9 Key Quotes from a Long Gigging to-do List

Here underneath are some key quotes I pulled out of a pretty long list of Gigging recommendations today

"All band mates know their responsibilities"

Talking about onstage responsibilities, this is especially important when you consider which band member starts a song. Many times it will be a count in from your drummer. The last thing you want though are long pregnant pauses as you wait around for all band members to be ready before you start the next song... Also, who's responsible for saying what to audience in between numbers - and when?

“Networking – go to shows of other bands and meet them, create critical allies, rub elbows

Good for checking out the competition and so quality level you’ll need to hit in order to succeed at the venue concerned. It also gives you the chance to check out this factor:

“Venue specifications, space, sound”

Which is one of the other points on this list. Knowing details like these will help you prepare for your own gig at any venue.

It's also handy to know other local bands in case you ever need to cancel a gig and offer venue a replacement band to maintain your relationship with the venue. More importantly, other bands may also do the same for you when you've networked. There can also be benefits to spending time with and around other bands if you need to recruit/poach new band members…

This also links well with another recommendation on the list:

“Gig trading with other bands of similar style – one band opens the show, the other closes”

Here's another quote worth keeping in mind - about when you're trying to book the gig:

“Attitude should be “how we can help each other”

This is different from feeling that the venue is doing you a big favour by letting you play there. Tell yourself that both you and the venue stand to gain from your appearance there. (You'll be taking along some friends/fans who may not have been to/spent money at that venue before right? Reminding yourself of the mutual benefit as you approach venues to try and get your band gigs will help you avoid feeling awkward or stressed about your approach.

You know it’s up to you to promote your gig, right?

Actually booking the gig is only the first stage of a successful gig-getter's work. You don’t want to risk an empty venue on gig night and guarantee you won't get asked back do you?

Make sure the audience knows the name of your band

So many bands waste this opportunity of encouraging approaches from would-be gig bookers by getting their name in front of the audience while they're playing

Something will probably go wrong, think through typical disasters and try to be prepared

Prepare some “fills” and banter in case of broken guitar strings/other technical issues

Have a great time because you are doing what you love to do!

At the end of it all if you’re not enjoying playing live why are you doing it? Oh, and most importantly, if you show the audience you’re having a great time you'll enhance your own stage presence and encourage the crowd to let themselves go more too

What should Inspire you to Get Gigs for yourself

Rather than rely solely on a 3rd party like a music agency/agent or band management you might want to think about this quote:

"No one cares more about your music than you do"

This is from Heather McDonald writing yesterday in About.com.

She worked in A&R at major labels like Atlantic and Elektra so presumably she knows what she's talking about as far as band marketing is concerned.

I came to the same conclusion about who would have the best look after the gigging interests of our band years ago when my semi-pro band were originally struggling to get gigs. We were desperate for someone to bail us out and get bookings for us.

At the time I reasoned that as far as band managers and agents are concerned they may have the venue contacts and marketing skills - but these can be found or learnt.

Ultimately for most bands trying to make an initial name for themselves or semi-pros/weekend warriors, no-one will be as motivated to protect your interests as you are yourself.

9 Gigging Tips for a Successful First Gig

Having been asked by Georgia from an all-female band for my tips for a successful first gig night - here's the essentials on my list assuming you've taken steps to get some "supporters" along to watch you:

1. Think through your set-list and your look in relation to the venue and likely audience.

2. Talk to the audience at least a little in between a few numbers. This will normally help them relax with you and open up to enjoy the gig more

3. Get the audience involved. Consider getting someone up on stage or having the singer or other band member wander out as far as he can into the crowd mid-number

4. Have a plan ready for if "disaster" strikes when you're on stage ( Broken guitar string, power cut, heckling, playing mistakes etc. What will you say/do in each case?)

5. Advertise the band name and contact number somewhere where it can be seen while you're playing onstage

6. Arrange to get pictures (or video) of the gig taken and try to include some audience members in shot where you can

7. Make note of any positive feedback you get on the night. This can and should be used in your future marketing for other gigs there and elsewhere.

