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