What We Learned from Touring an Immersive Concert in Grassroots Venues Across the UK
Ristband / Pivots UK Tour Report · September 2026
Ristband / Pivots UK Tour Report · September 2026
This report explores what we learned from bringing an immersive concert to grassroots music venues across the UK with British-French electronic/new wave duo Pivots.
It examines how emerging artists can combine live music, audiovisual performance and immersive technology to reach new audiences, create additional value for grassroots venues and develop more sustainable touring models.
Drawing on the practical and financial realities of a six-city tour, it looks at how immersive experiences can complement existing grassroots music programming, support artist development and open up new opportunities for venues, artists and audiences alike.
1. The Why: Can We Keep Grassroots Touring Alive?
Grassroots music venues are facing a deepening crisis. They are vital spaces for arts and culture, community gathering and the development of emerging artists and tomorrow’s headliners like IDOLS, Yard Act, Wet Leg, and English Teacher. Yet despite contributing more than £500 million a year to the UK economy, 53.8% of grassroots venues made no profit in 2025, and 30 closed permanently. (Source: Music Venue Trust, Annual Report 2025.)
At the same time, rising transport, accommodation and living costs are putting pressure on touring artists. At festivals such as Printemps de Bourges in France, we also learned from festival directors about growing competition for festival slots as more artists rely on live performance for income. Recorded music remains an important route to discovery, but streaming alone rarely provides a straightforward path to a sustainable career.
Could immersive experiences help create another route forward?
Through our work touring immersive experiences at cultural institutions and digital arts festivals, we’ve seen how these projects can bring booking fees that cover a substantial proportion of an artist’s touring costs — and, in some cases, the cost of an entire tour. Using a flagship booking to help finance the rest of a tour is not new to the live music industry. But could an immersive offering increase that fee, introduce an artist to new audiences or open up opportunities for multi-date residencies?
We wanted to test these possibilities in practice. Rather than turning away from the grassroots venues where emerging artists build their careers, we set out to bring immersive performance to that circuit. Could an emerging artist access the immersive market while continuing to play smaller venues, including those outside major cities? And could this approach create value for both artists and venues?
We set out to test four things: whether immersive bookings could generate meaningful additional revenue for touring artists; whether the format could attract new audiences to grassroots venues; whether it could fit into existing touring infrastructure and programming; and whether there was enough demand to make the model worthwhile for everyone involved.
To keep the tour affordable and manageable, Ristband’s producer stepped in as interim manager for Pivots, coordinating bookings, routing, logistics, PR and production. Ristband provided 25 virtual reality headsets, two PCs, a projector, cables and a router for the immersive concert.
Designed to work alongside the band’s regular live audiovisual set, the production had to fit within the realities of grassroots touring, so Pivots set off across the UK with a touring party of three, a seven-seater van, four suitcases carrying the equipment, three backpacks, a bass and a guitar.
So what is an immersive concert?
Explore Pivots “Everyday Places” immersive concert here:
The 7-seater van: with everything and everyone for our tour onboard!
2. The Pilot: Working with Emerging Artist Duo Pivots
Pivots, as an early stage emerging artist already collaborating with Ristband on numerous immersive shows and experiences, were a natural fit for this tour. Importantly, they also showed key signs of traction for their artist project through audience and industry feedback.
Pivots are a British-French electronic/new wave duo whose sound sits somewhere between New Order, Talking Heads and Overmono. At the time of the tour, they had released two singles from their upcoming debut EP and had just over 1,000 Instagram followers. They are independent artists, with a publishing deal with Antipodes Music for their debut EP.
Although Pivots launched only a year earlier, by the time of the tour, they’d already started selling out 100-150 cap venues in Paris where they operate out of their studio lab. Fronted by British musician Roman Rappak (formerly of Breton), the duo are no strangers with combining music, audiovisual performance and immersive technology in their live shows.
Working with an emerging artist was deliberate. We wanted to develop a practical case study at a level that could be relevant to other independent artists and grassroots venues, rather than testing the concept with an established act that already had a substantial audience or touring budget.
The aim was straightforward: let Pivots do what they do best, play music and meet audiences, while introducing an immersive concert into their regular touring and promotional cycle. The immersive experience would complement the band's live show, rather than require an entirely separate tour.
