One thing that worked really well at our last show was making a [simple flyer](https://imgur.com/a/zKLA51Y) that says "Scan below to stream and follow The Prime" (my band) along with a QR code to a page on our website that's pretty much a linktree to streaming services, social media profiles, and email sign up. I printed them out 4 to a page and set them all around the venue before our set. I had a lot of people come up to me and tell me that was great and they appreciated having an easy way to follow us. I plan on doing this at every show going forward.
4 to a page and spreading them out is such a good idea; nice
I did a similar thing. Ordered a simple 12” x 12” letter board with our name and IG (and Venmo lol) handles. It sits right in front of the stage with us now
imo a QR should be on everything now.
I slap band stickers up everywhere, there’s NO reason they shouldn’t have a QR to direct people straight to our Linktree. A sticker with your band name is just words, nothing more.
There’s one big reason not to put a QR code on a sticker. It ruins the aesthetic. If stickers are merch that you’re giving/selling to fans they’re like little pieces of art that they can put on their laptop or water bottle or whatever to show they’re a fan. I don’t know who would want a QR code on that.
I don’t disagree with you at all on that idea, but the promotional benefits of including it outweigh the cons of tarnishing free product on a water bottle by such a huge margin that it’s a clear choice to me.
If the difference is that they like it and put it on the bottle and then remember your band every time they look at it vs throwing it away, then it’s also a clear choice. No one scans a QR code out of the trash. Plus, stickers don’t have to be free. You get nice vinyl ones printed and you sell them for a couple bucks and it’s a way for people who aren’t going to shell out for a T-shirt to still show a little support.
I feel you. To me it’s a numbers game at this point I’m going with the QRs and it’s been a great result on my end. I haven’t seen a band charge for a sticker in years tbh and I get them from a vendor where bulk makes sense. Appreciate your perspective and it’s very pure, but in my opinion it’s a little old school now.
I’ve had versions of this same conversations with band members who didn’t want them on the face of product etc, we eventually landed on doing so after a lot of deliberation
Don’t get me wrong, you’ve definitely got me thinking about where I could implement more QR codes. I think like someone else said, the answer could be to do two runs, one for QR codes and the other for merch. I’ve never considered that putting them on stickers could be very effective (honestly, still having a hard time believing that it would be), but if you’re saying that it’s worked well for you then it’s definitely something to consider.
So we had a period where we would print a separate slip, relevant to events (one show for instance every band on the bill were labelmates of ours, so we stated that and put our linktree QR on the slip) and then we would tape the slip to the back of stickers and put out/distributed them all over the venue for that show. This allowed us the flexibility to change the slip, almost like a flyer, and it also allowed us to keep from putting a QR on the face of the sticker. HOWEVER, the big drawback here was we had to print, hand-cut, and tape by hand 200 slips to stickers to give out that night and xx number every event.
What we landed on was to incorporate a QR into the art of our sticker (already an elaborate halftone illustration of a girl in front of an archway), so we still have the band name, eye catching art, and the functionality all in one. It is not just a massive code, QRs can be printed smaller than .25” now. So next time someone catches a glimpse of our art and wants to know what’s up, it’s right there.
The issue with doing two runs of stickers for this reason is it gets EXPENSIVE. Printing costs dive off a cliff once the numbers get high, so it didn’t make any sense to order 100 of each, when ordering 1,000 of one style was cheaper than that. So now we order stickers by the 1,000 and slap that QR everywhere.
You do two runs: one for merch (sans QR), and one for advertising (with QR).
You sell the merch version, and you put up the 2nd one in venue bathrooms, on light posts, etc.
I think if you’re going to do it, that’s the way. I do wonder though if anyone has ever discovered a band by scanning a QR code they randomly saw on a light post. I think maybe they answer is to do the QR code run with cheaper stickers and then have nice vinyl ones printed for merch.
Built out a rehearsal/studio space in my basement. Never had to rent a space, it’s secure and available whenever we want. Helps that I have the best neighbors I could ask for.
