Sarah Armiento & Janette King
Founder of Hot Tramp Management, where she manages a roster of independent artists across Canada and oversees grant writing, label services, distribution, and campus and community radio campaigns. She is also co-founder and Head of Business Development of Soul of the City — Montreal's first non-profit festival dedicated to emerging soul and R&B artists — and co-host of Montreal DJ series Joy is a Weapon.
A touring artist and music industry professional with firsthand experience of what it means to plan a Canadian tour on an independent budget. As an artist, she has lived the logistical and financial reality that Tour Aid is designed to address. As a co-founder, she brings the technical expertise behind the platform alongside the perspective of someone who has sat on the other side of every tool we've built.
Combined years of experience in artist management, grant writing, event production, venue booking, and festival organizing — working across both English and French Canada.
Why we built this
The Canadian touring landscape is one of the most challenging in the world to navigate independently. The distances are vast, the costs are high, and the support systems that exist (grants, industry programs, community networks) are fragmented across dozens of funders and bodies with different requirements, deadlines, and eligibility rules. For independent artists without a manager or grant writer in their corner, the system is nearly impossible to navigate alone.
Tour Aid was built at Concordia University's District 3 innovation incubator to tackle both sides of that problem. It came out of hundreds of conversations with artists, managers, booking agents, presenters, and industry professionals across Canada. What we heard, consistently, was that the problem lives on both sides of the ledger. Revenue is too unpredictable and costs are too high.
Small changes in routing can significantly reduce travel costs. Smart routing that accounts for geography, confirmed dates, and grant-eligible territories can make the difference between a tour that breaks even and one that doesn't.
Corporate showcases and private events represent a meaningful and underutilized revenue stream alongside traditional venue touring.
The Canadian arts funding system is genuinely generous, but access to it depends almost entirely on knowing it exists. That knowledge is concentrated in a small circle of industry professionals. We're democratizing it.
Artists touring independently are constantly solving problems that other artists have already solved. A structured way to share resources, connections, and hard-won knowledge could meaningfully reduce costs across the board.
How Tour Aid works
Four core services, each designed to address a different part of the touring support gap — not as separate products, but as an integrated platform built around the financial reality of independent Canadian touring.
Tour Aid is free to use. Start with the grant directory and find programs that fit your tour.