How to Promote Your Music When venues are Closing

How to Promote Your Music when Gig venues are closing Down

The question of how to promote your music through live work when venues are struggling with with their finances can be troubling.

In many countries across the world more clubs and bars than ever before are closing their door and ceasing trading. Some of these are obviously live music venues. So, the market for where your band can play is likely to be shrinking isn't it?

Quite possibly. But it's far from being all doom and gloom.

You need to remember the following:

 

How to promote Your Music by Playing Gigs

1. Make sure you really now HOW to promote your Music and act
It is becoming increasingly essential to know how to promote your music and band better than your competition. You need to make sure you'll have to stand out from the herd fighting for the gigs in those remaining venues which are still profitable.

How to promote your music to live venues

2. There are still plenty of venues featuring live bands.
You'll hear it argued that in a "recession", venues will cut back on having live music or at least reduce gig nights. A few will for sure. But they will be the places that never had a crowd there in the first place.

The reality is that to avoid closing down too, successful bars and clubs will more need a "Draw". Something to get people out from in front of their iPad or Playstation and into their premises. Without their point of distinction (ie having live music on versus the bar down the road which doesn't) they can actually be MORE likely to fail not less.

3. Getting asked back is simple and essential
As venues number shrink it becomes ever more vital you make sure you're getting repeat bookings from as many places you play as possible. The keys are to ask for the next booking on gig night itself and ideally get more than further booking at a time.

4. Succeed when times are tough and clean up when they're not
This is a principle I advise all my business clients on. When times are tough you need to improve every aspect of your business to stay profitable. From a band situation this means you should examine everything from how much you pay for your guitar strings through to the quality of your live show (see point 4 below)and strive to make improvements.

If you know how to  promote your music successfully enough to prosper when times are tough you'll be raking it in when things are good again.

 

How to promote Your Music Onstage

5. You need a stand out live Act
Never has it been more important to give every audience (and venue) a night to remember than now. This needn't mean wearing fancy dress or setting fire to your drummer when you play. But think about how you can work some "events" or interaction into your shows. Your aim should be a moment or two that people will remember and smile about when they wake with a hangover the night after your performance.

How to be a Stand-out Live Band

Remember these points and you'll know how to promote your music no matter how many venues you have to target

How to Get Your Music Heard on Facebook

How to Get Your Music Heard on Facebook

How to Get Your Music Heard Online

One you really know How to Get Your Music Heard by Playing live it will go a long way to maximising exposure for your band and material. The amount of music-lovers who attend gigs is generally on the rise and live shows are considered by many to be the most lucrative income stream for bands and solo acts in 2012.

For original artists in particular, once you've got people to your gigs you can obviously aim to sell your music and merchandise to them and so multiply the financial benefit of playing live. 

How to Get Your Music Heard "Offstage"

To be the kind of act that has a full diary of band bookings week in week out though, you'll need to know how to get your music heard before people see you live. For example, you need to have demos easily accessible by the people who make decisions about whether or not to book you for the venues you're targeting. 

This can still mean dropping off a demo CD but increasingly of course now means having your music available at those places online where venue bookers spend their time. 

These venue bookers are no different from anyone else and so a good proportion of their online time will involve Facebook. Imagine then if they could hear your demo without even leaving that site...

Knowing how to get your music heard by venue bookers for your potential gigs is only one benefit of this kind of "offstage" exposure. Especially if you play your own material - rather than covers.

Once you know how to get your music heard on Facebook and elsewhere online, you'll be able to build your fanbase both in terms of getting people to your band bookings and also buying your music -whether or not they ever go to one of your shows.

 

How to Get Your Music Heard and BOUGHT Online

There is a way you can create your own personalised mp3 music players and upload your music onto your own website, Facebook and even your Myspace profile (if you're one of the few who still goes there). In fact you can upload music players anywhere online the website in question will let you.

