How to Get Gigs Without Waiting

How to Get Gigs Without Waiting

How to Get Gigs by taking action

You might identify with this. I got a call from a guitarist in Europe about which was the best way to get gigs without waiting for venues to contact them. 

Like most musicians he had his band up on the relevant websites, a pretty well optimise site of their own and was active on Twitter on FB so potential bookers could find him. But he still wasn't getting enough gigs and wanted to get more proactive about it. 

He asked me whether calling on the phone, dropping by the venue in person or mailing was going to get them out more.
If you've tried any or all these methods you've probably come to the same conclusion as me and most of the artists I've helped. When you want to know how to get gigs, the quickest, cheapest, easiest and least stress-free way to do it  is using  the phone.

How to Get Gigs if it's not by phone

Even when you don't  want to wait around in the hope that people or venues might contact you and offer gigs, you can still feel uncomfortable at the thought of picking up the phone to call someone you don't know. That's why preparation and working on your attitude are crucial to success.


If you don't believe me about how to get gigs using the phone - let's take a quick look  at the alternatives to calling when you want to be proactive and bag that band booking.

 

1. HOW TO GET GIGS - IN PERSON

This is fine if time and expense are no issue for you. It can take up a lot your of time and money to travel to a venue if you take the face-to-face "selling" approach.

If you've tried this as a method for how to get gigs,  you've probably often found the "booker" concerned wasn't there or he wasn't available to talk to and you've had  to hang around and wait for them to be free. This can happen even if  you call first to set up a
meeting time.

If you're  visiting a music venue  as a customer of course (not making a special journey there) you can try to talk to the manager/booker without any additional cost or wasted time while you're there. You just need to make sure he or she's
got time to listen to you pitching your act while they're working...

 

2. HOW TO GET GIGS BY POST

Personally I still recommend this method  for bands and musicians  for at least a couple of times a year. It will  still gets gigs.  You can send venue bookers who are hard to get hold of on the phone or who've previously said they don't have any space for your band - a one sheet band newsletter. 

This costs the price of a stamp, printing, an envelope and a little time. The largest amount of time is in coming up with the "news" you'll include.

More about newsletters for band booking


Mailing is more time consuming and expensive than the phone but can work well alongside your other efforts if you find it really difficult to face using the phone to get gigs....

How to Get Gigs using the Phone


Image above courtesy of openclipart.org 

How to Promote Your Music - 2 New Band Booking Articles

How to Promote Your Music Articles

 

2 new how to promote your music articles now up on the Gig-getter band booking resource site.

How to Promote Your Music by Staying Motivated
Features a guide to using subliminal mp3s to keep you motivated to pitch your act for band booking success.

How to get Your Music Heard - Tips for Better Demos
How to make your band booking demos stand out from the crowd and how to get your music heard and not binned or ignored by venue bookers

Band Flyers - Worth the Effort?

How to Promote Your Music?

Band Flyers: Yes or NO?

In the internet age, when any band or musician considers the question "How to promote your music" do they really need to even think about band flyers as part of this?

Traditionally, pre Facebook and website notification days, band flyers formed a key part of any musicians promotional strategy. 

Particularly when it came to publicising any band booking. 

Now though, it seems whether of not to bother using band flyers divides opinion amongst semi-pro musicians across the world.

Band Flyers - The Good

 " I lost count of how many events I've gone to just from passing a flyer or ad letting me know what, where, and when." - US Gig-Goer

The statement above is typical of how positively the right target audience can  respond to band flyers as adverts. Band flyers can be a whole lot cheaper to produce than full size gig posters for example. On size alone, you should be able to get 4 band flyers (A4 size) for every band booking poster with the typical A3 dimensions.

Once you get these band flyers out there, theoretically that's 4 times the exposure for your band.

Band flyers are a very versatile method of publicity in terms of where you can use them. Shoppers at the mall, students at Unis/college campuses lunch-room and your local record store to name just 3.

Maybe even more importantly about how to promote your music with band flyers is this.

You give your potential fans the chance to meet the band in person when you give the band flyers out. Clearly that's never the case with posting a Facebook event or a band booking update on your own website.

Band Flyers - the NOT so Good

Critics of band flyers as an important tool in understanding how to promote your music argue mainly the following.

"All that band flyers do is alert existing fans to an upcoming gig or event".

So ,are they  no use for attracting new fans?

Certainly you'll keep your existing fans abreast of what you're up to and make sure they know about your upcoming band bookings with your flyers. But, are they really so useless at attracting people who've never heard of you? Doesn't that depend on what you say on your band flyers? Who you target with them and how you go about giving them out?

For example, aren't there people who are more likely to go and watch live bands than other people and who may be very interested to learn of an act they've never heard of who are about to play in their town?

