Message from the Tour Manager

January tour is drawing nearer and the Chorus is so excited!  This summer saw many key parts of the tour falling into place: venues, meals, activities, and more.  We have booked plane tickets and buses as well.  We reserved rooms for the directors in each of the tour locations and I also created a chart detailing specifically which chains to look for and which ones to avoid so that future tour managers will not have to research this on their own.  

As the semester has started, we’ve been working on solidifying homestays in as many locations as possible.  We will look into hotels for a few areas where it seems the most difficult to acquire homestays so that we are being fiscally responsible but also injecting some variety into a lengthy tour.  We started designing a shirt for tour which we may open up to the Glee Club, alumni, and audience members if there is interest - the designs are beautiful!  I’ve been working with Alumni Affairs to draft emails for the Cornell Clubs to send to their alumni in each locations asking for homestays and just letting them know we’d love to see them at our concerts, so publicity is starting to pick up.  Finally, we updated our tour attire requirements to be more gender inclusive as well as clarify any confusion with dress code in the past.

My main priorities right now are getting homestays as well as finishing organizing outreach/workshops.  I will also continue to add more detail to the itinerary and tour booklet for members (nearby restaurants for free time, necessary attire for each day, etc.)  I’m looking forward to a fabulous January tour!

As always, feel free to reach out to me at tour@chorus.cornell.edu with any questions, suggestions, or thoughts.

-Kathryn-