Arts on Tour’s sector development program leads on best practice in touring, connects artists, companies and presenters, extends audience reach, and builds touring capacity to support a sustainable arts sector. Arts on Tour's current initiatives are:

• Green Touring Online Series & The Green Touring Toolkit
• Salon 
• Tour Lab & Tour Lab+ Online Series
• Backroads 

AOT’s Green Touring initiative started in 2020 with the development of The Green Touring Toolkit and the integration of emission reduction strategies into AOT’s touring services and operations. In 2024 we’re excited to be presenting the Green Touring Online Series for the first time: a series of five, 60-minute, free online sessions featuring guest speakers that will share their knowledge, tools and expertise on emissions reduction practices. 

Salon is an initiative to build relationships between NSW artists, producers, venues and presenters. It is a small-scale, lo-fi pitching event, a meeting place aimed at creating opportunities for regional touring.

Tour Lab covers practical advice on how to get your work on the road, including budgeting and a venue perspective on programming and audience engagement. There's lots of opportunity to ask questions from experienced teams and venue managers and much more! 2024 will see the first Tour Lab+ Online Series where artists and producers can delve deeper with members of the AOT team in three online sessions of the essentials: Budgeting, Marketing and Itinerary Building. Participants will be able to receive personalised feedback from the AOT team on their working documents.

Backroads was launched in 2022 to support the touring of professional work to non-professional venues, with the aim of extending our audience reach and activating alternative venues in smaller towns across NSW.

“AOT’s reach across the country and the calibre of your work is next level. I have found it invaluable to have you work as ‘tour coaches’ providing advice and support but having me develop the tour - and all the skills/networks that go behind that.”

Previous Initiatives

Tour Well is Arts on Tour's mental health initiative, aimed at providing best practice touring practices in relation to mental health on the road. Working in collaboration with the Arts Wellbeing Collective we developed the resource Tour Well for Tour Managers and host regular Mental Health First Aid Training courses for NSW-based companies. 

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