How it works

What is Le Grand Détour?

A travel magazine about flying for live music, with a radar behind it. Tell us the artists you love and we watch the world's tour calendars for the few shows worth crossing a border for, then build the trip around them: the fare from your city, the room worth booking, the presale before the public one.

What makes a show "worth the trip"?

Occasion, mostly. An artist you love in an extraordinary room, a one-off that won't repeat, a residency in a city that's a destination itself. An arena stop on a 40-city tour usually isn't; Björk under an eclipse in Iceland is. Every pick gets a written case for why, not just a score.

What do the tiers mean?

A Worthy Voyage clears the bar. A Rare Rendezvous is the kind of night you plan a season around. A Grand Détour is the apex, awarded rarely: once-in-a-lifetime occasions only.

Are the flight prices real?

They're live Google Flights fares from your home city at the time we scored the trip, refreshed on a schedule, and always a search link away from booking. We show estimates only when a live fare isn't available, and we mark them as such.

Do you sell tickets?

No. We link you to the artist's own ticketing or the primary seller whenever one exists. Some links earn us a commission at no cost to you; it never affects what we recommend.

How is my feed different from the public showcase?

The showcase is the house taste: the editors' hundred détours. Your feed is built from your artists and your city, so the same machine answers a different question: not "what's extraordinary", but "what's extraordinary for you".

Membership

What does All Access actually get me?

The whole machine, at depth: up to 200 artists on your watch (free covers your top 25), The Dispatch every Monday, same-day alerts on up to 10 watched artists, presale windows on every trip card, the Monday fare watch on your saved trips, and caravans at full size. Free is a real product; All Access is the version that never lets a show slip past you.

What does the free plan include?

A weekly scan of your top 25 artists, the full write-up on every trip that clears the bar, one caravan with 15 shared artists, and the headline count from The Dispatch. Free tells you your artists made moves; All Access tells you which.

What is The Dispatch?

A Monday morning note listing every new show your tracked artists announced that week, before you'd catch it on Instagram. It only arrives when there's actual news, and it's separate from your weekend trip digest: Monday is what your artists are doing, the weekend is where you should fly.

How do watch alerts work?

Pick up to 10 artists to watch. The moment we detect a new date for one of them, you get an email the same day, batched so you never receive more than one a day. Watched artists also get checked more often than the rest of the catalog.

How fast will I hear about a new show?

Watched artists are re-checked every few days, and alerts go out the same day a show is detected. We say "within days" rather than "instantly", and we'd rather under-promise here.

Can I cancel?

Any time, from your account page. You keep All Access until the end of the year you paid for, and your artists, saved trips, and caravans stay put on the free plan.

How many emails is this, honestly?

At most: your trip digest on the weekend, The Dispatch on Monday, one watch-alert batch a day only when something landed, and a fare-drop note when a saved trip's flight actually gets cheaper. Every one has its own unsubscribe.

Where does the money go?

$129 a year, billed annually. 1% of membership revenue funds carbon removal through Stripe Climate; flying to shows has a footprint, and this is us acknowledging it.