Martin Atkins has a 30 year career in the music business that includes touring with the bands Public Image Limited, Killing Joke, Ministry, Nine Inch Nails and Pigface, owning an independent record label celebrating its 20th anniversary with over 350 releases, and is an instructor at Columbia College Chicago teaching The Business of Touring, Applied Marketing, and Indie Label Management. He is also the author of the book Tour:Smart.

Yesterday I was at The Baltimore Music Conference and met Keith Center from a DC based folk-core band called The Dreamscape Project ....Sometimes bands that aren't obviously, rabidly perusing POP success really fail at the merchandising side of things. These guys don’t so I wanted to blog about them and remember their great ideas......

1. Three weeks before a show they send out a handful of postcards to their fans as a reminder and as a call to arms to hand out a few (more about this in a minute.)
2. Instead of a merch booth each member of the band is equipped with a shoulder bag packed with a few of each item they have for sale and is charged with the responsibility of mingling and selling (more about this in a minute too).
3. There is no 3.

A couple of tweaks from me....

I'd try one time to send out VIP passes or a free live cd to the fans three weeks before a show. I was concerned that a handful of postcards sent to a fan is like sending them a work order, “please distribute these to people at the mall.” But, shit, it’s still GOOD!

My only other tweak (and now I have tweaked both of these great ideas) would be IN ADDITION to having the roaming band-member-merchandise-assault-squad – set up a merch booth. People like me need to know where the table with the merch is because that’s where the merch is. I might not get to wandering around to find the merchandis-ettes. I might grab someone and go, “hold on Betty! There’s no fucking merch at all - we're leaving!” Plus, not everyone wants to deal face to face with a sweaty band member.......people are shy, people are timid.

I hope that I haven't now turned this around into a 'here’s my twenty problems with The Dreamscape Project" because I really liked their out of the box, different thinking. I’m just a hole poker ain't I? Send me your ideas so that I can blog about them. Then, everyone can use them and you'll have to come up with more good ones - that’s the fuel that burns the fire and keeps us all warm.

PLR

MarteeeeeeeeeN

On the road, loading video and typing in the passenger seat

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