West Coast Tour Request

[creeddude98]

Theocracy! First off, you guys rock. Amazing, thought provoking, bible based lyrics in your songs are weaved into the amazing tunes!

I have been saddened to see that every year when the tours roll around that you have not brought the tour to the west coast. I would like to request that you guys please come to Portland, Oregon or Seattle, Washington. I know there is a small flowing in these areas.

I'm not sure what is involved in setting up a tour, but if there is anything you need from your fans to make this possible, please let us know! We want you here and are willing to help out in any way that we can to facilitate that.

Fans on the west coast: Please add your comments to this thread to show Theocracy that we want them here!

 

[SeaStorm]

I can add more extensive comments later, but it's not really up to the band. There needs to be promoters in those areas willing to book the band. The sad reality is that only the biggest power/prog metal bands can tour the US. Theocracy's in a spot where festivals are about the only live show model (outside of their home region) that makes sense and there aren't many power/prog metal festivals in the US. That's why you see them going to Europe and Central/South America, where there's a much bigger power/prog metal fanbase that can support more of those festivals.

They know they've got lots of fans on the west coast (and throughout the US), but it's not enough to tour. And AFAIK, there haven't been any festivals for these genres out there since BARfest in San Francisco shut down.

 

[SeaStorm]

Here's a little more about why it is the way it is (from my experiences booking a handful shows in my hometown and being good friends with someone who has booked at least 50 power metal shows).

To be able to tour (and headline), a band needs to be large enough that local promoters in each town are willing to pay for the show and take on all of the risks. Basically, the promoter pays the band and all expenses and then gets reimbursed from ticket sales. That's a ton of risk and unless you've got a local promoter willing to take losses on shows simply because he loves power metal, then only the biggest bands will get booked for your town. Bear in mind that the venue is rarely the promoter. Paying for the venue is yet another cost the promoter needs to cover.

To give you an idea of why promoters are hesitant, for the first show I co-promoted, I thought we'd easily breakeven as we had the lead singer of a huge American metal band doing a solo show. We lost $3000 on the show. Ouch. I lost money on every show I did (including Sonata Arctica and Gamma Ray, who are orders of magnitude more popular than Theocracy), though fortunately none on the level of that first one

So if a band is not big enough to fit that bill (and Theocracy definitely is not, here in America), they are mostly left with playing one-off festivals. That's more doable because the festival promoter can use many bands to cover expenses such as the venue, however they have added expenses like airfare and hotels which you would not have with a tour, so even festivals can be difficult. Theocracy has played some festivals outside of their southeastern region (Illinois and Texas come to mind), but not a lot.

Sorry to be a downer here, but I thought you'd appreciate hearing the reality behind what most fans see. I could see them maybe being able to tour if they caught onto a tour as a opener, but even that is tough because nowadays you typically have to pay to get onto a tour as an opener.

You best bet would probably be to find the nearest Christian or power/prog festival and try and convince the promoter to book them. To do that, you'd need to convince them that Theocracy has enough of a draw in your area to cover their costs.

 

[SeaStorm]

Back in 2013 Micheal Sweet from Stryper made a post inquiring about interest in Theocracy touring with Stryper which caused some buzz here (http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/theocracy/909439-stryper-theocracy-tour.html), but nothing seems to have come from it.