Import a tour from a spreadsheet

Forwarding advances one at a time is the right move once a run is booked and venues are sending details. But if you’ve already got the whole tour in a spreadsheet, you don’t need to wait for emails. Upload the sheet you already have and every date lands at once.

You don’t have to reformat anything. Advance reads your sheet the way you laid it out: one row per show, one column per day, merged cells, a title block on top. It also reads the cell notes, which is where a lot of bands keep the run of show, load-in, and parking.

Import early, advance later

Importing a tour and advancing its shows happen at different points on the calendar. Routing comes together months out; advancing happens as each date gets close.

• Early, while you’re routing: you’ve got a sheet of the whole run. Import it and every date lands on your dashboard at once, long before the first advance email.
• Later, show by show: as each date approaches and the venue sends details, CC your advance address on the thread and it lands on the show that’s already there.

1. Get your file

Any of these work:

• Excel (.xlsx). The best option. From Google Sheets: File → Download → Microsoft Excel (.xlsx). It keeps your cell notes, which a CSV export drops.
• CSV. Fine for the dates, but notes don’t survive the export.
• PDF or a plain text file, like a tour book or an itinerary someone sent you.

2. Open the importer

Click Import on the Dashboard or the Tours page, then From a spreadsheet. On a tour’s page it lives in the tour’s ⋯ menu, where it pre-files the import into that tour.

Coming from Master Tour instead? The same menu has From Master Tour, which takes a Tour Details CSV, a day sheet PDF, or an email export, and it can also pull your dates straight from the Eventric API with your key.

Under Add to tour, pick where the shows go: an existing tour, Create new tour to name one on the spot, or Standalone shows to leave them ungrouped. Then drag your file onto the drop zone, or click to browse.

3. Review what it found

Advance reads the sheet with AI. It takes a few seconds for a short run and up to a minute or two for a long, detailed one. Nothing is saved until you’ve looked it over.

Every show it found is a row with the date, venue, and city. Under each row is what came with it from the sheet, like 3 schedule rows · Day-of-show contact · Wifi · Parking. Click See details to read it before you import.

Uncheck anything that doesn’t belong. Then click the import button. It names exactly what’s about to happen, like Import 12 shows.

Shows you already have

If a show on the sheet is already in your account (say you pulled your dates from your tour page first), Advance doesn’t add it twice. It marks the row Existing show and only fills in what that show is missing. A field you already filled in, a schedule from a venue’s advance, a day-of-show contact you added: none of it changes. A blank cell in the sheet never erases anything either.

So it’s safe to upload the same sheet again after you add notes to it. The button tells you what it will do, like Add details to 7 shows.

Using the Advance template instead

If you’d rather fill in a clean sheet, Download template CSV is right under the drop zone. It has one row per show and every column Advance expects:

• date, venue_name, and city are required.
• venue_address, venue_capacity, ticket_price, guarantee, backend_deal, walkout_potential, hospitality, and artist_comps are optional.

A file in the template’s format skips the AI and goes straight to a preview card per show:

Each card carries a status badge:

• New: a show that doesn’t exist yet, so Advance creates it.
• Update: the date and venue match a show you already have, so Advance updates it instead of making a duplicate. Your post-show settlement numbers stay untouched.
• Probable match: a near-match, like a venue spelled two ways. Advance won’t guess. You Confirm match or Import as new on that card before the import button unlocks.

A row missing a required field is flagged Invalid and skipped, with the reason on the card, so you can fix the sheet and re-import.

4. Review the imported shows

Every imported show lands unreviewed, the same as a parsed advance, so the “New” flag behaves the same way. Open each one, fill in what the sheet didn’t have (or forward the venue’s advance into it later), then Mark advanced when it’s confirmed with the venue.

What’s next

• CC your advance address on the venue thread and each imported show fills itself in.
• Send your first day sheet once a show is reviewed and advanced.