We did it. Glasgow Music Tour is the first UK tour to go live on a new international platform for audio tours. So we’re up there with Paris, San Francisco, New York …Barras meet the Bohemian Slums of Montmartre!
A blast of colour from the Barras at night
A quick explanation. GuidiGO, with offices in Paris and New York, hosts interactive guided tours to cities all over the world so travellers can plan where to go and “follow the steps of local experts when they get there”. A few months ago they invited us to be part of a new global community of storytellers and we jumped at the chance.
So far the new platform holds tours to Dublin, San Francisco, New York, Rome, Paris and other great European cities. And there will be many more by the time GuidiGO launches officially next month, when there will be more UK cities on board too.
Which means we’re looking forward to being part of a very interesting crowd (check that Bohemian tour of Montmartre, Dante’s tour of Florence, and Harvey Milk’s tour of San Francisco gay bars just for starters!)
But for now it’s great to say Glasgow Music Tour leads the way in the UK!
Screen grab of Guidigo website
Our first tour on GuidiGO is Route 1 Centre East which leads from George Square to Old Fruitmarket and back to Britannia Panopticon via the Barrowland (Glasgow’s music scene is so big we had to split it into four routes).
The star of this route is the Barrowland of course but each venue has its own unique character. The tour is not just about the places, it’s the people who make them come to life. When we took a trip out to meet some of them last week we got such a great welcome it reminded us (as if we had ever forgotten) why we started the crazy mission to celebrate Glasgow’s huge and ever-changing live music scene.
We had coffee in 13th Note, lunch in Mono, browsed records in the wonderful Monorail, and ended up in an unexpected music hall show in the Panopticon. We dropped off leaflets with our new Glasgow music map and spread the word about the new app at the same time. Next day we got a friendly follow up in an email from David Disbrowe, general manager at 13th Note where they take a pride in helping new bands get going:
“It’s great that we work in a city of such rich musical culture and diversity, anything that spreads the good word of what’s happening is only going to be wonderful, good luck to everyone at Walking Heads….we look forward to seeing the crowds outside pointing at us with their cameras soon!”
We’ll drink to that!
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