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

Guaranteed Band Bookings

I was coming away from winning a new client as part of my "day business" running my own marketing company late last week. It struck me that having been running that business and bringing in new clients for almost 10 years using the same system, I could actually guarantee the results.

I realised how similar this is to the Gig-Getter system I devised for musicians.

Both methods for winning new business (clients in my "day job" or "gigs" in the case of bands) involve a step by step process which has evolved through trial and error and been proven repeatedly to succeed.

There are only a set number of the same reasons anyone can offer for saying "No" to giving you a gig. Only a certain number of effective ways of dealing with this initial rejection. Only a few questions you'll ever be asked while they're making a decision on whether or not to book you. Just a handful of the same qualities they're looking for before they say "yes" to any approach a band they don't know.

Experience will help you know what to expect and how to overcome venue reluctance and win an ever greater % of gigs from the venues you contact.

The key is it get out there and do it.

To build up your experience of reactions so that you'll know exactly what to say and do next no matter what reaction you get trying to sell your band.

Don't let anyone kid you that you can get plenty of gigs if you can't play or sing, your choice of material is dull or you're unreliable. Word soon gets around and you can only fool a venue once.

Ultimately though, Gig-Getting when you're working with a proven system is only ever a numbers game. It may need more numbers (read "contacts") when times are tougher, but a numbers game that still guarantees success none the less.

Band Bookings, Your Gig Crowds and Twitter

Talking of online marketing (which I was earlier), Twitter is something else a number of bands I work with have started using as part of their promotional repertoire.

I like this guys ideas about asking for requests from fans for an upcoming show via Twitter,


Twitter for musicians


And how about instantly sharing audio and video links to your fans, maybe for example, giving them "sneak previews" so they feel closer to you. As the writer says, you could film your soundcheck with your mobile and let them share some of that experience.

Check Rocking Twitter where another writer sensibly reminds us to keep our Tweeting efforts "all about the fans"....

Easily said of course, but asking the fans questions like "should we play this one at the next gig?" are immediate and gonna get people involved and interested so they may well be worth exploring....

Finally here's a cool list of 10 Top tips for musicians on Twitter

How to get Gigs via Facebook

Some people complain about Facebook versus Myspace for promoting their music. Trouble is with myspace is that as the best-known music site there's a lot of competition on there to get noticed.

There are a couple of acts I know here in the UK who have started to use Facebook as their main online gig-getting tool.

If you want to try yourself, here's something you might find useful. It's from this website

"FACEBOOK FOR NEWBIES - HOW TO SET UP A PROFILE
STEP ONE: Create a Band / Artist Profile

STEP TWO: click on the third button down, it will say: Artist, Band, or Public Figure

STEP THREE: Select Band or Musician After you select it, a pull down menu will pop up. Select band it if you are a band, or musician if you play solo or want to create a solo-page (you can create as many as you want so you can create one for you and one for your band).

STEP FOUR: Enter Your Name Name your page and select create page. You are now off to the races!

The rest is pretty self-explanatory - you will upload your photo for your main user icon, your bio, band members and photos and details.

STEP FIVE: Click Create Page Now you are live and ready to add Apps! What is an App? It's short for application and it is simply a cool additional tool that you can add to your page so that you can display features such as music, photos, and videos.

Facebook has a great page that explains how to help you with apps.

And the whole list of available apps is here: http://www.facebook.com/apps

The writer goes on to recommend her favourite apps for musicians as follows:

1. Music By Reverb Nation
Play Your Tunes

Musicians and bands can post unlimited songs for streaming or download, add bios and band photos, sell your music and have your friends add your music and share with their friends (viral marketing for you!). This app also includes links to your homepage and you can add up to 30 of your songs (full-length) to your Facebook Musician Page. And the best part: great stats track song-play activity.

2. Vod:Pod
Display Your Videos

I am a big advocate in creating small casual videos to share with your fans. Videos are an excellent viral marketing tool. This app is the easiest way to show your videos and your favorite videos. This is a good place to display backstage moments, live shows and of course your music videos

3. zuPort
Show your Flickr photos

If you are a Flickr user zuPort automatically imports your public Flickr photostream so you can show off even more photos to your friends. zuPort: Flickr keeps your sets, collections, tags, comments and everything else linked so you only have to update only once.

