Smiles staged in photographs.

aretardedmonkey:

As many of you will know I drum in a band. What many of you will not know is that in said band I also act as a booking agent and it is my job to book and organise all of our gigs. 

Over the last couple of months I’ve been trying to organise our second tour this year. On a nonexistent budget this has proved to be rather tricky so I’ve been hassling what has felt like 1000s of promoters hoping that they may be kind enough to put the band on one of their shows along with some local bands in order to gain some new fans. 

The main problem with this as I’ve found is that 90% of promoters don’t promote. 

Most will give the bands on their event tickets, expect them to promote the event, sell tickets and then give all the money raised from ticket sales back to the promoter with the band 9 times out of 10 not seeing a penny of it. 

Now don’t get me wrong, not all promoters are like this. There are some out there that still do their job properly but these are very few and far between. The vast majority see putting on bands as an easy payday by getting the bands to do most of the work.

The other problem is because it’s all about the money not many out of town bands get a look in as they may not be able to bring people down to a show. This ultimately results in a very vicious circle. 

A band struggles to get shows in out of town areas because they don’t have enough fans in that area. The band don’t have enough fans in that area because they struggle to get the shows. 

Because everything is all about the right now people are forgetting to look at the bigger picture.

• If you give that out of town band a slot on an event you give them the chance to win over new fans. 
• If you give them the chance to win over new fans they will thank you for it and more than likely work with you again. 
• If they work with you again they will bring the fans they won the first time back down to your event. They also have another chance to win yet more new fans and you find this sequence of events continuing.  

As this continues everything grows. The band’s popularity and fan base as well as the promoter’s reputation to bring in everyone’s favourite out of town band instead of the local bands everyone has seen time and time again. As your popularity grows to put on the best band nights in town more and more people will turn up and hence you will make more money. 

Small unsigned bands out there aren’t asking for the world. Most will know it is bloody hard work and are willing to work hard for it. All they ask is that you take a chance on them. You never know, you could be the first to book the next big thing… 

Suppose I should stop writing now and go back to trying to find that one promoter who is worth working with. 

(Source: thedemonandme)