How to Get Gigs by encouraging people to take pictures

If you can get some good action pictures of your band or act they can go a long way to help you get gigs.

The best of these pictures are the type which include some of the audience getting off on it. These say more than any amount of words when you're trying to work out how to get gigs. You should use the pictures as part of your demo kit of course, either printing one or two onto your CD or using them on your website.

Ideally you can encourage anyone taking pictures at your gigs to later email copies to the band so you can use them on your website, Facebook or myspace pages.

Now, if you're based in Australia, you might be familiar with children's rock band The Wiggles. I read an interesting piece about their marketing recently (yes really).

It served as a useful reminder that often people can be shy when it comes to taking pictures or video of your stuff.

This is because they’re used to going to places like museums, movies, shows — and even grocery stores — where they’re scolded for taking photos.

These guys remind us that if you don’t blatantly tell them you’d be flattered if they took photos or videos of your store, your work, or (in the case of gigging bands and solo artists) your performance, they might assume it’s not acceptable.

The Wiggles announce at the start of every show that everyone in the audience is encouraged to take as many photos as they could — and to share them on the internet. As soon as the policy is announced, cameras and camera-enabled mobile phones start going off everywhere in the venue.

Make your crowd the stars of the show where you can and watch your website visitor numbers soar as people go and check themselves out....

How to Get Gigs