Six weeks before each show, you need to email navigator@perpetualmotionroadshow.com the following for each city:

• Date of show
• Start time
• Venue name and address
• Local act and their simple descriptor ("poetic thug Jack Starr")

Each of the three crewmembers need:

• simple descriptor
• hometown
• 100 word bio
• mailing address

If all of this info is not received by the Navigator 6 weeks before the tour, the tour will be cancelled for that month. With the amount of things that need to be done, this deadline needs to be met: it's not worth sending people on the road without the time they need to promote the event.

Now it's time to schedule specific dates. Depending on where people are coming from, try to schedule the shows starting or ending in wherever the most people are (ie, if two people are from Chicago, it starts or ends there). Minimize border crossings mid-tour--if the tour starts in Chicago, it ends in Toronto.

The west coast is tricky, since it's a line and not a straight loop, so getting back car rentals to the originating city requires either someone willing to drive it back alone or for the tour to do three cities one way and four cities on the way back. Probably worth checking in with the crewmembers as to what they'd prefer, otherwise they might just think you're a sadist. At this point you'll want to come up with a descriptive and intriguing phrase for them and run it by them -- you're better off coming up with one and saying they can pick a different one if they want. People have real difficulties coming up with their own catch phrases, for good reason. Also confirm where they're from & if you have two people from the same area try to find where they were born, etc., variety is the key. Get their website if you don't have it.

Schedule a day off in the middle somewhere, preferably a Fri or Sat since venues are harder to book on the weekend, although sometimes venues do better on certain days.

OK, now you have the tentative 7-city-8-day dates for the three months, email the agents in each city to book those 3 dates, also sending them the roster and bios for the next three months and the contact info for any local acts in their city the crewmembers have suggested. Ask them to confirm the 3 bookings and the 3 local acts by a week from today. There isn't a lot of flexibility time-wise, although there's a day or two wiggle room in the middle (ie. you could switch the day off in the middle to Friday if that was a better day for the venue than Thursday). Ideally you'll want to get the same venue to confirm for three dates, for consistancy and simplicity's sake, but you might have to mix it up a bit.

The thinking behind booking three months at once is so once it's done, you and the agent can forget about it. It's always a hassle to get the person at the venue in front of their calendar, so it's better to try to do it all at once. The importance of the local act is really important in getting new people out to the show, and often makes the difference between a sad smattering of people and a decent crowd.

The trick with getting stuff confirmed without ripping your hair out is to give people a deadline of a full week, tell them why you need it then, and follow up scrupulously one day after the deadline. If you do it systematically while still treating people respectfully you can get it done without losing sleep. Give people only the info they need (ie. don't "think out loud" unless you really need to).

Once things are confirmed, you'll want to send navigator@perpetualmotionroadshow.com all the info for all three months, with confirmed venues and local acts, six weeks before. That way they can get the handbills made a month before, and they'll have the info for when they send out the massmail to the Roadshow mailing list.