Songrila is site which offers you the ability to sell your music directly to your fans who get iPod compatible DRM free tracks purchased with just 2 clicks directly from your band's website.The site is free to register with no fees and and you can leave at any time.

The guys who've set up this cool service also take care of the payment processing, hosting and streaming of your songs and the processing of any collecting rights societies (MCPS, ASCAP, SACEM etc). You'll even get to keep 80% of the income you make from the sale of your material. Certainly a better deal than you'd expect from any record label methinks....

 

Band Booking Guide for Kindle

Gig-Getter Band Booking Guide Now on Kindle

Band Booking Now on Kindle

If you're looking for band booking how-to tips formatted specifically for your Kindle here's some good news.

Gig-Getter: Band Booking for Kindle

The ebook version is now newly available from Amazon in the US, Spain and Germany. You can buy and download from the US site via the link below.

 



If you're in the UK, the Amazon site there will have it available late August but if you don't want to wait you can obviously order the paperback at Amazon UK  or the Gig-Getter PDF ebook version via this site.

How To Get Your Music Heard

How to Get Your Music Heard Tips

If you think about it, the problem of how to get your music heard is the number one issue for any aspiring band or musician. Even when your act is established, building your fan base is all about exposing people to your music. If you can’t do this, how will you get people to buy what you write or play?

Band Booking and How to Get Your Music Heard

The website Live & Unsigned recently interviewed The Hoosiers, a band who struggled for over a decade (12 years to be precise) trying to get signed. They’re in the fortunate position know of being able to look back and reflect on what worked and what didn’t over the long term in order to answer the question of how to get your music heard.

As a band writing and playing their own material, they stress the quality of this material, the songs themselves as a major factor in whether a band makes it or not. In fact this is equally important for original acts and cover bands alike. No-one’s going to leave the house to go and   see a cover band show with material they’ve never heard of or which leaves them cold are they?

The Hoosiers stress the importance of gigging not just as one of the main solutions to how to get your band heard, but also to give you the “real buzz” which will keep your morale high as you strive to get that deal.  More than this though in the experience of a lot of the artists I work with, you can use playing band bookings in order to hone your songs. See what works and what doesn’t in front of your audiences and growing fan base. Fine-tune and adjust even parts of songs as you get live audience feedback. 

Gigging will of course, also “tighten” and perfect the performance your act ready for a “bigger stage” and help your cash-flow in the meantime..

 

How to Get Your Music Heard via a Band Booking Schedule

What about if you’re starting out or based in a small town where there are only very few live venues for band bookings? What do you then about the problem of how to get your music heard?
The Hoosiers recommend you play these few venues “mercilessly” so that you become “recognised” and “appreciated”.  You can also slowly and steadily expand further afield and do the same in the next town.  

 When you’ve done this and have perfected your live act via regular and frequent band bookings and built your gig crowd numbers – start to invite industry officials to come and hear you.

One final thought from the Hoosiers about how to get your music heard. They recommend “Battle of the Band” type bands bookings when you’re starting out. They point to the advice you can get form professionals on the panels at these sort of events about your look, your sound and your playing.
If you do the same you’ll find it can be very helpful to get your act in front of people who know more about bands and the music industry than you do.

Just make sure you can take their criticism -albeit most of it will be “constructive” anyhow.  If you do this, along with playing regular band bookings you can solve the number one challenge of how to get your music heard.

Live & Unsigned Article 

Band Booking Guides

Essential Band Booking Banter

Essential Band Booking Banter

Pre-planned Banter at Band Bookings?

Some live acts are dead against any type of pre-planned or "contrived" stage banter.

Certainly you don't want to plan every sentence you say to a gig crowd in advance of every band booking. That would take away any hope you might have of spontaneity. 

There are though, some things you better make sure you do plan in advance - and stick to on the night at the band booking.

