Our Team

Travel Team

Tina Waters – Managing Director

Tina

Tina was born in Washington DC and raised in Arlington, Virginia.

 

Her first, though extremely significant contribution to the music business, came in 1972 when she was backstage at a Flying Burrito Brothers gig and overheard Chris Hillman telling Gram Parsons about a female singer he’d just seen but didn’t know how to get in touch with. “That’s Emmylou Harris” said Tina “I’m her babysitter”. A quick phone call was made to Emmylou to make sure it was fine to give Gram her number, and the rest, as they say, is country rock history!!!

 

Shortly after that, Tina moved to New York City where she got her first job in the music business working with the enigmatic booking agent Jonny Podell at his BMF agency, home to Alice Cooper – whom she ended up onstage with dressed as a nurse, wrestling him into a straight jacket as part of the stage show.

 

Yo-yo-ing between New York and LA between 1972 and 1976 saw Tina working for concert promoters Pacific Presentations, where she coordinated all the hotels for the artists performing at the California Jam. She returned to New York to work for Jonny Podell again in New York, and in December of 1975 was offered a job working with Bill & Taffy Danoff with the Starland Vocal Band who were just about to have their first hit, ‘Afternoon Delight’. 1977 saw Tina return to LA where she helped open the LA office of Tasco Sound. She then worked at the Sunset Marquis hotel in West Hollywood, before joining the sound and lighting company TFA/Electrosound, where she worked in the management division representing The Tubes before moving on to the sound division. She then became part of the GLS Productions team ran by the renowned tour and production managers Gerry Stickells & Chris Lamb. Here Tina worked in the office and on the road as assistant tour manager on several major American tours including those by Queen, Elton John, and ABBA.

 

Whilst on the road, Tina spotted the need for a more focused look at the logistics of travel and accommodation for touring bands, a responsibility she had already assumed for some of the GLS clients. Working first for Revel Travel and Earth Travel, in the mid eighties she became a key agent at Air Apparent.

 

Wishing to broaden her horizons after several years of booking travel in the States, she moved to London in 1989, joining Travel By Appointment, where she established herself as one of Europe’s leading travel agents. That much so that she was head hunted by rival firm Trinifold Travel who offered to open up a Glasgow office specifically for her so that she could work in the same town as her husband. Tina opened Trinifold Travel in Glasgow in 1993 and built the business of the Glasgow office steadily. In 1999 she conducted a management buy out of the Glasgow office, and the Tour Company was born!

 

Tina was presented with the highly prestigious Outstanding Achievement Award at the Woman of Year Awards for the Music Industry and Related Media in 2005.

 

Tina is on the fund raising committee for Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy in Scotland.

Louise Smith – Senior Travel Agent

 

Louise

Louise graduated from University with a BA in Business Administration (via an HNC in Music Business Administration as well as a HND in Business Administration both at Stow College). During her time at Stow College part of her course (HNC Music Business Administration) was to release an EP using the courses own record label – Electric Honey Records with a band called the Moondials (Stuart Murdoch and Stuart David were in the band and later went on to form Belle and Sebastian). Louise came to the Tour Company in April 2000 starting as an administrator and quickly progressing to a full time tour consultant.

Christine McKinnon – Senior Travel Agent

Christine

Born in Glasgow in 1974, Christine has always had a passion for the travel industry. She started her career studying Travel & Tourism at Glasgow College of Food Technology. She then went on to gain experience in various fields in the travel industry such as Business Travel, Leisure Travel, airline reservations and tour operations working for such companies as ATMays, Thomson Holidays, Ryanair plus some smaller independent companies. Christine has been a Tour Consultant for The Tour Company since 2006 and is the office air expert

 

Sam Hinks – Senior Travel Agent

Sam

Sam Hinks is based down in The Tour Company’s Brighton Office. With over 20 years now of travel and music experience, Sam originally started in music travel back in the late eighties and early nineties when contacting a hotel meant sending a telex! Having dealt with numerous bands, agents and management companies over a 13 year period, Sam took some time off from travel and toured throughout the world as a band/production assistant with artists such a Beck, Tool and Korn to name a few. She also tried her hand within different industries and worked for the ambulance service for year. After a period of time away Sam finally got back in contact with Tina and has now been working at The Tour Company for nearly 4 years and is thoroughly enjoying her time back in music travel, and is also still dealing with some clients from the first time round. When she is not at work she will be either found walking her dog or riding her horse!

Lindsey Young – Senior Travel Agent

Lindsey

Lindsey began her career in the travel industry straight from school (in 1805) working at the National Union of Students Travel Agency, then moved on to the business travel sector with Bales Travel. Wanting to broaden her travel knowledge she then took a temporary position with TWA Airlines which then led to a full time position at Qantas Airways. At Qantas, Lindsey then went from the reservations department to working in the ticket office in central London, she was subsequently promoted to reservations supervisor. All this excellent experience stood her in good stead when she moved to the entertainment travel industry in 1986, and has been handling tours and travel for this sector ever since. Lindsey has recently relocated from London down to the Bournemouth area, on the south coast, and is enjoying bike riding and walking along the beach when she has some spare time.

