The Acoustic Airwaves Tour

began with a wild idea that came to me as I was first learning to fly. I looked in the back of the aircraft and realised that I could probably fit a PA system, acoustic guitar and few bags in the plane with me.

Hmmmm, my mind started whirring with thoughts and I wondered if anyone had ever actually  done a solo acoustic tour in a small aircraft. Probably not, I reckoned, so maybe I should be the first?

Even though I was only about 8 hours into my lessons, I started planning which airfields I might be able to bring this to. I wanted to do it this year, and I wanted to do it when the weather was (hopefully) predictably good. I also needed to "guesstimate" when I would pass my test. So I chose the last two weekends of August and the first weekend of September as ideal dates for the tour.

NOW....I had a deadline to both get my license and put all the logistics together!

I worked as hard as I could, getting up every morning at about 7 am to study for the written exams (7 of them and NOT easy!), whilst booking as many lessons as possible to work on my skills and make the most of what little good weather there was to actually be able to get up and have some visibility!

As I started talking about the idea to people, it began to gather its own momentum and I could feel that it was capturing people's imagination and that inspired me to develop the concept further.

I realised that this would be a great way to draw attention to a charity that I have worked a lot with in the past and for whom a national campaign was important: The Teenage Cancer Trust. It would also be a great opportunity to raise funds from the audiences and interested parties who would like to support and help the cause by making donations.

I knew that I wanted some special guests on the tour and I thought it would be fun to try and find some artists that I hadn't worked with before, but who were local to the airfields, as well as some special friends who had already agreed to appear with me.

Then, I passed my test on June 14th, so (thank goodness) first stage achieved! At last I could throw myself fully into making Acoustic Airwaves a reality.

Little by little I worked out my routes on the charts I use to fly, trying to make sure that each place was no more than an hour's flight from the next. I knew that this would be both a physical and a mental challenge and I didn't want to stretch myself too much, especially as I would have to be performing twice a day, and setting up and taking down all the gear.

Truly a one man band, roadie, tour manager, pilot, artist and self marketing team!

I also needed to plan the routing to cover specific areas where Teenage Cancer Trust are building wards or have operational units in order to maximise local interest and fund raising for them.

By the end of June I had a proposed lineup that ran to 15 different locations over 9 days in one aircraft!

 

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