TOWNS ON TOUR
Towns On Tour began when a shared love of arts and music led us to address the touring crisis seen in our local towns of Carrboro, Chapel Hill and Durham, North Carolina. We saw the struggles that artists had when their tours did not turn a profit and often ended in financial losses. We developed a plan to help artists cover touring costs like food, lodging, health, and other needs that would also help support the local economies of the towns they tour.
TOWNS ON TOUR WILL HELP PERFORMING ARTISTS AND TOWNS PROSPER
We offer subsidies for artists to use at partnered businesses to cover touring expenses. This in turn helps local economies as 100% of the dollars given to the artists are put back into the communities. Partnering with businesses in multiple cities and towns creates a profitable and sustainable tour circuit.
HELP US
We cherish live performance just as you do. You care about this dire situation but don’t know how you can help. We have a solution that will work. WE can save the performing arts industry one artist, one club, one town at a time! Through local grassroots events, larger regional festivals and through multimedia content we can sustain part of this vision, but that alone is not enough. We need help from people like you, people who have so many memories of the live music you experienced, how art shaped you, how it fed your soul. We want to experience art in intimate settings, to interact with artists, to have unique, transformational shared experiences. Art has always been a part of our human experience. We can honor this and allow it to continue to shape our culture and our hearts. We can lift up artists into a place of dignity where they know they are needed. We need to show that art matters to all of us, and we can do this together. Please donate to sustain this cause!
A CRISIS IN THE LIVE MUSIC INDUSTRY
Known for decades as a destination for touring bands with historic venues, the towns of Carrboro, Chapel Hill and Durham NC reflect the existential threat to touring bands happening in cities and towns across the entire U.S. We've heard from our local musicians and artists about how difficult it is to tour other cities. Visiting performers tell us touring is hard to sustain with rising costs and no profits. Local venues close down or struggle to stay open. Small businesses that thrived off a bustling music scene face declining sales. We discovered that these problems are not only in our area of North Carolina but in towns and cities across the nation. With rising costs, touring is no longer sustainable. The hardships of touring have a direct effect on mental health, yet most musicians do not have access to therapists, exercise, or wellness on tour and cannot afford services that are often needed. Musicians struggle to afford food and accommodations while on the road and are often paid in alcohol instead of money. With very little royalties from streaming services and profits from album sales quickly becoming a thing of the past, touring and selling merch has become the only way for artists to make a profit. Musicians no longer sell CD’s, they sell very little digital content, and producing vinyl, while highly coveted by musicians and music lovers alike, is very expensive.
ART BELONGS TO US ALL
Due to the rising cost of touring, we are faced with the imminent threat of losing live performance at the small to mid club level
Larger companies have taken over the performing arts industry. They are controlling a majority of ticket sales and promotion, opening huge venues and buying out small and mid sized clubs. With less artists on tour, independent venues find it difficult to stay open and local businesses that depend on the live arts scene are often closing their doors. The economic hardships of touring results in newer and lesser known artists not reaching the audiences they once used to. We as a society are finding ourselves with a lack of live performing arts as the large companies control so much of the entertainment industry. They are limiting the art we experience. The art that society is exposed to has the power to shape society’s thoughts. The agonizing truth is that if touring becomes too hard to sustain, we will lose the magic that is live music. We will lose the venues and businesses that depend on performing arts as well. The connection we feel when gathered for that shared experience will be lost. Art can heal, art can unite and art can save lives.
Please donate!
THE TEAM
AnneMarie Loftus has always had a passion and love for music. She grew up learning to play music and has been on the production scene for almost a decade. While balancing life as a mother of four, she started in the industry as a stagehand. She worked her way up to running lights, and when she wasn’t building a show, was a runner for the incoming tours. She loves to support local businesses and believes in the power of community coming together.
Leites Chiong began playing music at age twelve, and by age fourteen he officially declared in school that no matter how unlikely his success would be he was determined to be a musician. He formed a band with his neighborhood friends and began playing in clubs along the southeast at the age of fifteen. He has taught music for the last fifteen years and currently runs his own music studio. Leites believes that music has the power to transcend our everyday worries and truly bring us closer together as a society.
Mystique Arnold has been immersed in the arts since her art-school days in Miami. She played bass in an experimental band and saw first hand the struggles faced by musicians in the club scene. She has lived in the Chapel Hill/Carrboro area for 20 years. Here she became connected to the local arts scene and businesses. She is a mother, an artist, a musician running an independent music studio for the last fifteen years. She is always creating.
OUR PARTNERS
Working under our 501(c)3 fiscal sponsor From The Heart Productions, all donations are 100% tax deductible.
We have partnered with Reveal Live! Entertainment to raise money through multimedia content and live events. Their expertise, shared values and commitment to our vision will help sustain a portion of our funding needs. We will be able to give artists multimedia exposure, support emerging artists by showcasing their talent at local events and bring local businesses into the fold by utilizing their services at our events. All events and experiences will help benefit Towns On Tour. Our goal is to help as many cities and towns as possible, working to create a sustainable touring arts and entertainment circuit.