Your job in this case might be to target these kind of people with your band flyers.

Band Flyers take too much time and effort

Critics also point to the time and effort involved in distributing band flyers. Here they do have a point as well. If you're going to make the investment required to design, print and distribute your own band flyers, you need to target the right area & people. You also need make sure you really capitalise on the fact that your fans are meeting the band in person.

Ultimately your band flyers may or may not form a useful part of knowing how to promote your music successfully. Even if you don't succeed in significantly increasing your band booking  crowd numbers with them, one thing is certain. Simply by getting your band flyers into people's hands or in front of their eyes you're unavoidably increasing awareness and exposure for your act.

You just better make sure you're saying the right things in the right way when you give them out.

Band Flyers Tips

How to get Gigs ebook

How to Promote Your Music: #1 Gigging Key

"What's the #1 Secret with How to promote Your Music as a Gigging band?"

Normally when you want to learn how to promote your music, time is of the essence. 

This was certainly the case with a  young drummer who emailed me with the above question recently.He was a musician clearly in a rush and looking for a "short-cut" to get him and his band mates out there live as quickly as possible.

How to Promote Your Music - The Steps

Many musicians ask about the key steps of band booking within the context of knowing how to promote your music. Generally I tell anyone who asks about how to get gigs that you  can  condense it down to around 10 steps. This band booking question at the top of this page though was the first time I'd had to consider whether there was one factor more important than the others.

It certainly focused my thinking, but ultimately band booking as a weekend warrior or for a new band, revolves around a series of inter-dependent steps or actions. To maximize your live work, to "Get more gigs than you can play" (as I say about the Gig-Getter system), you need to work on all the steps.

There is though, as I told the enquirer, one key to making all this work.

 

How to promote Your Music & the #1 Band Booking Key

The #1 key is commitment.

Knowing how to promote your music successfully as far as gigging is concerned means you have to commit to your band booking goals.
To be able to do this you need to ask yourselves and agree the answers to questions like: 

How many times do you want to be gigging every month? What price you want to go out for? What sort of band booking venues do you want play at? 

Once you know the answers you then most crucially need to commit to pitching your band to new venues every week.

This shouldn't mean you take up a lot of time band booking. But when you've done all the preparation I talk about in terms of understanding your band USP's, rehearsing etc you should be approaching new venues every week. 

Devote at least an hour a week without fail.

This is real commitment.

It's very different from being the kind of band which occasionally wanders into a bar with a demo CD and can't understand why they never have enough gigs.

How to promote Your music band booking articles

Band Booking Merchandise - Can You Sell it?

Band Booking Merchandise

 Band Booking Merchandise Sales

Have ever thought about using your band bookings increase your income and build your fan-base via merchandise sales?

When you don't have what you think of as  a meaningful fan-base, selling merchandise at your gigs might seem ridiculous. Embarrassing even.

The fact is thought, that plenty of semi-pro acts sell their CD's,T-shirts and other gear at their gigs  just like the big name pro bands do.

 Band Booking Merchandising Do's and Don'ts

 Firstly, remember, if you don't yet have that fan-base - you shouldn't be ramming your band's name down people's throats with your merchandise. Whatever you're called, it's unlikely to mean anything to an audience who've never heard of you before. But that doesn't mean they won't necessarily buy your gear at any band booking you play.

As far as t-shirts are concerned, don't make the mistake of simply majoring on your band name and thinking that will do the selling  job for you. You want band or act T-shirts that look different and cool enough for people to be motivated to buy regardless of the fact they're associated with your band (or any band for that matter).

If you've put some effort into a cool band  (or Album/Song) logo that has appeal beyond the fact it's your name - that can make all the difference. If you haven't thought about an impactful logo/image or the one you has is flat and uninspiring - it may be time to get to work on this before you start pitching your gear at gigs. Indeed as taxi.com (the world's leading independent A&R company) says of selling merchandise:
"All you need is a desire to perform live, a few gigs booked (where else are you going to find customers?), and a cool design."

 

Band Booking Buttons

Band Booking with "Fundraiser" Merchandise?

One way to shift your merchandise at gigs without trying to push it too much salesperson is to present your merchandising efforts as a fund-raising activity.
We're not talking about conning the crowd that you're trying to help a charity here. Fund-raising in this context  means showing the crowd "why" you're trying to sell the T-shirts, CDs or whatever.  Maybe the crowd can help you record your next (or first)  album, go on tour, or get some great lights for your next show. Whatever you need, you'll find that even when times are hard people will more willing to hand over their cash at the band booking when there's a specific cause mentioned. If they're into their music they can often relate to the "struggling local musicians trying to get to the next stage" situation.....

Think about who'll sell your Band Booking goods

If you've ever been to any big exhibition, there's a reason large companies use models to promote their goods and services.