PLAYBACK Festival- Tramshed Cardiff
3. The Tour at a Glance
Good numbers all round.
Pivots UK Tour · September 2026
16 September — PLAYBACK Festival, Tramshed, Cardiff
18 September — The Hug & Pint, Glasgow
19 September — Sneaky Pete's, Edinburgh
21 September — Beyond Vinyl, Newcastle upon Tyne
22 September — York (private showcase)
24 September — THIRTEEN, Kendal
25 September — BUMS, Barrow-in-Furness
The tour covered six cities, with one additional private showcase in York. The average venue capacity was approximately 200, excluding the private showcase. Five venues presented the immersive concert.
The overall financial outcome was positive: the tour generated £4,520 in income against £3,701 in touring costs, leaving a surplus of £819 which was paid out to Pivots.
The tour also generated encouraging digital engagement results. Comparing September 2026 with August 2026, Spotify listeners increased by 542%, playlist adds by 150%, streams by 117% and saves by 140%. Instagram views increased by 727%.
These figures provide a great starting point for understanding the impact of the tour. While they can’t be attributed to the immersive experience alone. The band's release activity, press coverage and wider promotional efforts may also have contributed.
Pivots “Everyday Places” Immersive Concert at THIRTEEN, in Kendal.
Pivots UK tour at The Hug and Pint, Glasgow
Pivots UK tour at Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh
4. Getting the Show on the Road: From Cold Emails to Confirmed Dates
A mix of standard deals, and an immersive concert that changed everything.
The tour came together quickly. In mid-August 2026, we confirmed that Pivots would open for PLAYBACK Festival in Cardiff with their immersive concert “Everyday Places”. With less than four weeks before the festival, we set about building a wider UK route around the confirmed date.
Fortunately, we had a head start. In autumn 2025, as part of a CoSTAR grant application, we contacted approximately 12 grassroots venues listed by Music Venue Trust. Our initial email introduced the concept: a regular live set by Pivots, with an immersive concert offered as an additional experience before the main performance. Seven venues responded with interest, giving us an initial indication that the proposition was worth exploring.
Although the grant application was unsuccessful, we returned to those venue programmers with PLAYBACK confirmed. Over the following two weeks, we secured the remaining dates. The short lead time meant that many venues were already booked, so we expanded our outreach to venues with capacities of approximately 100–300 along our preferred route.
Some larger venues, with capacities of 300–400, also responded positively, but indicated that Pivots would need to further develop a live draw before being considered for their programmes. Not every response resulted in a booking, but the interest we received suggested that the concept was worth presenting to venues and that there was potential to develop it further as Pivots grew.
Two additional Scottish dates came through Off Axis, a musician-led social enterprise and gig-swapping network supporting independent artists touring across the UK and Ireland.
One important learning was that not every date needed to include both the immersive concert and Pivots' main set. Where a venue offered a suitable opportunity for a regular performance but the format or schedule wasn't right for the immersive experience, we accepted the booking without pushing to include it.
This was important. Pivots are first and foremost an artist duo, and the purpose of the immersive offering was to complement their existing touring activity, not restrict their opportunities. Keeping the format flexible allowed the duo to reach audiences through the established grassroots circuit while introducing the immersive concert where it made practical sense.
5. How Much Money Did We Lose on Tour? (Plot Twist: None)
The financial model centred on one flagship booking. When Media Cymru invited us to open PLAYBACK Festival with the immersive concert, we secured a total performance budget of £4,000 for Pivots. This was the tentpole date: a higher-value immersive booking intended to support the costs of the wider tour.
In comparison, fees vary considerably depending on the festival, the artist, the slot, the stage and whether a booking forms part of a funded showcase. Based on our previous experience, emerging artists with only a few tracks or an EP released may receive anything from around £25 per artist to a few hundred pounds for certain festival performances. These figures are indicative rather than a comprehensive industry benchmark, but they provide context for the significance of the £4,000 booking.
The fee demonstrated the potential for an immersive offering to create a commercial opportunity beyond what might otherwise have been available to an emerging act at this stage of development.
Across the grassroots circuit, venues contributed what they could, with a guarantee (performance fee) ranging from £100 to £200 plus a ticket split. Accommodation was also provided where possible. We understood from the outset that these dates were unlikely to generate substantial income in their own right. Instead, their value lay in introducing the band to new audiences, building relationships with venues and testing how an immersive experience could fit into existing grassroots programming.
