Essentially, you're almost done. Send out the One Month Hence! email, making sure to paste the Media and Agents list to the bottom, and field any questions the crewmembers have.
Hey CREWMEMBER, CREWMEMBER, AND CREWMEMBER!
Here's your finalized schedule, spread far and wide:
[PASTE IN THEIR SCHEDULE] ...Perpetual Motion Roadshow #WHATEVER...
LA: Sat. Apr. 16, 7pm. Flor y Canto (3706 N. Figueroa Ave.)
San Jose: Sun. Apr. 17, 8pm. Anno Domini (150 S. Montgomery St., Unit B)
Eugene: Mon. Apr. 18, 7pm: Feinstein's Museum of Unfine Art (537 Willamette)
Seattle: Tues. Apr. 19, 7pm. Confounded Books (315 E. Pine St.)
Vancouver: Wed. Apr. 20, 8pm. The Butchershop (195 26th&Main)
Portland: Thurs. Apr. 21, 7pm. Reading Frenzy (921 SW Oak St.)
San Francisco: Sat. Apr. 23, 7pm: Modern Times (888 Valencia St.)
All shows are pay-what-you-can.
At the moment, the perpetualmotionroadshow.com front page is still the previous month and will be changed over to your info when their tour is over.
This is all killer, no filler: please read it all, and email if there's confusion. You don't want to be on the highway a month from now realizing you missed out on this crucial info.
Hopefully you've gotten your packet of PMR postcards in the mail: email is well and good, but it really helps to mail your people in the cities you're going to something physical. Write in your show details and a hello. If you have some left over, they can also be good context for media packs.
For now, if you want the media outlets to get a chance to look at and write about your materials, you should send it in the next week or so -- it'll take at least a week for them to get it via the post. You'll also want to e-mail and fax in the event details soon if you want it to go into listings and such, the leadtime for most weeklies is two weeks. You might want to team up with your tourmates on this. Agents can be helpful for working their local contacts, but they will not get you media coverage -- you have a better chance of putting together an intriguing media pack than the Agent who's been doing it for months. It's more fun to arrive in town and see your name in the listings than trying to figure out why it's not there.
It is MOST recomended to also send along (via mail or weblink) a catchy, high-resolution visual/photo -- this makes the weeklies much more likely to give you a plug, since they're always short on visuals. This has worked repeatedly for crews in the past.
The posters for each of the confirmed cities are at http://perpetualmotionroadshow.com/handbills/ You'll want to include the proper city's handbill in media you send out, and it might be a good idea to print out the Globe and Mail PDF: http://perpetualmotionroadshow.com/pmr-globeandmail.pdf ...to include to give a bit of background on the Roadshow. There's also a template press release, which you can reformat with your own info: http://perpetualmotionroadshow.com/pmr-pr.rtf ...really, though, feel free to do whatever you like to get the word out and catch the attention of the media, these are just tools. Remember that the Roadshow has probably come through their town several times and the novelty may have worn off -- sell them on your material, not the tour itself.
Now also is the time to consider shipping materials ahead to LA and Vancouver. Canadians are not allowed to make money or sell things in America without costly visas, and the same with Americans in Canada. So if they search you and find that you have things to sell or equipment to perform with (projectors, instruments), they can turn you back on a whim. There will be more tips sent on border crossing the week before the tour, but in the meanwhile:
In terms of car rentals, you'd obviously want to get one with unlimited mileage and no stipulations regarding going across the border -- I've found Avis to be good in both those regards. You'll want to figure out how you want to divide up the gas costs and such ahead of time.
Below I've listed the agent in each city. They'll be doing what they can in terms of promo, as will the venue people and the local act -- they'll have handed out handbills at this month's shows. However, you should also do everything that you can do to get the word out and get people coming to your show. Don't neglect your own city -- have handbills in your pocket leading up to it, and let any media folks you know about the tour early.
As you know, the Roadshow doesn't do any promo beyond sending out a massmail and making the resources available to you, and the agents only do what they can -- so make sure you shake all the trees you got. It will be what you make of it.
If at any point you're unclear on Who Does What in the Roadshow, check out this handy chart:
http://perpetualmotionroadshow.com/whodoeswhatchart
You're pretty much on your own now, I'll be happy to answer questions or whatever but it's up to you to figure out the remaining logistics amongst yourselves -- you should get in touch with the agents ahead of time if you need a place to crash. They're prepared to find it for you if they can't put you up themselves, but you must arrange it with them ahead of time.
Watch your email a week before the tour for more tips!