TOURBUS EUROPA Open Call 2026

Worth being clear up front: this is not a touring grant. TOURBUS EUROPA is a Creative Europe-funded research programme testing a data- and AI-driven tool for planning international tours, and the €800 is a stipend compensating you for the time you put into taking part — workshops, reflection sessions, and trying the ideas out in your own practice.

There are two open calls with fifteen places each, five per country. The first is for artists and ensembles working in contemporary, experimental or newly composed music, based in Denmark, Sweden or Germany, who have had international activity in the last three years or are actively trying to build it, and who are not wholly dependent on an established booking structure. Solo performers, ensembles without formal organisation, composer-performers and project-based line-ups all qualify. The second call is for venues, festivals, curated concert series and independent presenters in the same three countries who programme this repertoire, have real influence over programming decisions, and some flexibility in what they book next.

Applying is unusually light: an online form, no fee, no budget. The panel — drawn from the partner organisations — is selecting for willingness to reflect openly on how touring decisions actually get made, rather than artistic merit in the usual sense.

The consortium is Art Music Denmark, jazzahead!, the Swedish Society of Composers, Tourbus AB and Lund University. Sessions run October to April; results arrive in week 41.