Do you know the feeling, when you experience something you've experienced a hundred times before, but suddenly a light goes on in your head and your perception of it changes totally? Well we were playing at a great venue in Nashville a couple of nights ago and we opened for a band with a major deal but a minor following. A very decent amount of people came for our slot, the second opener still had a good number of people there but by the time the headliner band had played three songs, many people had left. I know how the band felt, because we've experienced that too and it's the worst feeling to be performing your stuff on a stage and to see people actually leave. And then suddenly I realised something... there's two ways to deal with the uncertainty of a concert situation:
One way is to emotionally detach yourself from the crowd and to look down on them. That way, if they don't like what you're doing or you're not getting a connection to them, you can just sit it out and blame it on the audience. It's the easy way to do it, because it doesn't hurt your pride. You can keep your belief in what you are doing and you needn't question your methods. This specific band, like many others we've played with before did exactly that. They knew they weren't getting through to the people so they put themselves in a position where it wouldn't hurt as much. They started swearing on stage. Fuckin' Nashville, we're Assholes, all you Motherfuckers... and so on. And to get at least a tiny bit of attention and to be able to have just a little connection to the audience they started raising their beer glasses and throwing out cheap drinking phrases.
I thought to myself, what will the audience be left with after the show? Will they have liked the band just for the fucks, shits and let's get hammered? Does that add worth to music or depreciate it? A reason to go for the first method might also be the fact that you don't actually believe in what you are doing. Because if it's not working you start feeling embarrassed and unsure about the values you're trying to put over, maybe you start questioning your style, your persona and the essence of your music. In order to protect yourself from having to confront yourself with these doubts you'll start acting cool. And swearing seems cool, doesn't it? There's another way to handle it though. Sweating. The advantage of the first, the swearing method is that you don't have to push yourself to deliver the best show ever. You just get it done with one way or the other, because you've made your peace with the fact that people are not enjoying themselves and you've detached yourself from it so well, that you don't really care whether you're doing your best or not.
The sweating method is the exact opposite to that. You sweat, work and try even harder, open yourself emotionally even with the risk of feeling hurt afterwards. It's means putting your emotions out there and making yourself vulnerable. It's fighting for every person in the audience and believing that at any point through the show you can win someone over. It's about doing your best until the final chord is played. Now if a crowd really doesn't catch on to you, if you're just not getting through to them, with the second method, it can mean questioning your set, your songs and your whole act. It's painful and it's not always the sensible thing to do. I don't believe in letting your world be shaken by every fall you experience, but I do believe in being open for change at any point.We're not doing everything right yet, or else we wouldn't still be a self financed indie band.
We do a lot of things well and it's good to stand by those, but if you're noticing the audience drifting away during your set it can mean that you need to adjust it. Maybe the venue is a quieter place and it doesn't work too well with high-speed punk songs. Choose a couple of quieter songs or do an unplugged set - or simply don't play there if it doesn't fit your style. If you're playing with four metal acts and they are drawing people, maybe put some harder songs in your set or re-arrange a couple to sound a bit heavier, if that's something you can live with, without having to compromise your product...or again - don't play there if it doesn't fit your bands sound.
Anyway, I think sweating instead of swearing is always the better alternative. It needs some courage, belief in what you're doing, and balls.
Getting your band booked in the local club scene can be a
challenging task to say the least. It’s hard enough to get your email
or press pack noticed by the club booker, but once you get your foot in
the door, there are still numerous factors that can dictate whether or
not you actually get a gig. It’s time to get strategic! Here is
a strategy you can use to greatly increase your odds of getting the
gig all the while making the club booker happy!
You get a call. It’s a friend of yours, they are
throwing a big party, and they want you to play for the guests. They
don’t have a lot of money, though, so they can’t pay you. But you can
pass out business cards and try to sell CDs. There will be lots of
important people there and it’ll be great exposure they say.
You get another call. It's local non-profit. They are throwing a fundraiser at a fancy venue and they want you to provide
entertainment for a couple of hours. They can’t pay you, but you’d
really be helping out the cause if you would do it.
A third call comes in. It’s a local venue. They are
having an event next month and 5 bands are playing a 30 minute set each.
They’d like to invite you to perform. It doesn’t pay, but everyone
gets a free drink and you can set up a merch table in the corner.
So what do you do? Do you take these gigs? You know that you have to
make a living, but you know you also have to get out there and play for
people.
After chatting with hundreds of venues, and looking at hundreds of
booking emails sent to me, I can tell you the top 5 reasons your emails
don’t get a response.
