Tour Advancing Checklist: What to Lock Down With Every Venue | GigOps

hello@gigops.ai (GigOps Staff) — Wed, 11 Nov 2026 20:29:13 GMT

Every show day that goes sideways can usually be traced back to one question nobody asked during the advance. The truck can't fit the dock. The house has single phase power and you're carrying a three phase distro. The curfew is an hour earlier than the promoter said. Catering was told 20 when you're traveling 34.

Advancing is the unglamorous work that makes show days boring, and boring is the goal. This is the checklist we've used across 15 years of running international tours. Start the advance three to four weeks out for a standard venue, and earlier for festivals, international dates and anything with a custom rig.

1. Contacts and schedule

Venue production manager, promoter rep, house electrician, head of security and the runner, with mobile numbers for show day
Load-in time, soundcheck, doors, support set times, changeover length, headliner set time and hard curfew
Noise curfew or dB limits, and whether they're measured at FOH or the property line
Load-out window and any time the building needs to be clear

2. Load-in and access

Dock address, which is often different from the venue's public address
Number of trucks and buses the dock and street can take, height and length restrictions, and overnight parking
Shore power for buses, and how many amps
Push distance from dock to stage, plus any elevators, ramps or stairs
Local crew call: loaders, stagehands, riggers, minimum call hours and union rules

3. Stage and rigging

Stage width, depth and height, wing space, and trim height
Rigging points, load limits per point and total, and the deadline for your rigging plot
Ground support allowed or not, risers and barricade provided by the house
Pyro, haze and special effects: permits, the fire marshal and any lead time

4. Power

Available service in amps, voltage and phase, especially on international dates
Distance from the tie-in to your distro location and who makes the tie-in
Separate clean power for audio, and generator needs for outdoor shows

5. Audio, lighting and video

House inventory versus what you're carrying, and what you're renting locally
FOH position, snake run length and route, and whether you lose seats for the mix position
Monitor world location, delay positions and video screen specs
Any house rules on sound levels, low end or strobes

6. Hospitality and catering

Dressing room count, sizes and assignments
Catering headcount by meal, meal times, dietary needs, and buyouts versus hot meals
Showers, laundry, towels and production office space
Wi-Fi network and password for the production office

7. Guest list and credentials

Comp allocation and the guest list deadline
Pass types the building recognizes: laminates, wristbands, sticky passes, photo passes
Which zones each pass opens, and who at the venue checks them (more on credentials and access zones)

8. Merch

Venue merch split for soft goods and music, and who sells
Table size and location, load-in time for merch and the count-in and count-out process
Sales tax handling

9. Settlement

Deal terms in writing: guarantee, percentage, splits and any bonuses
Expenses the promoter plans to deduct, with caps and backup documentation
Who settles, when, in what currency, and how the money moves (see how show settlement works in GigOps)

10. Travel and logistics

Hotels, day rooms and late checkouts
Ground transport and airport runs (travel, hotels and per diem)
For international dates: work permits, carnets and customs paperwork for the gear

The real problem is keeping it all in one place

None of this is hard on its own. The hard part is that on a 30 date run, you're tracking roughly 30 versions of this list across emails, tech packs, spreadsheets and texts, and the answer you need at 7am in a loading dock is in an email thread from three weeks ago.

That's why we built GigOps TourOps, our tour management software. You advance every venue in one place instead of across a dozen email threads, a venue's tech pack is entered once and read by every tour that plays there, and settlement is tracked down to the cent.

Advancing a tour right now? We'll walk through it on one of your real dates.

Book a 20 minute walkthrough

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