I thought about penning this post on band promotion because I have often heard new bands and struggling musicians wishing they were given more paying gigs. Obtaining a paying gig is great, After all… you may spend a lot of time, energy and in many cases money on having your act together.. rehearsing, touring rehearsals and gigs (gas could be a pain if you travel by car), buying your gear, etc. But earning money gigs for new acts can be very difficult.
Because i believe that it is great to get paid, I would not mean to convey you should consider a band as being a business. Some tips i am saying is, it would be practical to no less than have your costs covered.
Of course, that could be determined by you and the reasons why you are in a band to start with.
Some bands want to play; love playing; believe playing and having their music around is the foremost compensation there is… as well as the return of the investment in effort, time and money is possiblity to stand up there and PLAY. There’s also individuals that focus on a long-term goal like building their unique following and having their music across in their mind.
The reasons why you do it, just about sums it down.
But, if you wished to get paying gigs, below are a few steps you can take.
1. Develop Your products or services
Once in a while I come across a client who struggles with promoting their products or services, and place in a lot of effort simply to get minimal results. The primary reason is, they haven’t yet had the ability to accurately develop, define and refine their product, which explains why aggressively promoting something mediocre will forever yield mediocre results.
So what is your product? This guitar rock band, as well as your music. The important thing question for you is how will you set yourself apart from the rest. What is it you accomplish that is unique, or what is it which can be done a lot better than all the others?
“What do you need visitors to remember and As you for?”
2. Define Your Music/Repertoire
Repertoire defines which band you are. In addition, it defines who your audience is. I believe writing and recording original material is great because insurance firms your personal music you develop a good thing that others would not have. It’s that final amount a collaborative creative effort that band promotion BUT, does not guarantee success, since for your band to be successfully recognized for your own music, you would first have to attract an audience which gets to hear and regards.
On a single note, like a cover band doesn’t imply you can not get paying gigs. There are a lot of cover bands which will get paid well for small bar gigs or even major events.
What it really relies on will be the novelty of the band, as well as your draw. Novelty is something about you that people would want to come see; as well as your draw will be the size of the group you are able to gather at your gigs.
3. Market Yourself
You need to sell yourself to individuals who you believe would appreciate your band as well as what you have to offer. You’ll find basically 2 kinds of people you need to target; you’ll find the people who you would like visiting your gigs and appreciating your own music, as well as the those people who are capable to hire you for gigs.
This could be the classic “the chicken or even the egg scenario”, in which you actually increase your audience and have more exposure when you’re playing more gigs, but to obtain additional gigs you have to get invited or hired by individuals who have a hand in making gigs happen.
But it doesn’t have to be complicated. You need to simply do both concurrently.
Networking is essential. Greater people you are free to meet, greater contacts you determine, the closer you are free to your goals.
4. Management / Representation
You ‘must’ have a manager. An authority figure individual preference trust and trust to get results for nothing less than the success and well-being of the band.
A supervisor must be a tenacious businessman. He’s a negotiator, understands marketing, and most importantly he believes from the product he or she is entrusted with. His primary goal is usually to sustain and develop further the merchandise he manages.
Having a manager will surely have several benefits, then one of the things I see managers doing that bands that manage themselves cannot, is be objective. The manager sees a thing that individual members inside a band tend not to see, this is especially true when some individuals the band develop egos that cloud their judgment. Members often get tunnel vision and may also not respond well along with other people’s opinions that won’t be flattering, a manager knows if criticisms are valid and take these not emotionally but objectively.
A supervisor is both a member of the gang and outsider; an affiliate while he works with the gang to realize their dreams. He’s an outsider who can make rational decisions and in many cases be critical of the group if it fails to deliver what their audience expects.
Musicians is often essentially the most stubborn of individuals, as well as the least receptive to criticism, as well as a trusted opinion from a professional figure may help the band make an effort to better the merchandise. Understand that the manager is above all a business person, and he runs the band which is “profitable”… the simpler to advertise a band, greater money celebrate, greater money the manager makes also.
Managers should also be very aggressive and chronic, a pal of mine (a manager to get a huge act) once explained a tale about how precisely she approached bar after bar simply to get denied every time and it was given all sorts of reasons and excuses. She never lost the battle, and did not give up on her band… today that band is often a major recording artist… and in actual fact they are big for some time now.
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