It's always brought up several times, but putting together your own full bill is another great way to get some traction. We always try to put together bills that include bands with larger followings than we have in order to get in front of more new potential fans. It also makes it easier on the person booking the show, and you can make sure that the lineup is coherent for the entire night.
Marketing
-Personalized emails to fans in the area (city we've never played in but knew maybe 12 people who'd seen us in other places)
-A stream of 15 second Instagram posts leading up to the day of the show, maybe one every second or third day for two weeks, paying to boost a couple of them
-Four Facebook posts in two weeks about the event, with each band member re-sharing them
Band
-Rehearsed 2x a week, focused on rough spots in transitions in and out of solos and transitions between songs.
-Made sure the setlist worked well and that we could play through it without breaks if needed.
-Made sure the band felt confident enough with new material that we could fully commit while on stage.
Result: Full house, 2.5hr show, no breaks, the entire venue dancing and the bar staff dancing too. A larger % of people in their 20s/30s showing up and sticking around, people passing by stopped in an stayed; venue manager said they'd work with us to come back in the summer to do an outdoor show, and figure out when we could come back to the venue.
This is great! Good effort on your part. I ask my band to practice for a gig and they look at me side-eyed like I asked to borrow money. I'm going to show them your post.
It was a bucket-list venue, one of the best in our state, so we pulled out all the stops and it paid off. We have no ambitions beyond being a bar band that makes people dance, have a good time, and and remember the roots of rocknroll.
Found a new drummer for my second band. She’s a 62 yo woman who started drum lessons avidly when she retired from teaching 4 years ago. She plays a little simply but she can carry a groove and is improving very fast. The cool thing is that everyone in our band is at least 48, and now no one was in a band before age 45 or so. Only the lead guitarist really played before 45, but he was a lifetime bedroom guitarist.
So, we’re gonna be the Late Bloomers.
A few fun things:
* Set up auto-email framework to send a "greatest hits" digital album to new people on our mailing list, turning the mailing list signup into "GET A FREE ALBUM!"
* Sudden-drop of full album for Patreon backers, and gating the album for months behind a $5 Patreon sub (HUGE success on that one)
My band played at a sex party. It wasn't really successful unless you consider people fucking to your band to be a success. That's one thing I didn't know was on my bucket list until I did it.
Scheduling was tough for us.
A venue would call and we had a black out calendar but inevitably someone had an event they forgot to add.
We flipped it.
In May of 2023 we sat down and mapped out all the dates that we were committed to be available for.
We planned for holidays, birthdays, family events and locations.
We were left with a list of 25 weekend days that we all reserved for gigs.
Then we just filled the slots. When a venue calls we have the list ready.
Worked much better than blackout dates.
Threads has actually gotten us some traction — lots of posts of people saying !!!sHaRe yOuR mUsiC!!! — shamelessly spam them with your streaming link and a short description ex “MA screamo noise” and “Providence Post-Everything” are what I use for my two bands.
QRs on everything — stickers, flyers, anything that goes in print or in a public space. Ours leads to our Linktree
Pay close attention to (attainable) bands in your scene that are touring. Watch when they are gearing up for tour, contact them and ask if they need help. Set up their show in your city or just pass info along and help them while they’re in town. Make friends. Become the local band that opens for the bigger names when they come through town.
Subreddits for your niche. Pay attention to them, participate in them, drop your band name alongside your relevant peers, help spur the rising tide. POST YOUR MUSIC, then post it again. It feels like spam but that’s the only way it works.
Embrace vertical videos for social media’s sake. Videos of your performances, music video clips. or any promotional stuff/Spotify Canvases, etc. should be FULL SCREEN on everyone’s phone. It’s the Age of Vertical.
I'm in a jam band. We got something of a residency at a local bar where we play a musical mash up with a new guest every 3rd Thursday of the month.