8. ALWAYS ask for further future gigs on the night itself (unless you don't want to play there again of course)

9. Ask for your money!

More tips here

2 Keys to Overcoming Stage Fright when Gigging

In my own experience the foundations to not being afraid when you get up there to play to a crowd are:

1. Know your music inside out

In Rouse the Crowd I call this "Breaking free from the music". By that I mean that once you know what you're playing without having to think about it fear of making mistakes dissolves away. The added bonus is that you're then free to concentrate on the performance side of the gig. Which generally makes for a more memorable night for your audience.

2. See your success ahead of time

Spending a little time imagining the detail of a successful performance in your head before you play is more than mere daydreaming. This technique (visualisation) is used by successful businesspeople and successful athletes around the world.

Combine these two techniques as part of your gigging schedule and you'll be well on your way to overcoming stage fright and developing real stage presence

Below is someone else who seems to agree with this:
Overcoming Stage Fright

Stage Presence for Semi Pro Bands

Here are 3 quotes I loved from a poll and post this week about the importance of Stage Presence for bands

"People watch sh*tty punk bands because they are fun to watch. Of course the music is important to musicians, but for Joe Schmo drinking PBR, the band should be entertaining. If they sound amazing, but don't entertain....they'll be doing the bar circuit forever"

Exactly and who are you playing the gig to impress most? The punters or the odd fellow muso in the crowd?

"Mediocre music and great stage presence will do better than great music and no stage presence. People want to be entertained"

Many bands do forget their number one job is to entertain - not neccessarily play perfectly. Like I said in response to the post - to make sure the crowd can't forget your band

"A band who might not play quite as well, but can put on a show and f***ing sell it can more often than not book out more, make more money and play better bars than any collection of comatose technicians".

Which in the end, is what it's all about isn't it?

Here's the Harmony Central Post

and Gig-Getter Stage presence info below:

Developing Stage Presence

When Your New band Member Cancels First Gig

An email from an exasperated guitarist in an Indie band this week. Four months on from trying to recruit their new drummer they finally managed it. After the new guys impressive initial audition they arranged to meet up again to discuss working practises for the band.

The idea was to make sure there was more to this drummer than simply his rhythm. To try and check out they'd really got the right man..

They worked out beforehand what items they needed to talk through to make sure the new member understood and "signed up" to the band expectations.

Areas they covered were in this New Band Member Gigging post

Everything on the list was gone through and agreed with the new guy and the First Gig duly confirmed with a new venue.

Then came the first full rehearsal. Disaster. The drummer had done absolutely no work learning prior to the rehearsal and was using the full band practise to familiarise himself with the songs themselves never mind his own parts. The result was the first gig cancelled and one skin-beater exiting stage left - before shooting a single rim at a band gig.


The band felt they'd taken all the precautions to make sure they'd got the right person, so what went wrong? When I checked some of the detail, in fact the warning signs were there from the start. Besides turning up for his audition with a girlfriend he was significantly late for both the audition and the follow-up discussion. He had later postponed the first full rehearsal for "Personal Reasons".

Ultimately though, anyone new band member can say they agree to operate the way the others suggest. Action is all that counts.

The band have since decided that there needs to be a stage in between initial auditions and appointing the new person. Namely, agreeing some new unfamiliar material for the person to learn by a set date and checking he can do that for himself ahead of the rehearsal.

Until then any candidate still "being auditioned". It might take them longer but it should help them weed out more time wasters. Oh, and they've resolved to heed warning signs like habitual lateness....

Working Some Magic when You're Gigging

Some good common sense from a post site aimed at performing Magicians (yes you heard correctly) this week/.

This writer talks abut the importance of really involving an audience member or two.He highlights the difference between simply getting them to perform the odd task or two (maybe shaking a tambourine for a one number as in the case of you and I in bands) and actually interacting with them.

As far as getting them up on stage when we're playing is concerned, I always make sure we find out their name, introduce them to the audience (asking for a round of applause for them) and them ask them a couple of questions on mic to try and relax and involve them- and get a laugh).

We'll also comment on their performance on mic after they've finished and get them another round of appause.

