What We Learned from Touring Our Indie Film Across the Country

A behind-the-scenes look at our 12-city tour, with data, mistakes & takeaways.

We just wrapped up our Guacamole Yesterdays Theatrical Tour. 2 months. 12 cities. 1 movie. Infinite tacos.

After our screening and Q&A in Santa Ana, a woman introduced herself as Yvonne. She told us how she bought a ticket on a whim and was questioning whether or not to come on the day of. Downtown Santa Ana was the middle of the ICE protests that night, so she had every reason not to come, but Yvonne said it was fate that she was there. The movie meant so much to her, connected so deeply with her, and helped her address some things she was dealing with in her own life. Two days later, she even came out to watch the film again at our LA screening and brought her boyfriend with her.

When we first started to plan out our Guacamole Yesterdays Theatrical Tour, our goal was to build an audience, one person at a time. And stories like Yvonne’s (and the dozens of other deep conversations we had after screening the film) made us feel like that goal was a resounding success.

But, since I promised to share all our data openly with you guys, I thought it was time for a post sharing the wins, losses, and lessons learned from our tour.

Why We Took the Film on Tour

We decided early on in our filmmaking careers that it was going to be defined by collaboration, connection, and community. That’s been our compass whenever we have a big decision to make.

So, when it came time to market and release our grounded sci-fi feature film, Guacamole Yesterdays, we knew we wanted an in-person experience as part of that strategy.

This wasn’t our first attempt at this model. We had booked a number of stops for a tour with our first movie, This World Alone, that was supposed to kick off in April 2020, but COVID kept us off the road.

Jordan and I both used to play in bands, so we were very comfortable with the tour life. We certainly aren’t the first movie to book a tour, but we loved the community-focused approach.

What We Wanted to Get Out of It

Our goals aligned around:

• Building a deeper connection with audiences through Q&As and in-person conversations.

• Inspiring word-of-mouth buzz around the film through leaving reviews, posting on social media, and telling friends.

• Creating an event-ized experience that encouraged people to watch the film in theaters (where it’s meant to be seen), including an opening comedy act and a post-screening Q&A with the filmmakers.

• Testing out a more sustainable revenue model for indie film releases, introducing revenue from ticket and merch sales.

And while the goal was to see a profit from the tour (or at least break-even), we ultimately were treating it as a marketing expense. We’d much rather drop a couple of grand on a unique, memorable experience for audiences than put that towards META ads.

How We Pulled it Off

We set out to book 20 venues across the United States, traveling from May to June (spread out as we still had families and day jobs) and leading up to our digital release on June 24.

We started by asking what cities were most viable.

• Where do we already know people?

• What cities have venues with a built-in audience?

• What can we drive to?

• If we have to fly, can we line up multiple stops between to make it worth it?

We ultimately ended up with a list of about 100 potential venues.

We brought on our pal Katelyn to do the booking for us. She would email each venue, sending over our one-sheet with tour details, and follow up with a phone call. There were a surprising number of venues that we never heard back from, but we were prepared to play the numbers game.

The easiest way to cut this list down was to eliminate any that required a theater rental. About half of the theaters we called weren’t willing to try out the door split model (splitting ticket revenue between the film and the venue). Of the ones that did, most had a 60/40 split in favor of them, although a few of them went 50/50.

We ended up with 12 total screenings. We were in conversation with another 6 or so, but ultimately ran out of time/money to make them all happen.

We ended up renting out 4 theaters in cities where we knew we had an audience but couldn’t find a door-split friendly venue. This made profitability an uphill battle, but two of these screenings did turn a profit on their own.

For ticket prices, we decided to set them at whatever the venue normally charges for a ticket. I think this was one of our biggest mistakes. Some of these venues were small and normally charged $8 per ticket. But, we aren’t just a random movie playing on a Tuesday, we’re travelling there in-person for a Q&A, we’re bringing out an opening act, it’s an event that is worth the extra money. Ticket prices ranged from $8-$18 and we saw no drop off in attendance at the higher ticket level.

Sponsorships: How We Missed the Mark

In order to offset travel costs, we reached out to a few potential tour sponsors. Because the movie deals with therapy and mental health, we thought we could partner with an online therapy app to encourage audience members to sign up after screenings. I put together a deck for what a sponsorship might look like (your logo on our poster, an email to our list, co-branded social posts, a mention from stage, passing out your info at screenings, etc.) and we got really close with one of them, but ultimately we didn’t have enough time to pull it together before the tour (a running theme you’ll notice: we kept running out of time.).

We printed postcards with QR codes that took people to our Letterboxd account and social media. We also used these cards to push towards online therapy apps (even though they weren’t sponsoring us, encouraging therapy, especially among men, is still something we have a passion for).

The Not-So-Fun Part: Expenses

Here’s a breakdown of the biggest expense categories we planned for and why we went over budget.

• TRAVEL - After sleeping on floors and couches on the first leg of the tour, we decided we’re too old for that and bit the bullet to get ourselves hotels and Airbnbs from then on out. Planes, rental cars, and lodging are expensive, especially in cities like NY and LA.

• MARKETING - We did a very small ad spend in each city ($50-$75). I’m not sure anyone actually came because of an ad, but we’re able to retarget them with the digital release.

