Conquer Divide - TOUR TIPS (Top 5) Ep. 908

Hey, this is Sam from Conquer Divide and I'm here to share with you my top five tour tips. Tour tip number one, make yourself a care package. I promise you this is going to be the most important thing that you can do, especially if you're newer to touring and you just, you know, you feel like you need to have a list of things to bring. Bring wet wipes. Everyone will tell you to do this because you just don't know how often you're going to get a shower. If you're lucky you'll get one every day, but let's be honest, on the road sometimes it's a bit hard to come by. Sometimes people will get a membership to like a YMCA or like a gym chain, but you can usually find like a gym or community center or somewhere that's going to have showers that you can use for a couple bucks. However, wet wipes, they're good, you know, before or after your set when you're on a long drive and you're just feeling disgusting. But other things to put in your care package, Advil, Imodium just in case. Some people want to have that icy hot stuff or like Gold Bond for your shoes if they're smelly or yeah, something for your muscles. Just make yourself like a first aid kit with like a bunch of stuff that, you know, if it's in the middle of the night and you're on an eight hour drive and nothing's open and you need an Advil or something, then at least you know you've already got it. So definitely make yourself a care package. Tip number two is help each other and I don't just mean, you know, you're moving your own gear and you're setting up and taking off stage. Help other people with their gear. Obviously help your bandmates, but if there's other bands, you know, you can offer your assistance. They might say no, but at least show that you're willing to go above and beyond, especially if you are, you're the opening band on a tour package or something and you just, you know, it's just going to look good for you, for your band. Just be a nice person and do what you can to make things a little bit easier on the road for not only yourself and your band, but for everybody else. And it's going to go a long way and it's also maybe going to lead to more opportunities like this in the future. So just be cool and just ask, can I help? Can I give you a hand? And then see what happens. Tip three is pace yourself. I'm going to start with the obvious here. If you drink, please don't overdo it on tour. I know it's going to be tempting to just like party all the time and just have a good time with people, but nobody wants to deal with your hungover mess the next day. You don't want to feel like crap on stage. You want to play your best. So the best thing is pace yourself. If you are going to drink, just be careful and try to just not overdo it. Don't get wasted. I mean, honestly, it should be a no brainer, but let's be honest, enough people have to learn the hard way. Pace yourself with the booze and also food as well. Just pace yourself. You know, if you're going to overload on like sugary snacks from the gas station, you're going to feel heavy. You're going to feel like crap. Maybe you're not going to play as well. Maybe you're not going to sleep as well. You're just not going to feel as good and you're just going to have so many regrets. I promise. Some people say you should be healthier on the road than when you're at home. It's usually impossible, but maybe just be more aware of it. That's all. Tip four, get sleep. That is way easier said than done. Sleeping on tour can be really, really difficult sometimes. It depends on what you're traveling in. If you're just in a van and it's bumpy and you're trying, you know, you don't have bunks. And even if you do have bunks and you're on a tour bus, sometimes you're over the engine. Sometimes you know, you hit a bad patch of highway and sometimes it's that you've got band mates screaming or partying or something like that and you're just trying to get sleep. So bring earplugs, bring a sleep mask. You could include these in part of your care pack that you're making for yourself. But yeah, it's really important to at least try and get sleep. Or if everyone's staying up really late and you know that you either have, maybe you're at a hotel or you're staying at someone's house and you know you need to get up early and everyone's partying and you're like, you know what, I need to get my sleep, go and do it. Again, earplugs, definitely earplugs. And tip number five is make use of technology. You might not always have access to an outlet, maybe in whatever vehicle you're traveling in or maybe you're at the venue and there's nothing close by. Maybe they just don't have anything in your dressing room or the backstage. So always try and bring a charged power bank or even two of them so that if your phone starts to die, that you've always got a backup source of power. And the other thing too is if you just want to keep in touch better with friends or family back home, or if you're doing online work while you're on tour, you can buy a portable Wi-Fi router and get a SIM card that will work in whatever countries that you're touring in. I did that in Europe when I was working and it just means that you're going to have internet no matter where you are. So when you're on those long drives between cities and you don't have Wi-Fi, surprise, you now have Wi-Fi. Or if you're traveling in your own country, maybe just upgrade your data. That's all. So all in all, touring's awesome. Touring's really fun. It can also be really stressful sometimes. So the best thing to do is to just be prepared. So I hope that these touring tips helped you. Definitely check out more videos from Digital Tour Bus. Thank you so much for having me and I'll see you next time.