Eileen McBride – Hotel Agent

Eileen

Eileen started as admin assistance with the Tour Company in May 2004. She previously worked as an office junior for Harper Macleod Solicitors at the age of 16 then moved on to work with a computer company called ISI Solutions, working in various departments throughout the company. ISI went into Liquidation. By then Eileen decided it was time for a little change and she completed a fast track NC in child care and started an HNC when she realised, as much as she loves kids, this just wasn’t for her. She then joined the Princes Trust and learned valuable skills throughout her short time on this course. She has been with the Tour Company for 7 years is now a junior agent and in time hopes to become a senior agent.

Shannon Ward – Senior Travel Agent

Shannon

At the tender age of 17, Shannon started work at what was originally Trinifold Travel in 1997 as a junior tour agent (back in the days before the world wide web phenomenon) and subsequently spent her maturing (or not) years with the same company which in 1999 became The Tour Company. With a passion for all things rock n roll and a hippy loving travel desire, there really was no better suited job for her and she quickly progressed to dropping the “junior” from her job title and a tour consultant was born. Never one to be content and sit back, Shannon would participate in many courses “after hours” including music journalism which led to her gig reviews being printed in publications such as List magazine and The Fly magazine. Her hankering for constant development carries on to this day where she is currently learning violin (much to the dismay of the neighbours).

In 2005, Shannon decided to go back to college to “try out” student life and 5 years later graduated with an upper 2.1 Applied Biomedical Science (Hons) degree. Even though she enjoyed the student life, she felt she was missing out and came back to join the Tour Company in 2011…….maybe one day there will be a calling for a rock n roll Biomedical Scientist that The Tour Company can add to their ever increasing repertoire of services!!

Finance & Office Support

Julie Brown – General Manager

Julie

Julie is our longest running member of staff. She started working with Tina in 1996 at Trinifold Travel on work experience, while doing a Travel and Tourism course. It didn’t take long before Julie became a fully fledged member of the team and was employed as office junior. Since then Julie has worked her way through the “ranks” and is now our general manager, working on the day to day needs of the office as well as helping out the travel team when she can.

 

 

Maxine Russell – Finance Manager

Maxine

Maxine started with the company in 2009 coming in to replace the previous accounts chap who was retiring. Throughout her career she has worked in varied financial areas within the private and public sector working her way up from a Purchase Ledger Clerk to a Management Accountant. Following her employment with The Tour Company the finance department expanded to accommodate the Companies growing clientele and Maxine as the Finance Department Manager now oversees the smooth day to day running of the accounts section and 2 accounts assistants.

Linsey Alexander – Finance Assistant

Linsey

Linsey joined The Tour Company in May 2008 after 6 years in recruitment. Linsey started work at 16 as an office junior and worked her way through to senior administrator and onto recruitment co-ordinator. Deciding that recruitment wasn’t for her, Linsey looked for a new career path and through a friend, was given The Tour Company contact details. Initially employed as our receptionist Linsey quickly progressed and moved over to work within the accounts team.

Lesley Hawkins – Finance Assistant

Lesley

Lesley started her working life in a public sector job but always knew that it wasn’t inspiring at all to her creative and analytical personality. Her thirst to learn new things saw her dabble in many areas including some studies in fitness when she gained a qualification to teach aerobics in the early 90’s. However it wasn’t until the approach of her 30th birthday when a career change was decided and she set out to study Fashion Design & Manufacture. Having learned to sew and create her own clothing from an early age, it seemed like a good choice of study. After finishing the first year and looking for a summer job, a mutual friend knew that Tina Waters who had not long set up the Glasgow branch of Trinifold Travel, was looking for a temporary admin assistant/receptionist. A phone call & interview secured her the position. Lesley never returned to Fashion College but instead quickly grew and became one of the team of travel agents who came through the transition to become ‘The Tour Company’ and enjoyed booking the travel of some of her musical heroes for 10 years. After a brief spell away from the company, Lesley returned in 2009 and joined the Finance team this time. Nowadays she is in charge of organising and collecting the company’s commissions and in her spare time has developed an addiction for golf!

Vicki Bell – Administrator

Vicki

Vicki is the Tour Company’s youngest staff member and certainly the sparkliest! She previously worked for Thomson and Portland Holidays. And then went on to work for BAA on the opening of Heathrow’s Terminal 5 which was a challenging yet highly rewarding experience. Moving to sunnier climates she lived in Turkey for 2 years where she worked for ScotTravel and then for one of Turkeys biggest nightclubs. After returning to Scotland to spend time with family she came across The Tour Company which combined her love for music and travel.