My first tour in Germany was 10 days long, and I managed to book 6 concerts for this little trip. It took me a great amount of work to do this, but what I soon discovered was, that many of the people I had met on tour, became friends, guides and helpers. Not only did many of them invite me back the year after, some even offered to arrange 2 concerts for next time, and some managed to get us into a bigger venue. This is really helpful when you are booking in a new country, and for me it made a huge difference.
Networking is always important, but it can be easy to fall in the trap of opportunism, seeing other people as extras in your personal movie. This kind of thinking can get you some of the way, but it’s not a structure that can carry over from tour to tour and keep you going. If you open yourself up to friendships a new network emerges that’s build on trust and a genuine love for music. To a certain extent it’s the act of letting go and let the music, in this case: your music, be the main actor on the stage. It’s a balance I’m still struggling to find, but as I keep touring it’s becoming more and more obvious that the more your give the more you get.
The little town Pößneck in Thüringen is a great example of this. We played many places in the area; the anarchistic “Freiraum”, the local ice-cream café, the beautiful old castle in the mountains, and this time at a little informal opening of Pension Franzenshof’s new bar. We played for bigger audiences and smaller crowds, but we’ve always been welcomed with such warmth and so much hospitality. We made a little circle of friends in Pößneck, and we always look forward to this little spot of German tranquility.
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