Promo Tour Day 7

Monday, September 10th, 2007 AUSTIN, TX

We left Houston for the start of our three week promotional tour at about 9 pm. Spirits were high and the trucks were packed with luggage, posters, flyers, postcards, singles to sell, DJ Smallz mixed CDs, Bigga Rankin mixed CDs, and t-shirts. A gazillion t-shirts…

I’m not sure how the guys fit everything into these two trucks. The only thing I can attribute this to is Ghetto’s illustrious past at UPS packing trucks for so many years. He worked there prior to working at Southwest Wholesale.

The guys have known about this tour for about a month, but somehow one is never ready to get on the road for a month. This means they won’t see friends, family, babies, or income, for 4 weeks straight. They understand the importance of getting out into different cities and shaking hands and kissing babies. Bute (pronounced Boo-teh) pointed out that we are doing what most national artists with major labels behind them don’t do…and that’s sad but true. Although, all of the artists I have worked with have done these promo tours from Twista to Do Or Die to David Banner to Fiend to Tupac to C-Murder to BloodRaw (in fact, I’m going to try to talk Raw into going out on another one--non-Def Jam supported, in a few weeks). A promo tour is, hands down, the most effective form of promotion for an artist.

A promo tour puts the artist in front of the fans and shows their commitment to meeting consumers and working hard. Basically, the artist wakes up in a market and goes to retail stores, radio stations, video shows, local press, malls, high schools, colleges, night clubs, strip clubs, and anyplace where large amounts of potential fans hang out (community centers, housing projects, fairs, parks, events, etc). My artists usually drive at night to the city we are blitzing, and then sleep in that city (I prefer Hyatt Place hotels because we can comfortably fit 3 people in each room, or uncomfortably can fit 5 or 6). We have lobby call (when everyone meets in the lobby) at 9:30 AM and start to roll out.

--wendy