Popmundo Tips: Improve Your Band

City Fame – General Fame

Releasing a single and music video every 28 days works best; doing it more often doesn’t help much. If you delay too long, your fame will drop. Every 112 days (4 singles), you should release an album. Albums increase the band’s fame more effectively than singles. This may change again!
Competing in contests and festivals, ranking among bands with similar concert quality, boosts your fame (especially increasing press support in that city).

Talking to the press affects both your city and general fame, raising press support.
Doing “distribute and pay” activities or spending time with groupies also attracts press attention and increases press support.
However, these effects are temporary. If you want your fame to grow consistently, you must perform another concert within 48–60 days.

The biggest determinant of your fame in a city is the performance you deliver at concerts there. If you keep performing concerts and doing the things mentioned above, your fame will roughly equal half of your performance. A brilliant 18 concert will raise your fame above average over time. Additional press-supporting activities will also increase your fame.

In the game, the values we see also have hidden decimals—for example, group fame or stage performance. Your fame may look fine, but actually be 10.9. A small increase is nice, but you won’t notice a 0.9 drop. Canceling a concert always causes a fame decrease, even if no tickets were sold. The more tickets sold, the greater the fame loss. If a member leaves or is expelled, you lose fame in all cities. Some of it will return naturally over time, but most of it you must rebuild yourself.

Tour Bus

If you’re a new band with no money but urgently need a bus, you can start with a “second-hand minibus.” Its capacity is very low, and its breakdown rate is high. Upgrade to “Luxury” vehicles as soon as possible. They have lower travel costs and breakdown rates.

Don’t be fooled by capacity—you don’t need to carry everything with you on tour. Spare tires and fire extinguishers are useless, just for show. Put your instruments and a few valuable items in the bus (items in the bus cannot be stolen), and keep at least 2 repair kits.

Do not buy vehicles with a breakdown rate higher than 9%, or you’ll often get stranded and miss concerts. As your vehicle’s condition drops, go to the car shop for minor repairs.
Do not start with stage equipment until you have buses with 100% capacity.

Automatic Bus Travel

If you are VIP, your group bus can automatically travel between concerts. Otherwise, you must travel manually.

Usage info: Source: 1824006.37

Between cities not connected by road, if there’s an 18-hour gap between concerts, you teleport (but pay attention to time differences between cities).
For cities connected by road, the time between concerts must equal the travel time. At first you may wonder how it works, but once you use it, it’s very convenient.

Stage Equipment

If you’re buying equipment, first hire enough roadies (one roadie sets up 10,000 watts per hour). Until you have a large bus and enough money (1–2m) to buy 5-star equipment, avoid investing in equipment (you can experiment with 2-star equipment if you want). Equipment quality drops after 1–2 tours. In v2, under Artist > Tour > Stage Equipment, you can buy new equipment, discard old ones, or repair worn ones.

Technical Staff

You don’t have to hire technical staff. Once you have an 18-wheeler luxury truck, 5-star equipment, and at least 500k cash left, you can start hiring them. If you can’t pay their salaries or keep their morale above brilliant 18, they’ll do more harm than good.

Crew Morale

A happy crew is a good crew. Depending on your career, crew morale will fluctuate. Having a tour manager usually keeps morale high, especially if you have many employees. Not paying salaries will upset them greatly. Keep this in mind when hiring new staff. Firing someone will also lower morale. You can raise morale with bonuses or by using power support (raises morale by 4–5 levels).

Skill Level

Every new employee starts with a low skill rating. Over time, as they get used to your band and colleagues, their skill increases. Hiring and firing many people is not a good idea. Technical staff gain stars the longer they work with you—on average, one star every 2 months. New hires lower your average. For example, if you have 8 five-star roadies and hire one new roadie, your average drops to 4 stars.

Cash Bonuses

Giving cash bonuses greatly boosts morale. You don’t have to give bonuses to keep morale high, but it doesn’t hurt. Raising morale to the maximum can cost absurd amounts of money, so avoid it unless necessary. Instead, give smaller bonuses regularly. You can give bonuses every 7 days.

Roadies

These backstage technicians are responsible for all the equipment musicians use. They provide towels, water, and make sure there’s a concert program on stage, helping musicians when problems arise. But their most important duty is setting up and dismantling the stage for each concert. The more roadies you have, the faster the job gets done. General rule: one roadie can set up 10,000 watts of equipment per hour. They also prevent equipment damage, saving you from constantly replacing gear.

Sound Technician

This valuable crew member ensures instruments and vocals reach the audience perfectly. After all, if the world’s best guitarist plays a jaw-dropping solo but the vocalist’s hum drowns it out, what’s the point?

Light Technician

For larger concerts, these masters of illusion make sure lights and special effects look as spectacular as possible to the audience.

Driver

The driver uncle drives the bus, day or night. But since he might fall asleep at the wheel, having a backup driver is a good idea.

Personal Assistant

Personal assistants handle each band member’s personal needs—from grabbing snacks at the corner store to scattering roses on the bed. They do their best to keep band members happy. One assistant per band member is usually enough. No need for excessive luxury—rock stars aren’t that spoiled!

Tour Manager

Without a tour manager, your world tour running smoothly is pure luck. Thanks to their skills, your roadies won’t run around like headless chickens, your driver won’t fall asleep under a tree, your sound technician won’t be sitting next to the driver, and your assistants won’t run off with flight attendants.

Promoter

Artists in every category benefit from press and media promotion. That’s where the promoter comes in. They make sure the artist looks good to as many market groups as possible throughout the day.

Accountant

The accountant manages the income from your tour. Ticket sales, broken windows, lawsuits, pizza orders, and gallons of beer consumed are all tracked. A good accountant helps you spend less and protects you from shady scammers you may encounter on the road.

Recommended Technical Staff Numbers for an Average Band