Here's the post I was talking about.

Quite appropriate really as one of my inspirations about general stage presence and stage banter was written by another magician.

How to Get Better at Playing Gigs

If you've read Rouse the Crowd which is essentially about going down great when you play gigs in a band, you'll have seen I recommend recording your performances.

This goes for your rehearsals as well as when you're gigging.

When you do this, you can continually iron out any rough areas and make sure you're constantly improving.

It's not only the music that some bands want to improve on.

Some want to to tackle and use the gaps in between songs or at the start and end of the performance for some onstage banter.

Recording all this will let you remember exactly what "pearls of wisdom" go down well with the crowd and falls flat on it's face.

Here's a discussion about what recorder other bands are recommending to record their performances.

As you'll see from my response on page 2 my own weapon of choice is the Tascam GT-R1 and I've posted a couple of reviews which I'll repeat here:

Original Tascam Review

My Own Review of Tascam GT-R1 on Amazon

Power of a Regular Newsletter to Get Gigs

My "day job" gave me a useful reminder of the power of the newsletter in getting your band gigs at new venues this week.

I took a couple of calls from businesses which I've been targeting for several months (one for over a year) via my quarterly newsletter.

Both these people who phoned acknowledged they'd been receiving my written communications for some time but that it was only now that circumstances had changed for them and they were actively looking for something like I might be able to offer.

Because they had seen my details regularly and recently mine was the name they chose to contact first...

This same thing has happened a number of times with the newsletter I put together periodically for our band.

Here's a recent example from this blog

The band Publicity ideas here should help you come up with some newsletter content if you're stuck for how to keep your name in front of people...

Band Bookings from "Networking"

You'll often hear this method for getting gigs recommended on various forums although it's not something my own band have relied on a great deal.

2 gig offers though in the last 24 hours though have made me realise that perhaps many of us are"networking" (in it's wider sense) even when we don't know it.

Playing relatively low-paying bar gigs can be a form of networking. One of these 2 gigs we've just been offered is a private party on New year's day and comes as a result of someone seeing us play a local bar and recommending us.

The second one of these offers was from an agent who tried to sign us up a year or two back because we were taking a lot of work from him and I think he felt it might be better to keep us "inside the tent" as it were.

We declined his offer of ongoing representation but agreed on keeping in touch. Anyhow, he had a problem night come up at relatively short notice and offered us the date. Something he's done before on a number of occasions. This kind of unwritten agreement works both ways of course. We will frequently return the favour if we have work come in that we can't play.

You can do the same kind of reciprocal arrangements with other bands of course (which we also do from time to time). I suppose the best thing about gigs gained in this way is the complete lack of effort needed on your part.

There's a link below to something on networking which I blogged about on myspace quite a while back.

You'll need to scroll down the page when you get there to find the post in question...

Gig-Getter Myspace Networking Post

Band Bookings from Press Releases

If you've read the Gig-Getter manual you'll know I use and recommend Press Releases for both helping you get band bookings and swelling audience numbers when you're playing gigs.

In case you're using Press Releases for your music, or you want to start, here are two posts I came across from a music promotion blog this morning.

You can see I've added a couple of points to the first post which is a general overview of press releases. ..

Ideas on Press Releases

This second one has some neat basic pointers about the kind of content you could include in your press releases

Content ideas for your Press Releases


To give you an idea, here are some press releases I put together for Gig-Getter and Rouse the Crowd

Gig-Getter Press Releases

And finally, all these reviews below (and therefore "exposure") came about as a result of me submitting press releases.

So you can see that press releases can work in getting your name out there. Best of all of course, your releases to the printed press submitted via email will cost you nothing but your time...

Gig-Getter Results from Press Releases

If there were Just 1 Essential about Getting a Band Booking

Here it is summed up in a quote this week from an American Blues artist:


"I get asked a lot by other musicians how we get the big gigs. The truth is, I just ask. Sooner or later somebody eventually says yes. It helps to have a great resume but you can’t sit around and hope the phone rings" (my emphasis)

Here's the rest of the interview

Too many musicians complain and bands break up about lack of live work because no-one was prepared to "get out there" (or even get on the phone) and pitch the band. "Just ask" for the gig.