Get the Band Booking Names right

For instance, if you're playing a private party or corporate event it's best not to wing it with the names of important people or businesses to thank. personally I've played gigs where the wrong name has been used for both the bride and bridegroom. You can imagine the reaction of the people who booked the band in those circumstances. A reminder of these things at the top of the set-list is often all it takes to avoid disaster.

Like many successful live acts though, you might want to pre-plan a little more of the banter you'll use at any band booking. Just the odd key phrase to remind you what you could say at certain points in t he show maybe. That way you'll have less chance of "drying up" and leaving awkward pauses or having nothing but a gormless expression while a guitarist changes a snapped string...

More band booking banter here

Band Booking and the right Band Members

Band Booking and Band Members

Band Booking or going down great with gig crowds  

is not only about how well you can pitch your band or what you’re like on stage.  When a semi-pro band is successful as a live act it’s usually due to a lot more than the individuals band members’ onstage abilities.

Band Booking & Band Members

As far as individual band members go, often the most important thing any one of them can do for your band booking success will have nothing to do with how well they can play or can sing.

 
You’ll come across some who have access to cheap or free rehearsal rooms (or their own space for the band to practise), bassists with a PA (to run all the instruments through as well as the vocals), others with vans, guitarists with lots of friends (for a ready made audience),or drummers with website building or social media skills etc.

Band Booking Skills

Some of the most valuable of course, are those band members who are able to market your band and bring in plentiful supplies of gigs when the other band members wouldn't know where to start.

One problem though with finding the right band members is that often you can get blinded by a potential band member's personality or just how good their playing or vocals are. 

“Natural” front men (or women) might be fantastic interacting with an audience. Unfortunately they’re sometimes extreme extroverts who can have huge egos which can be draining for other band members to deal with. Sometimes that big ego (and their position in fronting the band and taking most of the “limelight”) can lead them to believe they don’t need make as much of an offstage contribution as other band members. You can imagine how this can be the cause of a lot of friction. (The good news of course as far as fronting a band is concerned is that actually, even introverts can be great at it).
 

Take your time for band booking success

Anyhow, whether you’re trying to get your band together, or replace a band member when successful band booking is your goal, it’s worth taking your time to make sure you get the right band members.

Its hardly rock n roll to say your band bookings goals should  mean you’re” interviewing" potential band members to gauge their attitudes . But the idea really is to just try and dig a little behind what they can do onstage.

Try to find out how much time they actually have to devote to the band, what their musical goals and motivation are like and explore what they might be able to offer “off stage” as well. 

A little bit of extra time invested up front will do much to aid your band booking efforts in the long run

More about band members and band booking here

How Often Should You Play a Band Booking at the Same Venue?

 "Do not play the same area more than once every 6 weeks".

These aren't my words. They come from the mouth of someone responsible for booking all the bands for a major venue in Pennsylvania, US. 

However, I'd say the advice is just about right for recommended gigging frequency at any one venue no matter where you're band's based.

The venue booker in question here goes on the say that:

 "I know you think that people will always come to see you – and they will, if you give them enough time between your gigs. But there’s no place more lonely than an empty club and eventually your reputation will quickly suffer if that happens at your gigs."

If you think about it, with a small town, you can probably apply the advice above to playing anywhere in the town itself too frequently.

It can be tempting once you have a venue which is keen to give you a band booking on a regular basis, to rely on them for too many of your gigs. Its far easier than getting out there and pitching your act to new venues. 

The fact is though, that whatever sort of areas you're gigging leaving space in between your appearances gives your audiences time to build up their appetites for your next visit. This applies equally to cover bands, original or Indie acts and solo artists alike.

You can find this  especially useful if you're not changing their sets very often. 

The more time that's passed between your appearances (and so the larger number of other bands that bands that have played there before you come back there), the less chance the crowd (or bar staff) will remember the order of your band's every move or note.

Remember this: playing somewhere every 6 weeks will still

allow you to appear there 8 times a year. 

You only need a few of those regular venues (about 6 actually), to be out at least virtually every week in any year.... 

 

More  Band Booking Tips