Tour Planning (MerchIQ)

Tour Planning is a feature of our MerchIQ package. Before your tour starts, add the details of your Tour, Routing, Merch Items, and Expenses. Plan inventory needs for Headline, Support, and Festival shows all within the same tour. Once you've entered all of the information, atVenu will provide a Tour Plan Summary and you'll be able to see how that stacks up against the actuals once your tour begins.  

Add Routing and Merch Items: 

Before you access Tour Planning, make sure you've done the following:

• Created a new tour if you've upgraded your account package
• Added your shows under Tours > Shows

Make sure all shows for the tour are saved to Tours > Shows before completing your Tour Plan. Once Completed, new shows will not sync into the Plan.

• Added merch items under Merch 
• Saved merch items to a Trailer
• Linked the Trailer to the tour

If you do not have product images or names for items yet you can always go back and add those details later, but you do need to build out the items in your product line with sizes, prices, categories, and COG in order to create an accurate plan. The same applies to your Routing. You may not have all of the Venue Rep details, for example, but the shows themselves with Capacities and Venue Cuts need to be saved before creating your Tour Plan. The more information you enter up front, the more accurate your Tour Plan will be.

Important steps when adding shows and merch items:

• Mark your shows and merch items as Headline, Support, or Festival when saving

This is a crucial step for MerchIQ (Tour Planning and Forecasting) to accurately calculate revenue and inventory projections. You can select more than 1 show type for merch items if you plan to sell these items at multiple types of shows. For example, your "Tour Tee" may only be sold at Headline shows but the "Logo Tee" is sold at both Headline and Festivals shows.

• Enter the Venue Cuts for each show you add to Routing for the tour. If you do not yet know the Venue Cut, enter in an assumed amount. This can be edited later once confirmed
• Set the Reorder Type

Set any item to No Reorder when saving if you do not want MerchIQ to apply any demand to the item. These are your sell-off items. New items are set to Priority by default which simply means they are active and will be factored into the MerchIQ calculations.

Access MerchIQ Tour Planning:

• Click Tours > MerchIQ
• Click Tour Planning

Now that you've added your Routing and merch items, you can begin planning your tour. There are 3 major sections that need to be completed before MerchIQ can generate your Tour Plan Summary: 

1. Venues

• Make sure the correct tour is selected in the dropdown
• Click the Venues button
• Click on the Arrows button on the right to load the page in full screen view

Now, begin filling out the Venues portion of the Tour Plan:

• Click on the titles above each column
• Enter the percentage or dollar amount for each show type, for each column in the pop-up tool (Note the % or $ symbol in the entry fields of the tool)

For example:

• You estimate $10/head for Headline (H) shows and $5/head for Support (S) shows. Festival shows are represented as (F)
• You estimate 75% of your sales will be CC for Headline shows and 50% for Support shows

The cells in the active column will automatically calculate based on percentages or dollar amounts you enter for each show type. This is where selecting show type for shows and merch becomes critical.

For CC Fee, enter the average of what you anticipate your CC rate % to be for each show type. atVenu will then use this and the CC Receipt amounts you enter to calculate the $ CC Fee.

You can edit the individual cells, or the show type entries in the pop-up tool at any time.

• Continue using the above process for each column
• Once all of the columns have been completed, the sheet will generate totals for each column along with Total Venue Fees based on the Venue Cuts, Total Show Costs, and Net Receipts
• Tax will calculate once you complete the Products portion of the plan

2. Products

• Click the Products button

• Enter the % of Sales you estimate each item will account for on the tour (This should total 100% across all items once complete)
• Enter the Est. Cost for each item
• Enter the % Size Break (Percentage of sales by size for this item. Should total 100%)

• Based on the above information, you are presented with a Needed Tour Quantity calculation for each item broken down by size
• Any on hand/available stock will be applied in the Qty Available column, reducing the suggested order quantities in the Total to Order column
• Click the Qty Avail title to select which locations you'd like to pull from

Now that your Needed Tour Quantities are calculated, you can begin planning your orders. 

• Enter the percentage you'd like to order for each item under the 1st Order title, and quantities will automatically calculate based on that percentage below
• Create multiple Split Orders by clicking the (+) Plus button
• Once you complete your Tour Plan, return to this page to create your Orders. The Order titles (1st Order, 2nd Order) will become blue and clickable. More on this below.

You do not have to order the specific quantities MerchIQ recommends. All fields are editable if you need to adjust the quantities. atVenu will automatically round each order up to the nearest dozen.

3. Expenses

• Click the Expenses button

 

• Enter a description and select the Expense Type (Required) from the dropdown along with the cumulative tour expense amount
• Use the (+) Plus button to add entries in each section
• Remove entries by clicking the X button
• The Total Costs amount in red will update as you continue to add expenses

 

Tour Plan Summary

Now that you've entered your information into Venues, Products, and Expenses, you can view the Tour Summary. The Summary provides an overview of the tour based on the information you've entered.

• Click on the Summary button
• Enter a prepared by name, date, and any additional notes as needed
• If you are done adding information you can click on the Complete button to save your Tour Plan

If you add additional shows to Routing AFTER you've hit Complete, they will not be synched into the Tour Plan. Be sure that all shows for the tour are saved to Routing before completing your Tour Plan.

Use the PDF button to export a PDF version of the Tour Plan

Unlocking & Edits:

• You can unlock your the Tour Plan to make edits at any time by clicking the Unlock button
• Click Complete again to re-lock, after you've made your edits
• atVenu will keep a log of all edits made to the plan after the Complete button has been clicked for the first time. You can view this log by clicking on Audit Trail

Return to Products to Create Orders

Now that you have completed the Tour Plan, you can return to the Products view to create the orders you've already planned for.

• On the Products page, click on the Order Title (1st Order, 2nd Order) for the Order you want to create

Now, the Order has been created but it still needs to be processed and shipped. For more information on working with pending Orders see: Processing pending Orders (Advanced Inventory)

Also see: Tour Forecasting (MerchIQ)