• MERCH - Creating screenprinted posters, pins, vinyl records, shirts, and screenplay books) was also a hefty expense. But we’ll be launching an online store this month to help push any items left over from the tour, and we’ll soon see a profit.

• OPENING ACTS - We gave a small stipend to each stand-up comedian who opened the shows. While it wasn’t much, at some of these smaller venues with tight margins, we ended up taking a bath.

By The Numbers

• Cities visited: 12

• Total attendance: 440

• Average attendance per venue: 37

• Ticket revenue (post-split): $1,629

• Average revenue per attendee: $13.10

• Merch revenue: $1,950

• Total revenue: $3,579

• Number of venues rented: 4

• Number of door-split venues: 8

As for the big question, did we turn a profit? The answer is no, due to the aforementioned expenses. But we came close. And I do believe it was still the best bang for our buck with the money earmarked for marketing.

A breakdown venue-by-venue. I HIGHLY recommend all of these venues (each of the low-attended ones had reasons beyond their control), and we hope to be back at each of them.

What We’d Do Differently Next Time

We learned a lot the hard way. Here are some key takeaways to help you avoid our pitfalls.

Booking

• Start booking earlier. Some theaters wait until the last minute to fill in dates while others book as much as 6 months in advance. It would’ve made a bigger splash had we had all of our dates booked ahead of time and were able to promote it as a finalized tour with booked venues and dates.

• When it comes to venues, think outside the box. One of our tour stops was in a comedy club. Another was in the back of a video store. What cool, unique venues fit your film and your audience?

• Tighten your window. In an ideal world, I would’ve lined up the stops so they were non-stop for two weeks (or more) leading up to our digital release to build momentum.

• Give people a reason to show up. Since our film is about a stand-up comedian, we invited local stand-ups to open our shows. On our first film, which has literary themes, the plan was to partner with local authors to do a reading. Much like a local opening band helps bring in their own core audience. We also showed up for everyone to do a Q&A. Make it an experience.

• Ask the venues which dates work best. We made the mistake of setting dates first, but some of the low-attending screenings were due to college towns that were in the middle of finals or coming on the tail-end of film festivals, where the community was movied-out.

Promo

• Reach out to local media (blogs, newspapers, radio, TV, podcasts) yourself. Many of these outlets are looking for cool things that are happening in their cities and can help get the word out.

• Provide promotional materials to your venues. Print postcards or posters for them to put up in their lobby. Ask if they’ll run your trailer before other similar films. Ask to cross-promote, tag, or collaborate with them on social media. Anything you can do to help fill seats is as helpful for the venue as it is for you.

• Find local advocates to help spread the word. The stops that did the best were the ones where we had someone in the city helping us promote, invite friends, and get the word out.

• Don’t forget your audience at home. I’m terrible at keeping up with social media, so for some of the stops, we brought Katelyn along to capture photos and audience reactions. If I were to do it again, I’d have a checklist of things we need to capture at each stop and make our online audience more a part of the touring experience.

Sponsorship

• Start conversations with potential sponsors ASAP, before you start booking dates. Cater your tour to what’s most helpful to them. Do they want an in-person presence? Do they want to pass out materials?

• Sponsorship doesn’t have to mean financial benefit. Partnering with a non-profit that overlaps with the themes of your film or your audience could benefit both partners.

Travel & Budget

• Travel costs add up fast. On our first East Coast leg, we slept on couches and floors at friends’ houses. After four days of this, we realized we’re a little too old for that, but anything you can do to keep travel costs down, the more likely you’ll turn a profit. This might mean you limit your tour stops to places you can drive to.

• Learn how to price tickets. Do research on what your audience is willing to pay for a unique in-person experience. We left a lot of money on the table by trying to match what the local venues normally charge.

• Merch can be a great way to bring in extra income. Plus, it doubles as promotion - every time someone sees our screenplay book on a shelf or someone wearing a shirt or pin, it becomes a marketing tool for the film.

• Think about what will actually sell. Next time, I think we’ll experiment with providing a Blu-ray of the film for sale at each screening. This seems like the biggest no-brainer purchase if someone loved the film and something we entertained, but ran out of time to produce in a way we were proud of.

Would We Do It Again? 100%

Despite not turning a profit, the tour was one of the most rewarding experiences of our lives. We connected with audiences, saw the emotional impact of the film in real time, and laid the groundwork for future releases.

It’s ultimately up to you and your goals with your film. But if you share in our desire to build a tight-knit community, I believe a tour offers both a revenue and marketing model that is unparalleled.

In every city, we’ve now developed “Raving Fans” (although now we just call them “friends”) who are doing a much better job at promotion and building buzz than we ever could from social media and running ads.

Audience building is a long game. We have another film planned for release in 2027, and we hope to return to each of these venues, bringing out this core audience and hopefully adding new ones each time out, just like a touring band, revisiting each city with each new release.

Got questions?

I’m more than happy to answer any other specific questions in the comments below!

Interested in seeing what all the fuss is about?

Guacamole Yesterdays, our grounded sci-fi love story that connected with audiences across the country, is now available to rent for $3.99 on Apple TV, Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, and Google TV.

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