Festival Tours specializes in unique music oriented trips. Nancy leads the tours herself taking advantage of her incredible roots music connections.
Festival Tours International was started in 1982 by Nancy Covey when she was Concert Director at McCabe's, a small music club in Santa Monica. As part of her job Nancy traveled to music festivals to seek out musicians to play her club. Her first “Festival Tours" took on the same style as her own travels ( a style that continues to this day) - visiting musicians to get into the heart of where the music comes from. Nancy combined her love and knowledge of music and friendships with musicians with her vast experience of travel and thus Festival Tours was born.
Her first tours were primarily for friends and this trend continues today. She has never advertised by traditional methods or used travel agencies. She seeks music lovers and adventurers, not tourists. Her personalized tailor made tours, a maximum of two per year, mostly sell out by word of mouth.
Nancy has gone on to produce concerts and music festivals of her own but continues to tour the world sharing roots music to a select few who come on her trips. Married with children, she splits her time between Los Angeles and London.
"Everyone should go on one of Nancy's tours at least once in their lifetime!"
-- Sandy Miranda, KPFA FM, San Francisco
"You don't feel like you're on a tour. Your're invited into people's lives."
-- Linda Austin
"Nancy's trips have a real spirit of exploration and adventure. She takes you to amazing places tourists never go. We made contacts and new friends and did so many things that you just couldn't do on your own…"
-- Musician Henry Kaiser
"A trip on Nancy Covey's musical excursions is to get INSIDE the culture your visiting. She knows all the local musicians, all the local chefs, and you get steeped in an insider's view that can't be had if you're a tourist. It's better to wander lost, than to follow a map made by tourists. With Nancy you get extremely interesting traveling companions, a very happy stomach, and the soundtrack is unique regional songs played live! I'm a musician, and I had a blast!"
-- John Densmore, percussionist.
"I never thought of myself as a 'tour' type person. But in the end it was so much more than that. I had prepared myself for the musical experience but I hadn't expected meeting a group of people I felt an instant rapport with!"
-- John Collier
“Tours not for tourists”. With musicians as our guides and music as our focus we travel to countries with unique indigenous music.
LOUISIANA MUSIC TOUR & Cajun Country Trip