You want a relationship with your fans? Why not go to their houses
and play. No way to get to know people better than invading their
homes and doing your thing right in the middle of their living rooms.
Right?
The future is all about breaking new ground and combining that with
solid business models that you can predict and work with. Here is a
guest post from Fran Snyder on house concerts and what they should be a
part of your future.
I encourage all of you to build on this model and create new
experiences and interactions that create value and exchange between
artists and their fans that cannot be digitized.
Getting your band off the ground is full of “chicken or the egg?”
situations. One of the things I commonly hear bands say that if they
just had a booking agent, they could really get things moving. But
booking agents only want to work with bands that already have things
moving.
Just because you have to book your own shows doesn’t mean you can’t
go on tour. Even if you don’t have much experience booking gigs, a
little organization, creativity, persistance and flexibility will make
booking your first tour is a simple enough task. After you get the first
tour under your belt, going on the road in the future will not be as
daunting.
Ah, the guest list. If you're in a band, work for a label, or if you're a
music
promoter, manager,
or agent, you know the drill. The day of the show, suddenly your phone
starts ringing, and it's someone you haven't heard from in ages. "Hi!
Long time no speak! How are you? We really need to meet up soon! Are you
going to be at the show tonight? Is there any room on the guest list?"
Repeat conversation 20 times. And not only do your long lost best
friends want to be on the list themselves, but they want three of their
friends, their friends' friends, and someone's cousin visiting from out
of town to be on the list as well. Managing the guest list can be an
extremely stressful job, if you let it be. Take back control and let
these guest lists dos and don'ts be your guide when you're the one
wiedling the plus one power.
Tours come in all shapes and sizes, from loading up in an old beat up
van for a week to being flown around the world on a private jet for six
months. Regardless of the budget or length of the tour, there are
certain steps you can take to prepare yourself for life on the road.
Touring can be a lot of fun, but not if you’re losing your sanity
because you ran out of clean clothes five days ago! From band
rehearsals to healthy eating, prepping your gear to getting along with
your bandmates, I’ve compiled some tips from my own experience that
will help you feel your best and play your best every show, every night.
How to get your fans to bring new people to your shows? While out this
week-end this is a question I was thinking about. Sure you have your street team and
they will be doing this. But how do you get your everyday fans those
who are not participating in getting new people to your shows to do
this?
2 things can help (your database and your cd) you to motivate all your fans not just your street team. Use your database
to keep track of all fans E-Mail accounts. You should be doing this
anyways. About 10 days before the show you want all your fans to bring
friends to. Send out an E-mail offering x number of copies of your cd
to the person who brings and gets to sign up to your Mailing list the
most people. Go one better and offer to sign the cd and personally hand
to said fan at your next show.
Another aspect to this is that you can send an E-Mail out stating the top 5 winners. Along with mentioning them in your blog.
Have pictures taken of you signing the cd and handing it to the winner.
That would make a great follow up post in your mailer and or blog. Read
through my music fans Q&As to see what else fans want to be kept
abreast of. The more you keep your fans informed the more active they
will be.
Do this often enough you can build up a bigger mailing
list and more fans willing to see you live. Many venues will be more
willing to book you and pay you more if you can show how you can
increase their customers for even that 1 night. These last 2 sentences
combined shows just 1 benefit to following this advise. Another one is
finding more fans that may be interested in joining your street team in
its ever changing form.
The UK-based event payments company, GigPay last month launched an online tool that allows bands to generate and manage live performance contracts.
The service allows a musician or anyone hiring them, to draw up a customised live performance contract, by providing information relevant to their event or gig. Using answers, figures and dates provided by the user, GigPay's system generates the relevant legal clauses covering the scope of input. The result is a contract that is tailored to the user's specification. At this point the user can email or fax the resulting contract to the other party who can print, sign and return the contract, or go to GigPay.com to electronically agree to it.
Having been legal for many years, electronic signatures are starting to be widely adopted. GigPay's offer of e-signature as a signing option is a good move.
The contract itself can be changed at any time prior to agreement and the sender can make changes at the request of the recipient. After agreement the contract is indefinitely available online, allowing both parties the benefit of an unchanged, centrally stored contract. In addition, GigPay's contract has an easy to read format that displays a contract's key facts and then the detail following that. This seems to be a way round the 'long form' and 'short form' contract system used in the industry.
The service is targeted at live musicians, promoters, booking agents and DJs, though it can be used for most types of event bookings to manage and track the status of contracts drawn up by the system.