The tour's listed costs totalled £3,701.33:
Touring Costs
Van hire (7-seater): £746.40
Train tickets: £240.00
Accommodation: £1,324.93
Sustenance (£100/day): £1,000.00
Fuel: £140.00
Miscellaneous (cabs, cables and other costs): £250.00
Total: £3,701.33
The tour received no public, grant or other external funding. The interim manager also waived their revenue-share commission for Pivots' first tour. As a quick note, management commission would typically be 15–20% of net income, depending on the agreement. The UK Musicians' Union advises artists to be cautious about paying management commission on gross live-performance income, as touring expenses can leave an artist making a loss; its draft agreement instead uses net receipts for live performance. This distinction matters when considering whether the model can be replicated in various touring and contractual models, so we’ve included it for full transparency.
6. Measuring Impact: Audience, Streaming and Press
The financial outcome was encouraging, but the tour was designed to test more than its immediate economics. We also wanted to understand whether the immersive experience could help an emerging artist reach new audiences, generate interest in their music and build more meaningful relationships with fans.
Streaming and social media
Spotify and Instagram data showed substantial increases during September compared with August 2026. Spotify listeners increased by 542%, playlist adds by 150%, streams by 117% and saves by 140%. Instagram views rose by 727%.
We also observed more social media engagement around the immersive concert sessions than around the live audiovisual sets alone. The immersive format gave audiences time to interact directly with the band, ask questions and build a more personal connection during the evening.
These observations suggest that immersive programming can provide additional opportunities for audience engagement. However, the available data does not isolate the effect of the immersive concert from other activity during the same period. Future tours should track these metrics alongside attendance, follower growth, ticket sales and direct audience feedback to build a clearer picture of the relationship between immersive performance and artist development.
Press response
The tour generated six articles through PR outreach and two additional organic articles based on live show reviews. Coverage highlighted both Pivots' music and the immersive experience.
As The Haps Magazine observed, the duo's music “merges cinematic atmospheres, post-punk textures, and electronic experimentation.” Magnetic Magazine captured the format in a simple line: “The show starts before the show starts.”
The immersive experience itself also featured prominently in the response. Music News Monthly described it as “at its core a human experience and connects in a very personal way that I have yet to find elsewhere,” while York Calling highlighted its ability to create “a way for people to form a memory around a track.”
Audience reactions included “Mindblowing”, “A trip” and “Insane”. While these comments are anecdotal, they reinforce the idea that the experience offered something audiences wanted to talk about after the event.
Taken together, the financial results, press coverage and digital metrics provide a meaningful early indication of the potential value of immersive touring. The next step is to build a stronger evidence base that distinguishes the impact of the immersive experience from the wider promotional activity surrounding a tour.
7. Artists Already Have Enough on Their Plate. So Why Add Immersive?
Artists are already expected to do so much, especially at the beginning when independent. It means finding time for music, running social media, marketing, logistics, admin, collaborations, public relations, putting on events and so much more. Creating an immersive offering definitely isn’t for every artist- for some it might be social media, and for others, it may be creating music videos that go viral.
Immersive isn't about replacing live music, but about adding another way for fans to experience it, just as radio and later music videos expanded how audiences discovered and connected with artists. Each artist will explore what medium feels best for them to reach their audience, and if that’s immersive, there’s certainly value to add.
Alongside supporting the economics of a wider grassroots route, immersive performance can help bridge the gap between digital discovery and physical attendance. It gives audiences another way to encounter an artist's music and creates opportunities for more personal interactions.
Releasing music and hoping it finds an audience is rarely enough. Artists need distinctive ways to introduce their work, create memorable experiences and turn initial interest into lasting engagement. Immersive experiences can play a key role in this.
For Pivots, the immersive concert became an additional layer of the band's live identity. It gave audiences a new entry point into their music while preserving the regular live performance at the centre of the experience.
8. The Format: Making Immersive Work for Grassroots Venues (A Square Peg for A Square Hole)
Immersive experiences often require dedicated spaces, significant production budgets or complex technical setups. We wanted to test a different approach: a small-footprint, modular immersive concert that could travel with a band, work within existing venue infrastructure and complement a regular live performance.