4. Twitter
Tweet Away and Have It Synched!

This app allows you to update your status on Facebook straight from your mobile phone. So you can be on the road but your Facebook page can be updated from your van! Pretty cool eh?

5. Facebook Mobile
Bring Facebook on the go

This app allows you to use Facebook on the go. With it, you can quickly to upload photos and notes from your camera phone straight to Facebook. You can also receive and reply to Facebook messages, pokes and Wall posts using text messages, or use your phone's mobile browser.

6. iCast By iLike
Tell your fans your news

Send bulletins to fans with iCast, the best bulletins system on Facebook. You can send multimedia or mobile bulletins, or just plain blogs. Your bulletins will show not only to Facebook fans, but also via iLike across 10 different networks. They are the go to app for communicating your music to your fans.

7. iLike this Artist
Show off to your fans

Musicians, you can show off your fans on iLike on your artist page. This will add an "iLike this artist" button on your page, and will show your (larger) fan count across the entire iLike network.

Personally, I'm gonna explore this online gig-getting avenue and add to our usual offline efforts as part of our 2010 plan....

New band Members and Maximum Gig-Getting

A guitarist in a semi-pro band contacted me yesterday about new band member he and his band mates wanted to bring in.

They'd auditioned him ( a drummer) and he was a cut above anyone they'd worked with before. What concerned the guitarist was making sure they didn't run into problems down the line with this new guy like they had with previous band members.

Typically, this had resulted in gigs drying up.

I told him that from the bands I've worked (and my own 4 piece) it's proved crucial to establish ground rules with any new band member before they join. I suggested a sit down discussion away from rehearsal rooms.

In this guitarists case, the area he wanted to cover were:

1. Set Lists - Getting agreement that the drummer had no issues with any of the current material and whether he had any suggestions for new numbers

2. Equipment - Agreement that any future general band requirements (ie, lights, PA, transport etc) would be met from gig monies and not any one individuals pocket.

3. Rehearsals - are not for learning. the work should be done in advance. See the blog post yesterday for more on this

4. Song Inputs - Like each band member, the drummer would be expected to create his own part for the original songs, not to wait to be told what to do.

5. Timing - Agree a date when the new guy would be expected to be "gig-ready"

6. Gig-Frequency - Al;though this should really be established very early on to avoid even auditioning unsuitable band members, the level of gigging activity they were aiming for needed to be agreed between all band members.

7. Type of Gigs and Minimum Payments 8. Set-up and Tear Down - all band members to arrive at each gig at the pre-agreed time and all to contribute towards the physical labour of setting up and tearing down.

9. No "hangers on" at rehearsals - The drummer had alarmed some other band members by arriving for his audition with a friend. The guitarist wanted to spell out the "band members only" rule for all future get-togethers.

Some of these are pretty good general rules. Ultimately, if a new band member has issues with any of the ways you operate, it's far better to establish that up front rather than waste everyone's time and have to cancel gigs then recruit again a few months down the line.

Watch for how he/she reacts when you spell out what's expected. Even if they agree to what you're asking, if they look uncomfortable about it they're probably just paying lip service and will disappoint you at some stage.

Ignore laying down the ground rules early - at your peril....

Remember Playing in a Band 1st time round?

Those of us who gigged in bands a little as youngsters and then gave up in order to "grow up and get a real job" might like the sticky post below from the Talkbass.

It asks for input from more "mature" musicians about things they wished they'd known about how to be in a band and make it successful when they were younger.

There's some great stuff in all the replies which might not be obvious to everyone.

For example, not letting one person have the final say on song selection for set lists etc...

In terms of the original posters' points I agree completely with his comment about learning new material in advance of the full band rehearsal. In fact, here's some additional opinions from other musicians on Backstage with the Bands on that same topic


Going back to the "things we wish we'd known when younger" post personally I'd have to say:

1. How to Get Gigs regularly and repeatedly
2. How to use public gigs to secure private work
3. How to interact with the people you play to
4. Why playing bass is the coolest job in any band (!)