Every gig starts with a journey.
Sometimes it's a ten-minute walk to rehearsal. Sometimes it's a train across the country, a flight to another city or a long trek across a festival site.
And sometimes, apparently, it's an 870-mile walk around the coast of Wales!
For musicians, getting themselves and their instruments from one place to another is simply part of making music. It's also one of those parts of life behind the gig that the audience rarely sees.
When we looked through nearly 1,500 reviews from Fusion customers, we found musicians travelling in just about every way imaginable. On foot, by train, bus, bike, e-scooter, motorcycle and plane.
Then there are some members of the Fusion community who have taken travelling with an instrument to a whole other level.
The everyday journey
Most musical journeys aren't particularly epic.
They're the ones musicians make week after week. Travelling to lessons, rehearsals, teaching sessions and gigs, often while everyone else is making their own commute.
One classical guitarist told us:
"I travel in London on public transport every week with my guitar..."
Another customer described their Fusion bag as:
"Very convenient and robust on Tube, bus and train."
Anyone who regularly travels with an instrument on public transport will know that the journey itself can become something of a performance.
There are ticket barriers to navigate, crowded platforms, stairs, lifts and people who suddenly stop directly in front of you. Add an instrument to the equation and something as simple as changing trains becomes a little more complicated.
This is where being able to put your instrument on your back and keep your hands free can make a real difference.
As one keyboard player explained, they can carry their stand in one hand and still have another hand free when travelling to gigs and rehearsals.
It's a small thing, until you're the person trying to open a door with an instrument, music stand and phone in your hands.
Two wheels can work too
Not every musician relies on four wheels or public transport.
One parent told us that their daughter travels everywhere by bike, as well as making a weekly journey to London by train. Two and a half years after buying her Fusion bag, they said it was still "super comfy" and looked as good as it did on day one.
Another customer had found an alternative to taking the car:
"Instead of taking my car I use my E-Scooter now! I swing it on my back and off I go!"
We've even heard from a musician who carries three trumpets, mutes, mouthpieces, music and a music stand in their Fusion bag and has travelled with the whole lot by bike and e-scooter.
And then there are the bagpipes.
One customer bought their Fusion bag specifically because they wanted to travel with their pipes by motorcycle:
"Pipes don't travel well on most motorcycles but this case makes it easy and safe."
Musicians find all sorts of ways to get themselves, their instruments and everything else they need to where they're going.
When the journey takes you further
For many professional musicians, travelling doesn't stop at the train station.
Touring can mean moving between cities and countries, navigating airports with an instrument and everything else needed for the next performance.
We hear about this in our customer reviews too. One professional musician who regularly plays shows across Denmark and Europe told us that his instruments stay with him at all times and spend a lot of time travelling on public transport.
Another Fusion customer, who travels around the UK and Sweden, has taken their instruments on both small and large aircraft. And one musician who regularly travels for work found that their Fusion setup allowed them to carry their instrument alongside clothes, a laptop and work accessories, rather than checking a separate bag.
Air travel brings its own challenges. There are busy terminals to navigate, luggage to manage and different airline rules to consider, often while carrying an instrument that is both valuable and very personal to you.
For touring musicians, this can be a regular part of the job. The venue might change and the country might change, but the instrument still needs to arrive safely with everything else you need to perform.
Having a comfortable, practical way to carry it can make one part of a long journey that little bit easier.
When the walk to the stage is two miles
Sometimes the hardest part of the journey happens after you've arrived.
Festivals can involve car parks, campsites, fields and a surprisingly long distance between where you've been dropped off and where you're actually playing.
One Fusion customer described their cymbal bag as:
"Perfect for using on public transport and festivals when you have a two mile hike to the stage."
Two miles while carrying your gear is quite a walk.
Although, as it turns out, some members of the Fusion community might consider that a warm-up.
Taking the long way to the gig
Back in 2010, Rambling Brass decided to combine music, walking and fundraising in a rather ambitious way.
The group took on the 192-mile Coast to Coast route, carrying their brass instruments in Fusion bags and stopping to perform along the way.
There was support for camping equipment, water and other supplies, but the instruments travelled with the musicians.
It was an unusual way to tour, but Rambling Brass certainly wouldn't be the last members of the Fusion community to decide that travelling between gigs could become part of the adventure.
More recently, folk musician Johnny Campbell took on the Pennine Way.
Johnny walked 268 miles from Edale in Derbyshire to Kirk Yetholm in the Scottish Borders, playing 17 shows in 19 days along the route.
Rather than travelling from venue to venue in a van, the journey between the gigs became part of the tour itself.
And then there's Filkin's Drift.
870 miles, 40 gigs and two pairs of walking boots
Folk musicians Seth Bye and Chris Roberts of Filkin's Drift took the idea even further when they set out to walk the entire Wales Coast Path.
That's around 870 miles.
Over two months, they travelled the route on foot with their instruments and equipment, playing around 40 gigs along the way.
The tour wasn't simply an endurance challenge. Filkin's Drift wanted to explore a different, lower-impact approach to touring and to connect with the communities they passed through rather than rushing from one venue to another.
Walking meant that the journey became as much a part of the experience as the performances themselves.
It also meant carrying their instruments for hundreds of miles.
Suddenly that two-mile festival walk doesn't sound quite so bad.
From commuting across town to touring across continents
Of course, most of us aren't planning to walk 870 miles to our next gig.
But the experiences shared by Fusion customers and artists have more in common than you might think.
Whether you're walking twenty minutes to rehearsal or spending weeks travelling between performances, you still need your instrument to be protected. You need to be comfortable carrying it. You need somewhere for the other things that have to come with you.
Most importantly, you want to arrive ready to play.
That's why travelling has always been such an important part of the way we think about our bags. Fusion is designed around real musicians with real lives, from commuting across town to touring across continents.
Because there isn't one way to live a life in music.
Some musicians take the train.
Some take the bike.
Some take the tour bus.
And every now and then, someone decides to walk 870 miles instead.
Wherever you're heading next, enjoy the journey.