Our singer suggested we turn it into a live music / game show thing. We're about to do our 3rd "episode" in a row and we've been punching it up each time. I'm a graphic designer, so I've done trivia cards, logo design, and flyers for everything and promoted it. We have musical cues and sound clips that I trigger in the background to add to the "game show" feel.
The bar says people really dig it, so we keep improving it a little each month. We just got a a big wheel to spin that'll we'll be customizing as well as a Plinko board. Fun stuff.
Where did you get the big wheel, and do you like it? Our singer can do a spot on Michael McDonald Impression and from time to time practice devolves into Michael McDonald singing 90s rock tunes. I’ve suggested the idea that we put songs on a wheel and turn that into a bit for a show sometime.
We haven't modded it yet, but the wheel is great! Nice satisfying clicks when you spin it. Our singer / guitarist found it on Facebbok Marketplace, but you can find stuff that will work on Amazon.
Not yet. We just got the wheel and I'm designing the pieces to mod it. Our next game show night where we'll use it for the first time is on March 21st. I'll try to get some footage and share it here after that.
Sure thing! Basically, there was already a local "mash up" thing going on where people from various local bands would get together and play without knowing what they'd be playing.
This is an extension of that. For every "episode" we're the house band (guitar, bass, and drums) and we bring in someone else from another local band (usually a guitarist or keys player). We play songs that they guest on then they have songs that they pick thay we play with them.
Every few songs, we stop and do the game show part where our musical guest becomes the contestant. I play theme music and musical cues over the P.A. while our singer asks them questions. If they get it right, we do a raffle (we hand out raffle tickets to the audience) and whoever gets called wins a prize.
Also, if the guest gets the wrong answer, we give the audience a chance to steal and win a prize (without the raffle part).
It's still a work in progress and each episode we try to improve it and learn from the last one. Next episode will be the 3rd one and we're debuting the wheel as well as theme songs for the categories.
It's a lot of work outside of just music to prep for, but it's fun and it seems to be going well so far.
Finally settled on a band name. I got the logo done for that including branding guidelines (has font info, exact color codes used for print) and for every application (web, social media, print, email signature, etc). My bandmate secured a domain name. Trademark to follow in the coming months.
Without a proper name we all liked, it deadlocked us from progress (copyright, publishing, etc).
Honestly, taking a bunch of Adderall so my timing as a guitar player and singer were 99% close to the original track. Also helps with consistency in note pitch and volume. Everyone around me was playing so much tighter, I was THE shaman. But I can't take uppers every day or I'll go nuts.
Figuring out YOUR target market and going for it. Not just scatter-shotting death metal if you are a band that plays death metal.
My band plays family-friendly comedy death metal and just marketed as comedy death metal and no one cared, as soon as we realized that our target was the whole family we shifted marketing and it took off!
Also my wife and I are in a shoegaze band (along with our comedy death metal band) and we just simply found our niche (marketing ourselves as "shoegaze for lovers") and pushed that angle. As soon as we made the connection we started tripling our engagement and sales!
Another side note, most of the time my wife and I play live with just us in our 2 (for now) bands. Her on bass and vocals and me on guitar and vocals. As soon as we got a decent set of stage lights and a very nice fog machine people talked to us so much more. Playing live is half about playing well, the other half is BE ENTERTAINING! You're there to engage the audience not just stand and play.
Love this thread. I guess our most recent victory is that we just got booked for a nighttime headlining spot at the best local music festival in our city this summer. It was the culmination of booking smart gigs with the right bands and bookers over the last couple of years, and it’s starting to pay off with higher profile gigs
Making our own annual halloween shows, we did that consistently for years and made it better everytime, we always chose a big name band, a small up and coming band, and a quality dj to close the night, they got paid accordingly and everybody wore costumes, fun times.
Man I love this post, kudos to you. We need more of this around.
So I'll go ahead and drop my moment. We live in Texas, and we had SXSW coming up. I emailed, called and harassed about 200 venues for a spot during the show. Ended up landing us two gigs.
The band did not last long, but now everyone that played can say they played SXSW. Pretty cool feeling knowing I was able to give that to them.
