How the Router works
The Router is the smart engine that turns your tour parameters into a real, routable run with projected earnings and plain-English reasoning you can actually share with your band.
When you'd use this
You're about to run the Router on a real tour and want to know what it's doing with your inputs before you trust the output.
What you give it
- Your band profile — home city, draw, crew size, vehicle MPG, per-diem rate, venue tier
- Tour parameters — start date, end date, any anchored shows you've already confirmed, drive-radius cap, minimum guarantee, preferred regions
- Constraints — max consecutive shows, minimum days off, blackout dates
What comes back
- An ordered stop list. Which cities, which venues, in what order, on which dates.
- Drive math. Real road distances and times between every leg.
- Projected economics. Per-show P&L and a tour-wide total that factors in fuel, lodging, per-diems, and venue guarantees.
- Plain-English reasoning. A short paragraph explaining why the Router made the calls it made — so you can argue with it or agree with it.
Most tours finish in 15–45 seconds, depending on how big the run is and how tight your constraints are.
Why it's not a "shortest path" tool
Traditional optimizers treat tour routing as a drive-distance puzzle. That ignores:
- Venue availability — a perfectly-located venue that's closed your date is useless.
- Genre fit — a punk club isn't booking a folk act even if it's directly on the route.
- Economics — a slightly-longer drive to a bigger guarantee is usually net positive.
The Router weighs all of that the way an experienced tour manager would. Slower than a pure optimizer, but the routes it proposes are ones you'd actually send.
What it's NOT
- Not a guarantee. The Router's P&L is projected. Actuals depend on venues confirming and paying out.
- Not a booking tool. It proposes a route. You still have to send inquiries and negotiate.
- Not opaque. Every call the Router makes is explained in the reasoning paragraph.
First-run tips
- Start with 3 anchor dates or cities you're confident about. Let the Router fill the rest.
- Set a generous drive-radius cap on your first run. Tighten later.
- Run it twice with different parameters so you can see how the route shifts.
Still stuck?
- Router giving empty results? Your filters may be too tight. Loosen capacity range or radius.
- Router output includes a venue that makes no sense? Tell us via the feedback button on the result — we use that to make future runs better.