering what’s with the domain name, well to be perfectly honest so am I, it was given, yes given, for free to me by a friend who had bought it and decided not to use it himself, so he said I could have it, it’s all paid up for a couple of years and set up on his hosting account, so I thought there is no harm in giving the whole blogging thing a go. The URL is actually intothehoods, but that didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, hence it being abbreviated to just The Hoods. All he has asked is that he can add the occasional post on here too, so I thought the more the merrier, seeing as he said the search engines like to find fresh new content on a regular basis, he does professional seo for a living, so he must know what he’s talking about.

Anyway, that’s about as much as I have to say for now, I may get around to posting more on here this side of Christmas, but what with work closing down for over a week, I won’t be sitting at a desk all day, and I thought this may be a nice little project to fill the quiet times at work.  So as I said before, plug-ins first, then I’ll keep on filling it with my thoughts on probably just about anything and possibly some pictures which get sent to me from time to time.