We’ve toured this format for years at festivals and cultural events with frontman Rappak’s independent artist project Venice Bleach, but the UK tour was our first opportunity to test it within the grassroots music circuit.
The format was designed around the practical realities of grassroots touring. It required limited physical space, and the equipment travelled with the touring party in the van. The setup was straightforward to load in and out, without additional staff or extensive technical requirements. It could be completed during the band's soundcheck, using the venue's existing load-in time.
The production was modular, allowing setup and teardown to be repeated and adapted to different venues. Ristband supplied the essential equipment for the immersive concert, reducing the need for venues to source additional hardware. The experience itself was designed to be accessible, with no specialist skills or training required from attendees.
Just as importantly, the immersive concert was integrated into the band's regular audiovisual set and release campaign. It fitted into the way venues already programme live performances, rather than requiring an entirely separate event or touring infrastructure.
The underlying principle is simple: the easier an immersive experience is to accommodate, the easier it becomes for venues to programme it and for artists to take it on tour. A clear offer, with familiar production requirements and responsibilities set out in advance, helps venues understand both the value and the practicalities of hosting it. If we had approached grassroots venues with a complex offering and a big financial ask, the tour would never have worked.
For future tours, the aim is to sell way more tickets than the venue’s capacity. We did this at SXSW Festival a few years ago, when we were given a 100 cap theatre (The Hideout), and managed to have 6 nearly full shows of the immersive concert the entire night. What if grassroots venues with 100 cap could sell 600 tickets in one night? Of course there are many other factors to consider in the grassroots circuit such as numbe of people who attend a concert any given night, but even doubling the number of tickets sold could help keep more venue doors open, and more emerging artists on the road.
9. Pitching, Promo and Marketing: What the Hell is an Immersive Concert?
Communications were among the most challenging parts of the tour, but also among the most important. We needed to give venues a clear proposition and help audiences understand an experience that many had never encountered before. Here’s what we learned:
Make the experience easy to explain. Assume audiences have never heard of an immersive concert. Or, that they’ve heard of immersive, but the term these days is slapped on to everything- so what does that even mean? Using direct language and showing people what the experience looks like worked best. A simple video of Pivots speaking to camera, supported by footage from previous shows, was the most effective approach.
Let people know this is for them! We positioned the experience as an addition to the venue's regular offer, making sure it could reach new audiences without alienating its established community. In social media campaigns, we targeted local music fans, but also gamers, theatre goers and people interested in digital art.
Make it part of the artist's story. Immersive programming works best when it complements the artist's music, visual identity and release campaign. It should give audiences another reason to engage with the artist, rather than feel like a disconnected tech demo. A core part of making this work was making sure that Pivots and their music were at the heart of every post and promotion. The story needed to make sense in the context of their artist project.
Keep ticketing straightforward. Offering all-access tickets rather than charging separately for different parts of the evening worked best. Keeping the offer simple removed an additional decision and cost for the audience, while giving more people the opportunity to discover something new.
Build relationships with local communities. We hit the streets with flyers to promote the event and met some amazing people. In Kendal, we met the Kendal College folks, and in York, we had meetings with people in the immersive communities. Next time we’ll reach out to these communities in advance. Getting in touch with communities already active in each city, including universities, student societies, arts organisations, gaming groups, creative industries and local media can help tap into large audiences that could be interested in the immersive concert, and Pivots music. Flyers, personal invitations and direct conversations were effective ways to introduce the experience. There’s no doubt a big value add of the tour was developing local relationships to support future shows, partnerships and repeat visits.
Make it easy for venues to say yes. We refined our intro email a lot at the beginning. The best responses were when we sent really short and simple outlines of Pivots, with a brief mention of their immersive show: what the audience would experience, tech specs, assuring them we’d handle all gear/ production for the immersive shows, details on how ticketing and promotion could work, and then discussing the deal. Reducing uncertainty and operational burden made it a lot easier for a venue to assess the offer quickly and understand whether it was feasible.
10. Don’t Lose Your Head👍! Sustainable Touring.
Touring is demanding for artists at every level, particularly when a small team is responsible for performing, transporting equipment, managing logistics and promoting the project along the way.