My opinion is that rather than solving a problem in the industry, this tool aims to improve the workflow associated with live performance agreements.
GigPay are offering the service for a per-contract fee of $1.80/£0.80 or a soon to be determined annual fee (allowing use of the system for no extra cost). The indication is that the annual fee will be no more than $25.
How To Increase Your Sales By Not Raffling Off Your CD At Shows!
By Tim Sweeney (www.TimSweeney.com)
It has been suggested by some that raffling off your CD at your shows will increase your mailing list and CD sales. Actually, it hurts your sales!
Here is a better, more proven strategy that has worked for years by the music artists I work with. While it is true that you can get people on your list by raffling off your CD (except for those who have already bought it), you will find that you can get even greater results (meaning almost everyone) by raffling off items from local businesses. For example, my artists have been given free cell phones to I Pods to car tune-ups to free pizzas to give away. Local businesses are looking for new customers and new ways to partner with people.
If you were offering to give away items like these at your next show, how many people would put their name and email address in the drawing? Better yet, how many people sitting on your mailing list would suddenly come to your next show to try to win this stuff?!
The key is to get more people to your show (especially new ones) so the venue will pay you more. Bond with your fans before the show and start selling your CD and get everyone on your list then! If you meet with your fans before the show and build a better relationship with them, you will see you sales increase like my artists.
Need help? Email me questions through the website, www.TimSweeney.com
I have witnessed artists who understand the potency that exists for
both financial reward and fan development at the merch table and seen
too many artists (the vast majority, I am sad to say) put no effort
into it and lose not only revenue but potential life-long fans. So,
here are some of my observations and suggestions to making your merch
table a buzz with activity and a source for fan development and profit.
This will be a series of suggestions / tips – here are my first ten:
It’s the famous old question on every hungry band’s mind - How To Get Gigs?
I can hear your pain from this computer screen - “Everyone else can
get gigs left right and centre but my band is still struggling to
figure out how to get gigs…..”
The truth of the matter is that getting gigs and playing live shows
isn’t really that hard, you just need to understand the sensitivities
of how the live music system actually works.
Playing live is so important when it comes to building a
following for your music. Shows give you the perfect opportunity to
connect with the fans you already have, plus get lots of new fans on
board. However, it's not enough to just play a great gig (though it's
definitely a crucial ingredient). No matter how much you have the crowd
going during your set, it will turn into a one night stand unless you
find some way to convince those people you're a keeper. Here are a few
things you can do at your show to make sure the audience doesn't forget
your name in the morning.
There is nothing more exhilarating and worthwhile than putting on a
killer live performance. It's the single most effective way to convert
new fans and win over your audience. But before you let your musical
beast loose up on stage, there is a lot to consider when preparing for
your show.
Today I'm going to discuss how to construct your set list to ensure a
successful concert from the opening song to the encore. Many artists
and bands who are just starting out in their gigging career tend to
overlook the importance of considering the order of songs in your set.
Don't make this mistake. Craft your setlists wisely!
When I was in college, I had several jobs. One was at a restaurant,
one at the town’s best music venue, and I also gigged several nights a
week. All at the same time. The experience taught me a lot about what
goes through the minds of the owners, managers, and staff at different
types of venues.
The creators of Indie Indie On The Move have performed 500 live shows with their band over the last two years without the aid of a booking agent, record label, manager or other industry "professional". They have created this site to help you do the same thing.
1) Get a Tour Manager. Having a great Tour Manager with you, will make your life on the road 10x easier. They handle the
routing, the sleeping arrangements, the schedule, the club owners and
anything else that can cause stress on the road…That way, all you need
to worry about is rocking out. If you can’t afford to pay one, try
asking a responsible friend to come along for the ride. Give him some
incentive by offering him a nice commission on every album he sells for
you.
With live performance income ever more important, in the face of declining record sales, GigPay Ltd have launched a service designed to handle live payments. The service helps live musicians collect payment for a gig by accepting credit/debit card payments. Promoters use GigPay to automate payments to their Performers, whislt retaining records of them.
By using a combination of credit card processing, email billing and escrow, anyone can accept payment or pay for a live event. The payment clears into a Performer's GigPay account before the gig and is released into their bank account after the gig. This offers both parties full control of their funds at all stages of the transaction. The platform was built to be faster than cheque and more secure than cash payment.
GigPay's fee is based on your pay range rather than a sliding percentage, meaning that it varies as a percentage of your gig pay starting from 0.8%. However the Performer and Promoter still have an option of nominating who pays the fees on each transaction.
