I’m Geoff Hickman and I help manage French art-rockers Televox. We decided a while back that we’d try and go from gig to gig and country to country as green as we could. OK, truth be told, I decided. But the boys are good sports and have open minds. We don’t have all the answers and we’re certainly far from perfect, environmentally speaking. But we’re trying. Turns out there’s not a lot of info out there on the subject. It’s not widely talked about. So essentially, Tour Small gives me the opportunity to produce web video while I find ideas from other musicians doing the same. I’ll cover musicians from across the globe who gig green, eco-friendly music venues, and a whole heap of other related things in the hopes that the media here can be a catalyst for change in the industry.

I was also asked to be a guest on BBC 5 Live to talk about the subject of gigging green and sustainable touring (If you’re on a mobile device, click here to listen to it). Much thanks to Pods and Blogs and Steve Lawson for all the support and inspiration.

Production

Much like the work I do with Televox, the green aspects of the show’s production will be an ongoing series of improvements. I’m eliminating unnecessary travel in order to film episodes with two exceptions: if I’ve embedded myself on tour with an act, or if I’m already traveling for some other reason. I’ve got more than enough technology at my fingertips to film episodes remotely without having to be somewhere far in person. I can also see using solar to charge camera batteries and to run my laptop while editing and uploading video in the near future. I’ll keep you posted.

Geoff Hickman
Los Angeles
August, 2009
TourSmall[at]gmail[dot]com