What Promoters Want From Bands

From Live Unsigned Blog

What are promoters looking for in a band? From a promoters perspective the bottom line is they want a full venue. The way they achieve this is by booking bands that are proactive in getting people to the gigs. You could argue (quite fairly) that it's the promoter's job to get people to the gig but this happens very rarely, so it's better for everyone for you to make sure you have an audience to play to. A proactive effort is beneficial to all concerned, promoters talk to each other and your reputation can grow.


Before booking a gig
It has to be a given that the you have a tight well rehearsed set. Ensure when you approach a promoter that you have a good press kit with blog quotes and a really good recording of your music and mention venues you have played before. The traditional method is to start local and work outwards to places further from where you live (and don’t play the same place too often). Think about how you can make the gig a special event – perhaps a CD release party, a seasonal tie-in, a one night must be there event. Band plus support isn’t good enough, who’s going to talk about that?
If it's your first gig get some friends down to practice and really perform in the practice room. You need to walk on stage with complete self belief. Think not only about the songs, think about how you will perform them. Think about the set list and the overall dynamic curve of the set as one coherent piece of music. Start big and noisy, drop down to a few quieter songs and finish even bigger is a proven winner.

6-8 Weeks before the gig
If you want the gig to be featured in the local print press and radio now is the time to get in touch. If you are making the gig an event try and get a chance to speak to someone in the local press about it. Send them chocolates, remember their name and be remarkable. What can you do to stand out from thousands of other bands? What is your story? It should be all about the music but people need a story to hang it on.

4 Weeks before the gig
The first step to building a following is getting your friends to the gig. Use a listing on Live Unsigned and a Facebook event initially. See if you can Ustream the event (make sure you add this to your Live Unsigned listing if you can) to allow your web audience to see the gig. Make sure all the people in the band invite their friends and ideally try and get your friends to invite their friends. Mail out to your mailing list about the gig. Invite any local bloggers and press and sort out your guest list with the promoter.

1 week before the gig
A week or so before send out a message to all potential guests on the Facebook event. Post a blog about your preparations for the the gig, the stage outfits, the set list and keep people in the loop. Post a video of your rehearsals. If there are any gigs on in the area by bands similar to yourself try handing out flyers to the people going in and out. When Black Flag toured in the 80’s they constantly used these Guerrilla Marketing techniques to build a following. Henry Rollins’ Black Flag tour diaries are full of this stuff. Ask your fans to help spread the word on Twitter and Facebook and on their blogs – you will get better results if you they spread the word for you, rather than trying to push it yourself and coming across as spam.

On the day before the gig
Tweet about the gig and update your Facebook status about it – do a last minute blog about the event. Make sure you are musically ready and all your equipment is good to go (use a check list of what you need to take).

The day of the gig
Turn up early and make sure you are friendly to the sound engineer, the promoter, the venue staff, other bands and crowd. You are there to make friends and build a reputation, not wander on and play a half hour set. This is a great real world social networking opportunity. Are there any friends you can text to remind them about the gig? Ensure you are using your Twitter and Facebook status to talk about the gig, you can probably get away with tweeting about it more than you can Facebook status updates. Remember to tell people about your mailing list/website when you play and get the email address of people who enjoy your set and sell them a CD.

After the gig
Email the promoter to say thanks and make contact with the other bands who played. Email and message your friends and fans to say thank you for the support. Make contact with any new people who have joined your mailing list. Write a blog about the gig and tell the world how great it was (or wasn’t), be honest!

Focus on really looking after a small fanbase rather than spamming others, so they will tell their friends. This will lead to long term organic growth, building up as you go.

Original post from Live Unsigned Blog