Building days off into the route every two or three shows made a substantial difference to the Pivots touring party. Rest days reduced the pressure of packing, travelling and checking in and out of accommodation every day. They also created time to explore the cities, focus on key elements beyond the stage: meeting venue teams, engaging with local communities, working on social media, and building relationships that could support the next tour.
The reality is that not all touring parties can afford to cover the costs of rest days (accommodation, food etc), but when possible, this is highly recommended. It made a big difference for everyone.
11. So, did it work? Is the UK ready for immersive experiences to hit grassroots venues nationwide?
The Pivots tour suggests that there is a viable opportunity to introduce immersive programming into the grassroots touring circuit. We secured interest from venues, delivered the experience across a range of locations and generated encouraging financial, press and digital results. The tour also demonstrated that a portable immersive concert can sit alongside a regular live performance without requiring an entirely separate touring infrastructure.
The financial results are an important part of the story with the tour generating revenue. One flagship booking supported the economics of the wider route, while grassroots venues contributed smaller fees and, where possible, accommodation.
The audience response was equally positive. The immersive experience gave people another way to encounter Pivots' music, created opportunities for direct interaction with the band and generated press coverage that spoke to the personal nature of the format. The increase in streaming and social media metrics is promising, but further measurement is needed before we can establish a direct causal relationship between immersive programming and audience growth.
We are still at an early stage. The language around immersive experiences is evolving, and many audiences need a clearer explanation of what the format involves. At the grassroots level, we also need to address concerns that immersive projects can be expensive, technically complex or poorly suited to the realities of smaller venues, particularly when an experience accommodates only a small number of people at a time.
This is where the format matters. For immersive touring to become viable on the grassroots circuit, experiences need to be designed around the practical needs of venues and touring artists: small footprints, straightforward production, accessible ticketing and the ability to accommodate enough people to make the economics work. Communications and marketing need to be just as carefully considered, giving venues and audiences a clear understanding of what’s being offered and why it’s worth experiencing.
The opportunity is not just to bring more immersive experiences to major cities or established cultural institutions. There’s an exciting opportunity here to develop new experiences that work in the venues where emerging artists already build their audiences, and where people are already ready to discover something new. By connecting immersive practice with the existing grassroots infrastructure, we can explore new opportunities for artists, offer audiences different ways to engage with music and help sustain the spaces that are essential to the future of live performance.
12. What's next? It’s time to double down.
Pivots' debut UK tour was a first step. We now want to refine the model and explore how it could be replicated across Europe and North America, while planning a follow-on UK tour in 2027.
Our priorities are to develop a repeatable touring template that can be adapted to different venues and markets; create a practical marketing playbook for artists and venues, including video formats, local outreach and audience communication; and strengthen the evidence base by tracking attendance, audience feedback, streaming and social growth, venue responses and financial outcomes across future tours.
We also want to build on the relationships, press coverage and audience response generated by the first tour, using those results to inform future bookings and partnerships.
Zooming out even further, our ambition extends beyond one artist or one tour. The UK music industry generated £4.8 billion in export revenue in 2024 (Source: UK Music, This Is Music 2025). By helping grassroots venues attract new audiences and generate additional income, immersive programming could contribute to a more sustainable touring circuit - supporting emerging artists more broadly who will help shape the future of the wider UK music industry and preserving and potentially one day increasing the value of UK music export revenue through unique immersive offerings.
Interested in bringing Pivots’ immersive concert to your venue or festival, exploring a workshop with Ristband, or sharing insights from your own work in immersive / music? Get in touch. We'd love to hear from you.
With a HUGE thanks to everyone who hosted and supported this amazing initiative:
Pivots | Roman Rappak and Pol Sibil
Media Cymru / PLAYBACK Festival | Gavin Johnson & Dr. OBE Sara Pepper
Off Axis | Derick MacKinnon
Tramshed Cardiff
The Hug and Pint
Sneaky Pete’s
Beyond Vinyl- David McGovern
The Moxie Centre for Art- Lucinda Grange & Christoph Haltiner
THIRTEEN - Hugo
Barrow Underground Music Society- Rob and the entire BUMS team
Music News Monthly- David Weddle
York Calling - Graeme Smith
The Haps Magazine: Stevie-Gwen
Keren McKean
Lauren Townsley-Gray