Contrary to popular belief, rock 'n' roll concerts aren't just about blazing guitars, thumping bass and bloody eardrums. Well, maybe the concerts themselves are.
But bringing a tour to a venue like the Bryce Jordan Center -- a process that can include months of planning, negotiations and promotion -- is far more complicated than most realize.
The process begins when a band decides it wants to go on tour. Although bands now make most of their money from concerts, this decision is not as easy as one would expect, said Bernie Punt, the Jordan Center's director of sales and marketing.
"When a band is putting out a new CD and wants to do a tour to promote their new music, preliminary talks may start around four or five months before. If they can't get the money they want for the tour, though, they might not even start it in the first place," Punt said.
When a band agrees to go on tour, it starts a chain of negotiations between agents, promoters and venues that can last for as much as half a year.
In the early stages of the process, venues try to secure tour dates using a tool known as the mutually agreeable offer.
David Wells, director of operations for Crowbar, 420 E. College Ave., said, "The mutually agreeable offer says that whenever a band is in the area, we agree to try to make a specific date work."
This stage is difficult for the band's representatives, who are trying to create a schedule that allows the band to travel quickly between tour dates.
Bryn Bridenthal, head of public relations for DreamWorks Records, said a band's attempts to reduce travel time could benefit a venue that may not have been previously considered. Such luck stems from a process called tour routing.
"Tour routing involves finding a potential venue that is located in an area between two dates that have already been established," Bridenthal said.
Once a band has tentatively laid out its tour, it begins to sign specific deals with promoters and venues, which are often two distinct entities. The Bryce Jordan Center promotes or co-promotes some of its shows, but often prefers outside promotion.
"Some concerts we do promote ourselves, but when large [outside] promoters such as Clear Channel do the promotion, they also assume more of the financial risk," Punt said.
At any and all stages of this process, numerous problems can and do arise. With the possibility of the act pulling out, foremost among these concerns is that the tour date might be announced before it has actually been confirmed.
"Typically, we try to announce a date six to eight weeks before the show happens. But sometimes the artist announces it on their own Web site even before the promoter has everything in order. Ads, promotion, even the ticket price may not have been decided yet," Punt said.
This problem can elicit confusion from fans who read about a date on an artist's Web site and wonder why it hasn't been officially announced by a venue.
"We are often under strict guidelines from the promoter. We can only announce a date when the promoter says we can announce it. And that official announcement comes only once all of the contracts are signed," Punt said.
An even more pressing issue arises when an artist's Web site or another unofficial source lists a date that has fallen through or, worse yet, has never even been discussed.
Shane McBurney (freshman-secondary education) said, "I've seen on sites like Pollstar [www.pollstar.com] that acts would be coming to the Bryce Jordan Center, and then have them not show up."
This has led the Jordan Center's officials to continually stress that show dates are not official until formally announced.
"Bryce Jordan officials have said time and time again not to go to those sites and to go by only what they announce, which is what I've mainly gone by ever since," McBurney said.
After all of these decisions, negotiations and announcements, false or otherwise, a tour does sometimes become a reality. So the next time you feel the blood beginning to pound in your eardrums, just remember how much effort went into making it all possible.