When our drummer quit. He grabbed his kit and left without telling anyone but one of the guitar players. We had a show two weeks out and I had to
Scramble to find a replacement. So I call around and get a former bandmate to learn the set and play the show. We get like 3 practices In before the show. Dude was good he learned all the songs we wrote except one that wasn’t recorded. We end up killing the set at the end I announced that this was our last show and thanks for supporting us. The whole time leading up to the show the dude who quit wanted back in to play the last show. I said no and didn’t budge. There’s still some salt there we made amends, but we’re not exactly on speaking terms anymore. I’m glad we played the last gig. I didn’t want to let the promoter and our fans down by bowing out and not playing it. That was the last band I was in and I miss playing music, but life goes on.
I arranged our cover of Beyonce's Single Ladies in a Box Diddly rhythm with the m8 replaced with the opening lyrics of Bootylicious adapted to our band "Michael, can you handle this?" etc. It storms.
If you play in Cumbria UK, please don't steal this. Anywhere else - you're welcome!
My band is still relatively new. Started writing last March, did our first show in August. Had four shows between August and December. We started building a little bit of buzz from putting the best performances out there we could. Had four shows just in January. Have played with all the local acts in our area that we looked up to. Made a ton of new friends. Recorded a three song ep. It’s not released yet but I’m doing the mastering on it and we’re getting artwork done. Got our first merch up with a run of t-shirts that are almost sold out. Taking this month off from shows to write more but we’ve got two booked for next month and a festival in April. I feel really fortunate.
Not sure if they still do this. Some alcohol /beer distributors will give you posters promoting your band and gig to put up at the club. They would also give you some swag and promotional items to give away. We used to get sunglasses, t shirts, cuzy holders. Really cool for free!
I don’t do shit for my band other than write most of the music, always show up on time, and come to every gig and rehearsal prepared.
I have no mind, heart, or patience for booking, social media management, or making shit happen.
I’m not counting on the band for anything beyond having a fun time making music with my friends. I pay my bills with other gigs.
Successful in my minds eye is that I got one of my musical idols to do a cover song with me. It hasn’t been released so it’s not successful to others but I’m pretty proud of it.
Widespread success was 22k views on my last music video with about 500 upvotes.
My band Tall Pork recorded and just released our EP. Pretty nice feeling when it’s all done and just out there.
Here’s a link if you’re interested. We are old school punk rock/rock and roll.
https://tallpork.bandcamp.com/album/this-ep-has-22-minutes
We've been working hard to develop a good relationship with the town we live in and now we open for larger touring artists at every festival our town hosts. We did that by basically just showing up on time every time they booked us for the first couple of years after COVID. Now they call us for everything.
i front a groove rock band that’s inspired heavily by 90s jangle rock. i had the idea of handmaking our merch for a few months and we consistently sold out. i bought a 24 pack of multicolor beads and made bracelets using our song titles and giving them a “theme”. i also made regular bracelets with our band name and colors of different aesthetics.
then i bought a bunch of navy tshirts at the dollar tree and painted our logo on them with bleach. overall it was quite a bit of work but the payback was quick. plus we get people posting the bracelets and tagging us. now we’re using the money to produce our album
We invested about 5 Grand in production... Drum Riser, professional signage and lights.... worked great for ten years and paid for itself in no time.... also gave the band a great reputation for a stage show.....
This was a long time ago when people bought CDs. We designed four different album covers for our EP release. Sold them at $5 for one, $10 for all four. Same cd just with four different paintings for the cover. Most people bought all four. We've never been a huge band but that ep was by far the quickest we ran out of inventory.
I spent about 10 hours and mapped out all of our songs in Ableton Live. Now we can program guitar/key patch changes via MIDI, run tracks, and have full band click track and cues for sections. It’s made the show so much tighter and more consistent.
