Written on 6^th March 2017

TAG Global Touring goes behind the scenes on the Justin Bieber Purpose World Tour

For those who have been living under a rock for the last 12 month, Justin Bieber sailed through 2016 hitting record after record and selling a countless number of albums. Even his usual detractors could not deny the album “Purpose” was a stroke of genius and unsurprisingly, took the world by storm.

Announced on 11th November 2015 on the Ellen DeGeneres show, the Purpose World Tour was to be the third worldwide tour by the Canadian singer, in support of his fourth studio album of the same name, released that same month.

The Tour started on the 9th March 2016 in Seattle and is scheduled to end on the 6th September 2017 in Toronto. Over the 18 month period, the show will have be performed in six continents, with a total of 164 dates: 73 in North America, 64 in Europe, 15 in Latin America, five in Oceania and two in Africa.

Chris Gratton, Production Manager of the tour, was the brains behind this huge operation. It was Chris who initially approached TAG in Los Angeles to arrange all of the travel logistics for the North American leg of the tour. Having collaborated previously on the Ariana Grande tour he was overseeing, it seemed a natural progression that we were entrusted to handle the logistics of this incredibly challenging project. In February last year, our UK operation was also contacted, this time to commence work on the European leg of the tour. We were charged with looking after several travelling parties including the band, dancers and production crews.

Work began immediately to source the European hotel requirements, which required a great amount of work and attention, due to the scale of the tour.

Rachel Gosling, Operations Manager of TAG Global Touring comments: “One of the main challenges we face with tours of this scale is availability. Many of the cities can already have large scale events in place that have a huge impact on the availability of accommodation. This is where our relations with our preferred suppliers are of paramount importance. Due to our trusted, long-standing relationships with these suppliers we are capable of sourcing the right types of accommodation, meeting the pre-defined criteria of star rating, location and budget”

With a total of 64 different hotel bookings throughout the European leg of the tour and with a travelling party totalling 104 people, this was a very tricky project to manage. Furthermore, both scheduled and private air charters were sourced to accommodate the groups for the entire length of the tour. Considering the degree of complexity and length of the tour, TAG Global Touring offered Chris Gratton and his Production Coordinator, Jessica Sheehan the use of the TAG Global Touring App.

Rachel Gosling adds: “Our ground-breaking Global Touring App software was made available to Chris Gratton and Jessica Sheehan offering them an accessible, round the clock high-tech solution whilst travelling out on the road. This is particularly crucial for a tour of this size given that the App is able to display up-to-date information at all hours of the day at the click of a button, making it much easier to keep a close eye over all of the travel arrangements. TAG Global Touring also implemented an experienced team member, Tiffany Cathcart, to travel with the group. During the tour Tiffany provided full, dedicated support to the party whilst out on the road. Tiffany travelled ahead of the group and liaised with all hotels to ensure they were fully prepared for their arrival to enable all check ins to be a smooth, seamless process. Furthermore, her duties included handling any late changes, being onsite to supervise the group check in process in all cities and generally ensuring that everything was in place to relieve Chris and Jessica of any unwanted travel challenges that may arise. This was all backed-up by our dedicated 24/7 emergency team who are always on hand for all of our clientele.”

On the 29th November the final concert of the 2016 European tour was held at the O2 Arena in London. However, with the unstoppable Purpose tour back out on the road for 2017, we continue to work with Chris and his team on this fantastic, marathon-like production. Rachel adds: “Being so heavily involved in such an incredible tour was a tremendous opportunity. It is a privilege to continue to work with Chris and Jessica and we have loved being a key part of such a fantastic tour and production.”