Old School Band Promotion
The days of the internet sure has seemed to have made bands lazy with their promotions. Too many rely on mass emails and total internet promotions and worse yet doing it only on one website (I think you can figure out what “space” bands are using here the most).
Do you really think an automated mass email is going to make people go to your shows? What is the point of sending an invitation on myspace to people in other states hundreds of miles away? Does putting a poster on some telephone pole down the street from the club or a busy intersection translate into drawing a crowd? I’ll answer these questions for you. No they don’t.
If you REALLY want to get people out to your shows and get your band’s name out there, be heard, and do something to start making a mark on your local music scene and beyond you are going to have to do it the old fashioned way. Yeah I know - you have to work, there isn’t time, you have to babysit, work 3 jobs, give time to the girlfriend and/or wife, walk the dog, practice, and so on and so on. If you are serious you will find time or make time and do the dirty leg work that time and time again works.
One thing I rarely see done anymore is passing out flyers. Printing simple flyers is cheap. I bet you know someone or someone in your band works somewhere that you can get a shitload of flyers copied for free. Now that you have them - get to work and pound the pavement. Go to the club you are playing and with the owner’s permission plaster the place and personally hand them out to people several times at several gigs before your gig. Don’t just leave them on the table and hang them up - TALK TO PEOPLE! Hand them out personally. Don’t disrespect other bands and do it during breaks or outside. Remember the most important thing is to actually talk to people, tell them about yourself, your band, the type of music you play and give them a reason why they need to see your band.
Team up with other bands and pass out one another’s flyers. Go to the mall and hand them out until you get asked to leave or kicked out. Put them on cars at the clubs or other locations with a crowd of people most likely interested in your band. Again be sure to mix this real life “spamming” with actual interaction. Think. Take a chance. Be creative.
Collect a mailing list. Yes I said a mailing list NOT an email list and send people stuff in the mail old school style. Make CD’s of a few songs and give them away. Have contests that people must be at your gig to enter & win stuff - merch, Cd’s whatever. Maybe get a local business - say - a CD store, T-Shirt place or something - to work with you to give something away. There are TONS of ideas out there that have been used in the past and do work well.
Quit sitting on your ass relying on an automated mass email on myspace, posts on a messageboard or an invitation on myspace to people that will not go to your gig. No one cares that you have 56,785 friends when you’re lucky of 10 of them give a shit about your band and will actually show up to your gig. Having said that - the internet is a wonderful tool to use to promote your band but you are a fool if you neglect other promotional options available to you.
Technorati Tags: band promotion, music, bands
July 1st, 2006 at 11:07am
and when you use myspace or message boards to promote your shows, could ya include links to the band sites so i can take a listen? this sistah is busy. or lazy. or some combination of both. at any rate, i’m not gonna spend an hour or two cruising search engines to find the bands at your show. at some point the short attention span will kick in, i’ll get bored, and skip your fucking show due to lack of information.
July 5th, 2006 at 2:20am
I say the exact same thing twice a year on the opposite coast.
Amazingly, I hear constant bitching about “promoters not promoting shows”. Who knows the difference between a promoter and a booker, raise your hand?! The true promoters in the Northwest are actually approached by the labels and asked to book the shows, bookers post on message boards “Two slots next Saturday– email me…blahblah.” A promoter never suffers from a shortage of bands– like that’s even possible.
That said, how can bands NOT run themselves like a business and then expect to be taken seriously? The cost of 1000 fliers at Kinko’s is less than 30 bucks. They can be distributed for the price of a couple packs of smokes and a Big Mac.
As a media outlet, how the hell can we help you if you won’t help yourself?
July 5th, 2006 at 11:59am
Communication is key to any success.
Taking time to actually chat with your fan base, leaves a lasting impression.
Make it a point, to network in the real world, equally as much as, the web world.
Leave the Computer networking to the geeks like me.
Frendo, a slave to the metal
May 11th, 2007 at 10:39am
Excellent advice. Its the personal connection that will get people to actually show up at your shows. To travel long distances, to buy your merch and to turn other people onto your sound. So hang out after the show and talk to your potential fans. Yeah you’ve got to get up and work early, guess what so do we.
May 16th, 2007 at 2:31pm
I have been preaching this for years, before there was an Internet what did the masses do, hmmmm OH YEA they promoted themselves relentlessly. My opinion is you have got to want something so bad that you will sacrafice everything and anything to get there, so once you’re there you appreciate it (or not). This age of instant gratification is quite sobering. Coming from the label side, you would think that if there was some interest in an act the act would double their output for promotions, seems it is exactly the opposite they seem to wxpect the label to do what they do not want to do. A sence of entitlement!
Wow I feel better now, thanks.
May 21st, 2007 at 10:21am
If you are promoting shows, or even a c.d. release, the one time cost of 15-20 bucks for the acetate negative, and p.m.t ing your photo is not too much.. then you can print posters the size of a door on a blueprinting press. for around a $1 a piece. The impact of a poster that can be read from a block away should be rather obvious. Even people that don’t go to your gig will have a lasting impression on them, like ‘Wow these guys must be good for someone to make such huge posters for them.’ My other favourite guerilla promotion tool that came in flash of genius insight… Buy a big box of chalk, get a bunch of spent shell casings… then find a slightly stained area of side walk at a major intersection and draw chalk outlines of one or more band members on the side walk. If you aren’t good at drawing your logo consistantly make a stencil up. Then draw ‘Tshirts’ on to your chalk outline figures… with your bands logo, and the date and venue of the show. If you have the time do this on the sidewalk outside the gig, and If you can find some yellow tape your ‘fake murder scene’ is bound to draw attention, and makes a cool collection of photo’s to put in your bio when your tour is over.
I hope these suggestions will prove useful, oh and if you can afford to do so, a penny left where each eye would be is a nice touch, to go along with some scattered shell casings.
Rhys (Count Vlad Tulent)
May 22nd, 2007 at 4:49pm
this is sooo true. im in a band (Where Life Takes Us) so i know wat it’s like to make an effort to promote. this advice IS beneficial and it helps a lot.
August 8th, 2007 at 12:17pm
Hi everyone out there pls check us out on www.indigoage.net or www.myspace.com/indigoage
We’d love touring with some rock band in America could some1 help us ?
Cheers
Indigo Age
August 12th, 2007 at 4:04pm
Haha, really like the chalk outline idea! Gonna give that a try.
Another useful thing is to collect mobile/cell phone numbers at every gig you do. Then when you play that town again text message everyone there about a few days before the show. Tons of networks include hundreds of free text messages as part of your package so you can do this on the road or just do it from your e-mail account for free. This works way better than the mass invites on myspace or whatever. Granted, not everyone is gonna want to give their number out to a bunch of grebos but just collect them on the same list as you do with e-mail addresses. Makes people feel a bit more special than spamming their e-mail inbox too.
November 17th, 2007 at 12:56am
The old school band promotions route is still a good way to promote your band and it will stand the test of time..
July 10th, 2008 at 6:46pm
Don’t forget to order bandanas, shirts, or hats anything that you can wear while handing out your fliers. Even if you have a few just for yourself, it makes you look legitimate. Think about it. I help promote bands on my website, morrisonscreenprinting.com, check it out. You could be tomorrows feature!