Could You be Your Own Band Booking Agent?

You might have seen an eye-opening  post on another site recently about how to become a band booking agent.

What amazed me was the statement about needing "very little capital (money) to start - just a stack of business cards and a simple website"

Wow.

Contrast that with the investment needed by the musicians themselves in gear and time needed to learn to play, write and rehearse.

But the writer went further. Actually, many band booking agents apparently don't  even bother to go to the "lengths" of investing in said simple website or  business cards. They still though, take a 15-30% cut of the gig fee of course....

The writer of this post says that the only"skills" that anyone needs to succeed as a band booking agent are:

1. Being a "Social butterfly" (because you need to spend time at the venues wording-up the management)
2. A love of music
3. A knack for salesmanship

In fact, many semi-pro and amateur bands have found out that:

1. You can do all your "wording-up" via the phone, newsletters and a website that gets found
2. The only music you need to love is your own
3. The ability to sell your band or act is no different from the ability to play an instrument. Most people can learn how to do it.

There are of course many great band booking agents out there and it does them no favours to suggest they don't need anything much to be able to succeed.

On the other hand, you could always learn how to do your own band booking and keep the 15-30% of your gig fee....

Here's the post I mentioned above