GigPay is very useful for cross border/state touring as well because of the system's ability to handle all the major currencies including Japanese Yen.
The service also works well as a performance contract and as an invoice record.
Better Than The Van is a couchsurfing social network for touring bands and musicians.
We
think it's a great way for bands and music fans to connect with each
other for a practical reason. You'll meet new people, discover new
music and help make touring a little easier.
Touring
isn't cheap or easy. We know, we've done it for years. We
thought of this as a way for bands and music lovers to offer up
their floor and couches. We've stayed in some great and not so great
places while on tour, so we know it can be hit or miss. We figure
people are fans of bands and bands become fans of other bands. If we
give them all a place to meet under a common need, good things will
come of it. We want to help spread more music to more places.
If you are a touring musician or are willing to share some floor space with touring bands be sure to check out BetterThanTheVan.com
You need to get in front of people who are not your classmates,
girlfriends and parents. You need to get out of town, blow open
peoples' minds, show them exactly who you are and connect with new fans
who will love you like friends.
Okay, you’re ready to take it on the road and blow some minds elsewhere
for a change. Here are some pretty basic tricks for getting your band
out of the neighborhood and into some new scenery:
I've had many many jobs in my life. From
removing asbestos to strip club DJ to pizza delivery to unloading
aircraft. But the one thing I've done and never stopped doing was
booking concerts. When I say "job", that would infer that I get paid
to do that "job". Booking concerts very infrequently pays but I'm
addicted to music and have been ever since my big brother gave me my
first record, Destroyer by Kiss. I learned a long time ago that if I
don't book the bands I like...they ain't coming. Over one thousand
concerts and 17 years later of bringing bands to Memphis, I'd say I
know EXACTLY how to get a band booked into any venue in the world. I
didn't say I could get people to show up...I just said I could get it
booked.
Click here to read the entire piece at Jagshouse.com.
Gigs aren't cheap. Not by a long shot. On a small scale, sometimes you
can work out a deal with club to play for free and do some promotion
yourself, but in most cases, even small, indie shows need some kind of
budget. There's the cost of printing up posters and flyers, maybe the
cost of renting the venue - and that's if you keep everything to the
bare minimum. Depending on the size of the show, there might be
additional advertising costs, the cost of gear rental and more. So -
who pays? Does the promoter foot the bill? Should the musicians count
on shelling out?
Click here to learn more about how gig promotion costs break down.
From Derek Sivers, Founder of CD Baby, at Sivers.org:
From 1995-1998 I made my full-time living playing at colleges. Got
hired by over 350 schools for about $300,000 (gross, not net) on the
East coast (from Florida to Maine, as far west as Arkansas.)
I’ll try to put into one article, here, every bit of advice or
wisdom I could share with my fellow musicians, from my experience.
You've got the venue booked and the band on board, now all you have to
do is promote the gig. Concert promotion can be a tough job - there is
a lot of work to get done, and often there is not much time in which to
actually get it done. The job gets even harder if you're a new
promoter. If the stress of getting a show off the ground is making your
head spin, take a deep breath and check out this guide, which will walk
you through it.
This is a list of rules you should memorize and live by when performing at clubs or other public places. I have compiled this list after years of watching acts do stupid things that really hurt them, and ultimately lead to their downfall. Don't make these mistakes.
The Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco has taken the time to write an extensive FAQ about getting booked to play the venue. This isn't just about playing the BOTH, but explains how to build a following and promote your band in a way that will get you the opportunity to play at the choosier clubs in any city.
Yes, it is so important to play as often as possible. It is also just as important to make
sure you play rooms that help move your career forward. Once again this topic requires you to review your
long-term goals and keep them in mind as you tackle every new aspect of your career. In this case, selecting
appropriate venues can be challenging but rewarding.
You have reached that point in your career development when adding an agent to your
team would be a logical next step. Before you pick up the phone and start calling around, I suggest you
do the following three steps.
One method to expand your audience is to serve as a support act for a known main act
on multiple tour dates or to open a show for a larger act. These are choice slots and many acts are vying
for them. Sometimes you can get lucky and be in the right place at the right time. If you are more interested
in process rather than chance, here are a few suggestions on how to go about landing some of these choice
performance slots.
There is great advantage to concentrating the majority of your development in your
hometown as you plan for future tours to new territories. I have always been a believer in starting
your career in a central place, like your hometown or a town nearby that would be conducive to your
career development.
No matter how good those demo tapes are, all labels– indie or
major– still want to see bands live. Here are some do’s
and don'ts on how to get started.