More people are going to say "No" to you than say "Yes". In the beginning that's an undeniable fact. But as long as you're working to a system (i.e saying and doing the right things in the right order) and have a little persistence the gigs will ultimately pile in.

Gig-Getter System here

Help Recording & Producing Your Gigs

If you're interested in producing and recording your music as well as gigging it, here's a great (and lengthy) list of recommended Musician websites to visit that's just been published. There's some well-worth your time even if getting gigs is all you're interested in.

Harmony Central (especially the "backstage with the Bands" forum) is one I've used for a long time and Music Radar from Future Publishing is good but are a host of others I've never even heard of before.

Some are probably a little too technical for a lot of us but there's plenty to explore over a rainy weekend if you're recovering from a late night or two gigging...

Are you a Musician or an Entertainer?

Here's an important question someone asked this week about connecting with the crowd when you play gigs:


"What do you want the members of your gig crowd to come away saying:


- " Those guys were the best musicians I've ever heard"


or


- "What a great night. I can't wait to see them live again"


I know which I'd prefer and which will result in more gigs and a wider fan base.

Mind you being an mediocre musician helps with my decision...

Connecting with the Crowd

Getting "Gigs" on the Street

I read about someone today who makes as much money from busking on the streets as he does from his on stage gigs.

Street Performer

Although I've seen and heard some great singers on street corners while out shopping with the Mrs, I've always thought of these performers as people who can't get "normal" gigs. The only possible positive being that playing that way might help a novice toughen up for eye-balling an audience and performing in front of them.

The fact that the guy in the post concedes his street work is as lucrative as some of his stage gigs is fascinating. What was also surprising is that he had to audition for work on the Subway!

But, the weather where I am is probably a lot worse than in Denver so I don't think I'll be joining him any time soon even if I had no gigs....


On the subject of street performing, here's an earlier post of mine on the subject (and audience interaction) if you're interested in more.

Wrap up well....

7 Ways not to Get a Band Booking

Someone emailed today me a blog post called:

"7 Ways to destroy your music career"

Points there you can't argue with like:

1. Your musical destiny being in your own hands - not circumstances outside your own control. believing the latter is a great excuse for giving up without really trying

2. You don't need to be born with the "gift of the gab" to be able to promote your band (in fact, it's probably better if you weren't...)

3. Promote regularly not sporadically. This will mean you'll do more promotion and get more comfortable about doing it and better at it as you progress.

Anyhow, in the spirit of 7 things not to do, (and at the risk of heavy sarcasm) I thought I'd offer my

7 Ways to Ensure you Miss Gig-getting Opportunities

1. Only have a small list of target venues. This will ensure the odds are against you. Also, as you'll need to ensure a higher % of success to fill your gig diary, each contact will be more pressured than if you had a larger number. Success in any particular venue will matter far more.

2. Don't do any research on other bands who play where you'd like to. You can then have no idea what makes you different or whether you're suitable for a particular venue

3. Don't rehearse.Obviously a shambolic performance will go a long way towards making sure you don't get asked back and word gets out amongst potential fans (see link at foot of this post for more help with this)

4. No co-ordination of gig-getting. Double-booking yourselves through lack of communicating or having to cancel because various band members aren't available on the night in question are key here.

5. Don't bother with a demo. Or if you do, pick any 3 tracks, no matter how similar and burn onto a CD with no identifying markings.

6. Keep the forthcoming Gig a secret No press releases or Facebook announcements. Perfect for a badly attended performance and loss of money for the venue. In fact, why bother trying to build a fan base at all?

7. Minimise the risk of being offered further gigs on the night No onstage advertising of band name or website. No flyers or cards left on tables, no verbal mentions of who you are or where you can be reached. Refuse any private work you might be offered and certainly don't ask the venue booker for repeat dates when you come off stage.

That should do it.

Oh, and here's a link to an earlier blog of mine about how to ensure a negative performance on gig night itself...

More than 7 ways to alienate your gig crowd