Life Awaits - TOUR TIPS

In this Tour Tips segment, the metalcore band, Life Awaits, recommends advice for being a musician on the tour in China. You can check out the tips below:

What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when you see the Chinese national flag? Well, no matter what it is, it’s most likely not Rock music. However, China actually has a decent and still growing market across varieties of genres. If you are ever considering touring Asia, you should definitely put China into consideration. As a home grown Chinese band, we’d like to share a few things about touring in China if you wanna turn this idea this into action.

1. Are you popular enough to tour China?

China has its own social network and online streaming game. Should definitely check your stats on those platforms before you try to make the move. You might be surprised. Don’t be disappointed if the stats are not ideal. Simply pay more attentions to those Chinese platforms and start engaging with your current followers. Here are the platforms you should pay attention to:

NetEase (Spotify)
Weibo (Twitter/X)
Bilibili (Youtube)
Douyin (Chinese version of TikTok)
Red

2. Where to start?

Get in touch with a Chinese promoter that can help you to get show permits. You’ll need the permits to apply for a work visa which is very important. If anybody tells you to come and play with a tourist visa, simply pass on the proposal unless you are willing to take the risk of getting departed by the Chinese immigration department.

3. Ways of traveling in China

Almost no band in China would use a tour bus like in the US or Europe. The most common way of getting to the next show in China is by high speed train or flight. For international bands, it’s very often to travel across provinces just in a few days. Sometimes it could get a bit exhausting if you are bringing a lot of gears. The schedule on a show day usually goes like this:

6:00 Lobby Call
8:00 Train to next City
12:00 Arrival
13:00 Hotel Check-in
15:30 Load-in & Sound-check
19:00 Door
20:00 Show

4. Gears

Most venues(live-houses) in China provide drums, amps, and floor monitors. It’s strongly advised to cut down your gears as much as possible. It’ll make your life so much easier unless you are someone that can easily sell out a big venue. You can also discuss with your promoter and ask for backline gears.

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