For a long time now I've dreamed of doing a solo tour with a band; Where people come to the shows, everyone on the road makes a living and the shows are fun and memorable. This is actually a really hard thing to make happen. But I've got some ideas.
FALL TOUR 2012
Here are the cities Leonard will be playing. They're the top cities where the CD was supported by Kickstarter or preorder. I'll play more places in the Spring, and maybe a handful solo in November. But the band tour will be:
9/27 - Louisville, KY
9/28 - Cincinnati, OH
9/29 - Columbus, OH
10/4 - Knoxville, TN
10/5 - Charlotte, NC
10/6 - Atlanta, GA
10/7 - Birmingham, AL
10/11 - St. Louis, MO
10/12 - Omaha, NE
10/13 - Kansas City, MO
10/18 - Dallas, TX
10/19 - Austin, TX
10/20 - Houston, TX
10/25 - Normal, IL
10/26 - Chicago, IL
10/27 - Indianapolis, IN
November - Nashville TBD
*Normal/Indianapolis dates and Houston/Dallas dates have been swapped.
As a (huge) bonus, Eric Peters will be opening most shows. Another great artist or two will be along for shows he can't make. I'll let you know once we finalize those artists.
We'll bring a portable backdrop of the HTV Reveille to play in. The shows will be awesome.
Here's the catch: I'm going to sell tickets online at my website starting next week. Tickets will be $12. Each show will need to sell 100 tickets to be confirmed.
IF 100 TICKETS ARE SOLD IN 30 DAYS, THE SHOW WILL HAPPEN!
IF 100 TICKETS ARE NOT SOLD, MONEY WILL BE RETURNED AND THERE WILL BE NO SHOW.
This way, each show will have a start financially, and we'll know there will be a crowd. The actual cost of each show, with band members, travel, lodging and production costs will be more like $2000-2500, so we'll want to sell more than 100 tickets. But 100 people wanting us to come will bring us there.
In addition, $30 will get you a ticket and a special t-shirt that will not be for sale anywhere else. All tickets will come with an mp3 sampler of the artists.
Instead of going the typical promoter/artist route for these shows, I'm going to be the promoter for the whole tour. In each city I'll need 3 or 4 people to jump on board and be a part of the promotion team. It will a volunteer thing, to tell you up front, though if it's at all possible, the band I will take the promoter teams bowling. They will pretty much all beat me. I'm dreaming up another way to thank these folks for helping out, but will wait to tell you until I know I can pull it off.
We'll need help with online promotion (facebook/twitter, etc…), hanging posters, finding venues, sound and hotels. If you'd like to help with this, please contact me at andrew@andrewosenga.com and you'll hear back from Laura, who's putting all of this together for us.
Like all big ideas, this one is quite a risk, but only really for me. I believe in this music, though, and I really want to play it for people who would like to hear it.
You guys have been so amazingly supportive this past year with this project, and I'm hoping that these shows bring it full circle. I can't wait to play these songs for the people who made them possible. Together, we can make this happen.
It's going to be a wild ride! Who's with me?!?