Music biz questions
Hey everyone. So i got my band together and we are rehearsing 2-3 nights a week. We have a battle of the bands in october. Im hoping to have some shows set up in september. Is there any advice giging musicians can give me?
I ran thru the local music scene newspaper and wrote down 20 venues and i will call them in the morning. Where do i start when talking to them? Do i have to find bands to play with us? Does it vary bar to bar? Is it a good idea to bring them a recorded sample of the band? Im puttin together a press kit to drop off at radio stations too. Is their anything super important to include in a press kit? Any info would be great!
I ran thru the local music scene newspaper and wrote down 20 venues and i will call them in the morning. Where do i start when talking to them? Do i have to find bands to play with us? Does it vary bar to bar? Is it a good idea to bring them a recorded sample of the band? Im puttin together a press kit to drop off at radio stations too. Is their anything super important to include in a press kit? Any info would be great!
Comments
That can consist of previous gigs/photos, web links, short song list, band details about members, contact information (business card), flier samples, DVD, Audio cd, etc. Some bands bring in a laptop and show video clips right there. More venues are interested in seeing video these days than they are in having an audio cd.
When you talk to a Mgt person or club owner:
Describe you band, genre style. Describe your performance. Let them know you are \"in tune\" with the audience and perform as needed. Let them know you do what you can not to initiate any negative engagement with the patrons. Describe your following ie, pleasant crowd, mainly made up of friends, etc, and provide them an idea that your band can maintain patronage levels. This is one of many concerns they want to be confident of before hiring your group.
If your band promotes merchandising, ie a booth for sales, be sure to have any permits required. Check the location for details. Some venues may require a \"cut\" of those sales.. that all depends. Sometimes the cut they take is part of the permit or licensing they have within the community. You can ask or check the community permits/requirements as those may vary.
Payment- discuss details and don't sell yourselves short. If you provide lights and sound, be sure to include those details as part of your fee. Also include promotion.. ie you supply necessary fliers and post them in a timely fashion.
Venues may charge a small cover or door fee, and pay you that way. They may pay a smaller fee plus cover percent. That gives your band incentive to fill the place. Most these days do not, and will have a flat rate. If you go over their expectations most are fair enough to the band by offering more than the negotiated term.
Openers- should you decide on an opener, make SURE that you will be available BEFORE the opener shows up. Your band as a headliner will have to resume the earlier time should problems arise with an opener, or if the opener does not particularly go over well with the patrons. I have seen this happen a dozen times or more, so select an opener that is similar in style to what you promote as a band.
Other Promotions- If the venue has a promotional avenue such as local newspaper, community magazines, provide them the band details such as your photos, logo, etc at the time of booking. Have one on a 4x6 handy to give them if needed, and they can have the ability to re-size if necessary. Usually a 4x6 works.
KNOW YOUR SCHEDULE!! When booking a band, a club owner/mgt will likely want to take care of that asap. Provide them dates of availability and DO NOT say things like \"well, let me call the bassist and see if that date is good or not\"....... They will turn you away in most cases or never call you with a date. Know your schedule and before you book your band, make sure all members can commit or you have backup players in the event of an emergency.
If the venue uses a Mgt booking agent (some do), have the venue provide you with the contact information, and STILL leave a press kit or business card or some kind.
Your biggest challenge is walking in and showing confidence, just like an interview. Show your patronage while you are there discussing dates or other details. Whether a beer, soda or a burger platter, it really does exemplify your ideas of patronage. Tip the waitress before you leave!!
Around here, the band may have to play a short set for the management on a open mic night, or some other night so they get a feel for your music, before they book you. If you have to play a short set for free, pick your best handful of songs and make sure that the booking agent for the venue is there before you play. I say this because we once played an \"audition\" set for a venue and the booking agent was not even present. We felt used and never went back to that venue. It would have been better, more professional, for us to make sure that the booking agent was going to be there for the audition and that if he did not show, we should have just got back into the van and left without playing a single note. There are too many venues that only want to use \"free\" entertainment for a night and could care less about your band. If you act professional by walking away from a busted audition, at least you give them the message that you expect to be treated as professionals.
Another thing we also learned is that is very important to know the type of patronage of the venue you are going to play. Don't bring Country and Western to a hard rock bar, or Heavy Metal to a country bar. It just does not work, no matter how well you play your type of music.
The cheaper you are willing to play for, the more gigs you will get. At what point is it worth it for you? We were really busy for about 2 years, but now times are tough and we haven't played for a couple of months. If we played for free, we could play everynight. It's just not worth it for us to spend all our time and effort to play for free, or next to nothing. Most of us have day jobs for our income, so we play for fun. Having said that, new gear and equipment upkeep costs money and we expect our gig fees to cover all our costs and add a little pocket change over time. Just about all my gig money has gone into new equipment, but that is what I wanted.
Playing on stage is fun. Travel time, setup/breakdown, and numerous practices get old after awhile. If you guys plan on making money, you should factor into your wages how much your travel expenses and time involved will be. When we play out of town, we expect more for our gigs. It makes more sense for us to play locally for less than travel on the road for the same gig fee. Time is money.
We often give breaks in gig fees if we play the same venue on both Friday and Saturday night, if we can leave our gear setup for the next day. It is so much nicer to show up for the Saturday show, just plug in, do a quick sound check, and start playing. That saves us about 2 hours of setup time that second night, and we don't have to breakdown the equipment on the first night which saves us over an hour. So we give the venue a break if they hire us for two nights in a row, because we figure we have about 4 hours less \"work\" to do for the combined nights.
Depending on your bandmates, finding someone to get the bookings is vital to the band's survival. We had one member in the band who really liked doing the bookings and was good at it. I wanted to hire a booking agent and pay them a percentage of our fee to take it out of the hands of our bandmate. But the band decided to continue with our one bandmate getting the bookings for us and not charging us a booking fee. However, he left the band and our bookings have been considerably less. There is a talent to talking to the owners/managers of these venues. I don't have that talent, and as it turns out, none of the other remaining members in the band have that particular talent either. Without gigs on the books, it is hard to keep a band together. IMHO, we would have been much better off finding a booking agent to keep our schedule full and paying him a percentage of our bookings then to have an empty schedule. But that was a band decision and I was out-voted at the time. We had a full schedule and I guess my other bandmates thought that would never change. Today, I think that 90% of something is better than 100% of next to nothing.
As Guitar3456 mentioned, you need to have other musicians on your call list to cover a night, or period of time, if needed. We have about 6 different drummers on our call list and a couple of lead guitarists we can use. We have a list of songs for our main core group to play, but we also have a second list of more generic songs we could cover a night if we had to call in another guitarist. It's important to get to know other musicians and play with them just in case you have a gig and someone gets sick or can't make it to the gig for some reason. Unless our lead singer cancels, our band can cover almost any night. Sooner or later, someone in the band is going to leave because life just happens. If you guys go into this biz knowing that fact, you can better prepare for it and survive the loss of a bandmate.
Some of my best times have been up on stage with the boys. If it all ends tomorrow, I'll have no regrets. Play every show like it's your last one and just enjoy the time. Best wishes.