Educational experiences outside the classroom can offer a critical moment in a young musician’s intellectual and creative development. These unforgettable experiences broaden their thinking and offer new sources of inspiration as they hone their craft.
However, like any field trip, these educational travel experiences can be stressful for a music director if not planned properly. At best, poorly planned music field trips are likely to bore your students. At worst, they may actually inject them into less-than-safe environments.
As such, it’s best to plan for every little detail when putting together your music trips for schools. This will keep your group organized, focused, and in the right spaces. In this guide, we will show you how.
Pre-plan Your Band Trip’s Itinerary
It’s worth saying up top: you cannot simply pick a destination and then wing it when you arrive. If you have a two-day high school student music trip in mind, plan for more than just the accommodations.
Structure your students’ days like you would back at your school. Break the day into digestible blocks of an hour or two in length, with adjacent educational and recreational experiences. With the right pacing and the right blend of activities and destinations, you can ensure your students stay engaged.
Share this itinerary with them as something to keep before you all leave. This is a great way to give them a sense of ownership in the experience. They will each understand the value of the student music trip. They can also ask questions before you depart about which experiences will be had during each booking.
Do Your Research
When selecting venues to add to your itinerary, it pays to do your research up front. The last thing you want is to arrive at a world renowned location that has long since closed. There is nothing worse than pivoting on the fly.
Read Yelp reviews and get insights from other music educators. Even better, get help from a trusted student travel experience partner who understands music travel tours intimately. You might be surprised to find that the sure thing you had planned is less-than. You may also get great tips for destinations and experiences you hadn’t considered before.
Keep Inventory
High school student music trips have the unique complication of requiring a lot of extra luggage. Every member of your student band comes with their own instrument, and those cases can add up.
It goes without saying you will need to plan for getting all of those cases wherever you’re going. But a better tip is to take daily inventory with your students at the beginning and end of each day. This will ensure no one’s instrument goes missing while you’re moving between locations. After all, a lost instrument is a surefire way to throw your student music trip’s itinerary off course.
Plan Your Custom Student Music Trips with Peak Performance Tours
We have worked with countless band directors and music educators to plan custom music trips for schools both large and small. Our expertise in the world of offsite music education means we understand the needs your students hold. But we also understand the goals you have set forth for them.
To learn more about our services for custom student music trips, Contact Peak Performance Tours today.
