We are excited to announce that the travel business of SOS has been acquired by and is becoming part of The Appointment Group (TAG), a leading independent travel management company with extensive expertise in live entertainment touring.

For several years, SOS has recognized the need to expand our capacity in order to keep up with the demand for highly specialized production travel management.  Short of cloning ourselves, we believe that our alignment with TAG is the best possible arrangement and will benefit all of our clients.

TAG has decades of travel expertise and an extended global reach that will help ensure that your tours are well looked after on every corner of the planet, 24/7.

We have worked alongside TAG for a number of years and built strong working relationships with their leadership team - including John Gianquitto, Byron Carr, Caroline McCann, and Gabrielle Carr - and we feel confident the time is right to join forces.  We believe that joining TAG will deliver stronger global buying power and allow us to collectively develop and offer advanced technology solutions to benefit our clients.

Furthermore, TAG has expressed a sincere desire to integrate SOS's body of knowledge, informed by years of experience on the road, into their operations and procedures, to ensure that we continue to offer the highest possible quality of production travel management to the industry.  Our combined travel division is committed to maintaining the standards of excellent service you have come to expect from us over the past 12 years.

There is no change to any aspect of our entertainment visa service - SOS will continue to operate as a standalone company for entertainment visas and your immigration arrangements will continue to be personally overseen by SOS partners.

We are excited about this announcement and feel that this arrangement will position us to continue providing outstanding quality for all of the services we offer.

As always, the satisfaction of our clients is very important to us - should you have any questions or concerns, please reach out to us directly.

Thank you for your loyalty, support, business, and friendship over the past 12 years of SOS's existence - we are excited for what the future holds for our travel business as part of the TAG family.

Sincerely, 

SOS: Lori Tierney, Wendy Stephenson, Charles Zimmer

To view the full press release, please click here.

Pollstar has just released their year-end report recapping the top tours of 2017.  As usual, SOS clients are strongly represented amongst the top tours.

SOS is proud to have provided comprehensive travel, immigration, and production support services to the top two worldwide tours.  Four of the top 10 tours, and six out of the top 25 tours also utilized our comprehensive services.  In total, SOS provided travel and/or immigration services to twelve of the top 100 worldwide tours and fifteen of the top 200 North American tours as measured by Pollstar.

All told, SOS clients sold more than 12 million tickets in 2017, grossing more than $1.3 billion throughout the year.
​We are honored to have been a part of these tours, as well as the numerous additional tours, special events, and festivals produced by all our clients.

For a complete recap of 2017, check out Pollstar's comprehensive coverage and charts:
​https://www.pollstar.com/article/2017-year-end-special-features-134154

Additionally, both Wendy Overs Stephenson and Lori Tierney have been nominated in the "Travel Agent of the Year" category for the 2018 Top Dog Awards, to be presented at the TourLink conference later this month.  Wendy previously won in this category in 2016 and this is our fourth nomination in five years.

We are honored to have been nominated by our peers in the entertainment and travel industry. 
​If you have received a ballot for the Top Dog Awards, we would encourage you to vote for Wendy Overs Stephenson, to avoid splitting votes.

Effective January 1, 2016 the U.S. Department of State has discontinued its service to add visa pages to valid U.S. passports.  From this point forward, when travelers have exhausted all available visa pages, they will be required to renew their passports.  The U.S. had previously been one of the only countries to allow pages to be inserted into existing passports, and the change was made to enhance security and bring the U.S. in line with international security standards.

The official press release announcing the policy change is available here:

http://travel.state.gov/content/passports/en/news/visa-pages-no-longer-issued.html

In light of this change, SOS reminds all touring personnel of the importance of keeping track of available visa pages in order to avoid delays in visa processing or problems when entering a foreign country.  While specific requirements obviously vary depending on your tour's routing, a general suggestion is that active touring U.S. citizens should maintain at least 6 completely blank visa pages (no stamps) in your passport.  When you start running low (below 10 blank pages) please make a plan and identify an appropriate time for a renewal.

As a reminder, the last few pages in a U.S. passport are reserved for endorsements or amendments and do not count as visa pages.

Additionally, SOS reminds U.S. citizens of the option to obtain a 2nd, concurrently valid U.S. passport, which offers added flexibility for obtaining visas while touring / traveling internationally.  The U.S. government will issue travelers with a 2nd passport, valid for 2 years, on a discretionary basis.  For more information, please refer to our website.

SOS is proud to have been nominated as "Favourite Travel Company" for the 2015 TPi Awards.  One of 12 nominees on the initial ballot, SOS has already been voted onto the "short list" of the top six nominees.  The awards will be presented February 16, 2015 in London.

Additionally, for the second year in a row, SOS partners Lori Tierney and Wendy Overs Stephenson are both nominated as the "Travel Agent of the Year" in the 2015 Top Dog Awards.  This year's awards will be presented at the Tour Link Conference in Palm Springs, CA on January 10, 2015.

We are honored to have been nominated by our peers in the entertainment and travel industry.  If you have received a ballot for the Top Dog Awards, we would encourage you to vote for Wendy Overs Stephenson, to avoid splitting votes.

For more information about the Tour Link Conference, please visit their website www.tourlinkconference.com.

For the third year in a row, SOS is pleased to be coordinating and booking the production crew travel for the annual Farm Aid benefit concert.  The 29th annual Farm Aid concert is taking place in Raleigh, North Carolina on Saturday, September 13.  As part of our commitment to supporting non-profits, SOS provides travel coordination services at no charge.

SOS partners Lori Tierney and Wendy Overs Stephenson are both nominated as the "Travel Agent of the Year" in the 2014 Top Dog Awards, which will be presented at the Tour Link Conference in Scottsdale, AZ on February 8, 2014.

Entertainment and travel industry representatives submit the nominations and vote on the awards.  If you have received a ballot, we would encourage you to vote for Wendy Overs Stephenson, to avoid splitting votes.

This is Wendy's second nomination for the Top Dog Award in the Travel Agent category.  Charles Zimmer has been previously nominated for Production Coordinator of the Year, and Lori Tierney is a past Tour Link conference panelist.

For more information about the Tour Link Conference, please visit their website www.tourlinkconference.com.

SOS partner Lori Tierney is quoted extensively (and semi-accurately) in the March-April 2013 issue of Global Business Travel Magazine, talking about some of the logistical considerations that go into planning travel for a concert tour.

You can read the article on the GBTA website or download a PDF version here.

Note: One paragraph in the article is not worded clearly and leaves the impression that SOS provides travel services for the Paul McCartney tour.  This is not accurate and we apologize for any confusion; unfortunately we were not provided with a copy of the article to proof-read prior to publication.  Lori would also like to clarify that she has never used the phrase "the rockers" at any point in her life.

SOS has relaunched our website today to provide prospective clients with more information about our company and the services we can provide.  Please have a look around the site and let us know if you have any feedback.

For prospective clients, please email us whenever you're ready to discuss how SOS can help.  While the site provides an overview of what we can do for your project, our services are always customized to meet the specific needs of each individual client.  We look forward to hearing from you.