They attract people and they sell.

So, if any band member has an especially good-looking girl or boyfriend you might want to bribe them to work your merchandising table - at least some of the time. Remember to make sure there's someone on the table at all times on gig night and don't be afraid to mention the table and your available goods at least once in each set.  Give the seller(s) on your table a name-check as "personalising" them will usually help avoid their looks intimidating some potential buyers. Don't forget to mention your worthy cause as well on mic...Just don't overdo it all or you'll come across as desperate and obviously you don't want that.

Finally, think about selling as wide a range of merchandise as you can afford to invest in. As well as the obligatory T-shirts (these will generally account for 80% of all band booking merchandise sold) , but  think: buttons/badges, Baseball caps, bumper stickers guitar picks and of course your CDs

How to promote your music onstage

Band Booking - Can You Beat the Clock?

Fast Band Booking

Band Booking: How long does it take You?

There was an interesting question asked via email this week from a keyboard player in Italy, about how long musicians  spend trying to get band bookings. He asked me about the typical amount of band booking time taken by gig-getters versus how fast you should be able to do it.
"Good question" I thought. But...

It all depends  how you Get Your Band Bookings

You might be the type of band or musician who likes to spend (or "waste", depending on your viewpoint), hours in any potential band booking venue, trying and hoping to talk with the venue booker. Calling in person on your target venues can be very effective if done right, but boy, can it take up a lot of your time.

Band Booking while avoiding any direct contact

On the other hand, you might be the kind of artist who wants to avoid contacting anyone in person and do it all online for example. Try to draw would be venues or bookers to you via fantastic SEO or an incessant social media buzz. Both can be very effective of course - although you're relying on people coming to you or at least picking up on what you're saying online.  Again, this can also take up a lot of time - although of course you could out-source some of it if you have the funds.

Whichever way you do it, if you're not a full-time musician then spending more than an hour a week to  fill up your band booking diary means you're doing something wrong.

Certainly a lot of the bands I've worked with or talk to will tell you the same thing. Driving to and hanging around bars hoping  the manager will grant you an audience, mailing CDs to people who haven't asked for them or even relying on venue bookers finding their way to you is all a little too unreliable.

Effective and Fast Band Booking

You can't beat a quick phone call and asking venue bookers the right couple of questions or the using the right words in a short regular newsletter to guarantee band bookings piling in.

Not to mention making sure you "beat the clock" and don't spend so much time gig-getting you can't rehearse properly..

Rehearsals vs. band booking?

Band Booking Guide

How to Promote Your Music Shows Yourself

Band Booking Promotion

How to Promote Your Music Shows

You may be one of those musicians who believes all the band has to do is to get gigs then turn up on the night and rock out. If so, you'd better think again.
As any musician who's ever played to an empty house will tell you, if you want a crowd in front of you - especially when you're first starting out, you've got to work at getting an audience. 

How to Promote Your Music Gigs - 4 Keys

1. Try to have all band members take an active role getting gigs
2. Band Flyers/posters  are low cost advertising and crucial  for every gig
3. Press releases will build not just audience numbers but a band's credibility over time
4. Take advantage of free internet gig-listing sites.

 How to Promote Your Music so You get  a Gig Crowd

If you're an inexperienced semi-pro band or musician it can be easy for you miss some pretty straightforward opportunities to get people to come to your upcoming gigs.
Here then, are some  simple, inexpensive things you can do to learn how to promote your music and get a gig crowd.

How to Promote Your Music Show via "Word of Mouth"

Knowing how to promote your music through word of mouth is one of the very first skills you need to master. As in point 1 from that initial list above, each band member needs to take a proactive role in getting the word out on future shows and gigs.

This Word of mouth approach includes telling your family, friends, work colleagues/fellow students, and anyone else you know that might be interested in the  genre of music you play. To do this thoroughly as an example, have your parents or relatives tell their work colleagues, neighbours and friends etc.
You might be surprised just how many many people you can get to you gigs just through  word of mouth via family and friends.

Remember though, that as the number of gigs you play increases, you'll need a bigger network of people to get your word of mouth out to. If you don't, you risk "gig fatigue" amongst your "followers...." 

Obviously the bigger the following you can build, the easier it can become to take more band bookings..

How to Promote Your Music with Band Flyers

If you're not already doing this, make sure you use band flyers (how to promote your music very inexpensively) for every gig.

More on band flyers info here

Band Promotion Via the Press

Contact any local or regional newspapers or entertainment type papers in your area. Many of these  have regular gig listings in their entertainment sections. Also, put together press releases and submit these to the editorial departments at relevant publications.

More here on  how to promote your music via the press

Tie these methods in with an understanding of how to promote your music online via Twitter, Facebook, myspace and youtube and you'll soon understand the main points of how to promote your music shows yourself