In this quick guide, our music tour experts explain what you need to consider.
There are four key considerations when choosing a destination for a school music tour:
- Ensemble type (and repertoire)
- Budget
- When you want to travel
- Age of performers
Ensemble type (and repertoire)
The first thing to consider is your ensemble type and repertoire. That’s because a choir with a sacred repertoire is going to want very different venues to a band with a jazz or rock repertoire.
Our music tour experts know all our destinations and venues really well, so the easiest thing to do is drop us an email or give us a call and tell us about our ensemble (so we can give you some options to consider).
We’ve also put together a downloadable cheat sheet that’ll show you some of the best destinations and venues for your ensemble type (to get you started – but this isn’t an exhaustive list).
| Ensemble type | Destination | Venues |
| Choir | Malta |
|
| Choir | Paris |
|
| Choir | Bruges and Flanders |
|
| Band | Barcelona and Costa Brava |
|
| Band | Rhineland |
|
| Band | Lake Garda |
|
| Orchestra | Prague |
|
| Orchestra | Tuscany |
|
| Orchestra | Salzburg |
|
Budget
The next thing to consider is your budget. Obviously, the bigger the budget, the further you could consider going.
But you don’t have to spend big to have a great tour.
Travelling by coach often works out cheaper, if you’re trying to stick to a budget. And if you can travel outside of peak travel times (basically, outside of school holidays), that’s really going to help the budget stretch further, too.
There are no ‘off-the-shelf’ tours with Halsbury, so just let us know what your budget is and we’ll work with you to create something incredible.
When you want to travel
As we’ve mentioned, when you want to travel can influence the cost of your music tour. It could also be an important factor in where you choose to go.
You may not have much control over when you can go on your music tour. But if you’ll be travelling during the winter, you won’t want a destination that mostly offers outdoor venues, for example (apart from freezing yourselves, you probably won’t have much of an audience).
So, if you are tied to specific dates, let us know and we can help you to work out what destination is going to give your ensemble the best performance experience at that time.
If you can be flexible with dates, we can work the other way around. So, tell us what performance experiences you want, and we can let you know which destinations could offer that, and when.
Age of performers
The last thing to think about is the age of your performers.
This is important, because this will have an impact not just on the destination you choose, but also any venues, accommodation and activities.
Younger school or youth groups might want to choose to stay somewhere a little bit quieter, whereas ensembles made up of older teenagers might prefer a city with a buzzing atmosphere and loads of cool cultural attractions.
And adult groups will often want somewhere where they can stay in quite a nice hotel, with some really prestigious performance venues and great restaurants.
But those are generalisations based on our experience. Your ensemble is unique, which is why we’ll design your tour around them.
Ready to get started?
Get in touch and let’s have a chat about your ensemble, your must-haves for your tour, your travel dates and your budget and together we’ll create an unforgettable school music tour.