For long-time live-music fans in the Hub City, it’s easy to remember when touring bands regularly stopped in Lubbock for pickup dates between bigger markets. Those surprise shows built legendary memories — but the modern touring world looks very different.
So why didn’t Spiritbox, who were in town Sunday night, just book a Lubbock gig? As it turns out, there are several behind-the-scenes factors that make those days a lot harder to repeat.
🎤 The New Reality of Tour Scheduling
Touring today is built around sustainability, not nonstop grind. Many bands — Spiritbox included — limit how many days in a row they perform, scheduling intentional rest days to preserve energy, health, and production quality. When you look at Spiritbox’s current routing, they rarely exceed three consecutive performance days, which already limits where and when extra shows can happen.
🚫 Contract Radius Clauses Change Everything
One of the biggest roadblocks is the increasing use of radius clauses. These contractual restrictions prohibit bands from performing within a certain distance of a ticketed show, festival, or exclusive market event. These used to be minimal or negotiable, but festivals in particular now enforce them aggressively. This has cut down drastically on “travel-day gigs” bands once used to fill open nights — and Lubbock used to benefit big time from those opportunities.
💰 Venue + Timing = Risk
Even if the schedule worked, a Sunday night show in Lubbock still has financial and venue-fit risks. A band wants the right room, right crowd, right production, and right guarantee — and sometimes, all those stars just don’t line up.
With Cedar Park on Monday, Oklahoma mid-week, and Minneapolis by Friday, squeezing in Lubbock wasn’t just difficult — it was probably impossible…