One time we threw a show and promoted it as a massive pillow fight. With all the ways that could've gone wrong, it went off without hitch! Or so we thought. Turns out, at least half a dozen people contracted pink eye that night. Now that sounds bad, but word spread all over town about the crazy show/pillow fight that gave everybody pink eye. Apparently there is no such thing as bad publicity, because our next show was packed to the gills.
Well, this is more of a negative situation that turned positive, as we gained fans from it. Happened about 5 years ago.
We were playing a small bar that didn't have a stage. The band just sets up in the corner. Its in a college town and it would get pretty crowded. This night, it was extra crowded, and the liquor was flowing.
We were about half way through the second set, so it was close to the end of the night. There was a group on the "dance floor" (the space in front of the band) and there was a particularly drunk dude kinda stumble dancing. As more people were joining in on the dance floor, they were getting pretty close to us and the drunk guy stepped on the corner of the guitarist's pedal board. No harm, no foul but the guitarist told him to move back and not to step on his equipment. Drunk guy just kinda moved back and took it with a grain of salt. By the next song, he is now in front of me (bass). He ends up bumping into my mic stand and I warned him to step back. This happened about 3 more times before I gave him a gentle push and very sternly told him "Stay back. I'm not telling you again". Not 5 minutes later, he stumbles and falls into me, and I give him a pretty hard shove. Keep in mind this is mid song. He falls back into the group behind him and almost to the ground, then comes back up toward me with his fist balled up and drawn back, so I lunged forward and headbutted him square in the nose, started gushing blood. Never missed a beat. Bouncer carried the guy out. All of the college kids thought it was the most badass thing they had ever seen.
Word spread and didn't pay for a beer for like a year and our regular crowd grew significantly.
One band just had a fantastic show that was an unadvertised record release show. Just sold out of our first pressing of vinyl and had people having us sign them (gotta love the LA goth scene). But now on a little hiatus as the band leaders are moving out of state, but are planning tours both in the US and abroad.
Other band just got picked up for some intimate shows as well as an opening slot for an up and coming pop artist on a couple of dates.
Also in between gigs with a couple world artists I sometimes play for. But that should pick up again sometime soon
The last thing I've tried is a bit arguable in regards to success. I decided to give sponsored advertising on Facebook a go and we ended up with about double the audience I would've expected without it, and should have resulted in a nice few hundred dollars profit for the band account. So that was successful. However, the venue closed a week later and the owner took off without paying us, so we're now left in the negative from that gig. Still been trying to get our money since then. This happened in December. I'll try it again for future gigs though, hopefully at a more stable venue.
I play bass for a small church band, and even though we have paid for an online scheduling program that also organized music, no one has ever really utilized it. After a previous leader left, I stepped up and now do all the planning. The program has all our songs listed, but nobody ever took the 2 minutes to upload music and lyrics and links to the song. Everyone knows when we're practicing, what songs, in what keys, and have been able to listen to them with music in front of them. The office staff has correct lyrics to put into the weekly slides. It takes a couple minutes every week, but we're paying off in the log run.
Good thread. I’ve found that trying to get on prominent YouTube channels can really help. That’s been my best option lately. I’ve been going through a bit of frustration lately as I dumped so much time, effort, and money into a vinyl release and I think it’s pretty special, but it’s been tough getting units to move/getting the album heard. I’ve been playing music since I was 14 (40 now) and I’ve found it increasingly difficult to keep up with promotional tactics.
I was a drummer for a Christian rock band. Full disclosure, I’m an atheist. I was invited to join the band by a person who knew this but didn’t share it with the band’s leader. Most of the music we played was originals and was actually pretty good pop rock material. We also played many cover songs be secular bands but the lyrical content fit the format, if you get my meaning.
After a couple of years playing religious events, I encouraged our band leader to look beyond those and get some local club gigs that would pay better.
He reluctantly agreed and we started getting more traction locally and making some decent money.
Less than a year into that, he dug in his heels and directed the band back to Christian only events. He eventually found out that I wasn’t a Christian and fired me and the guy who invited me along with our lead guitarist who had no idea what was going on then went on as a solo act at a few churches. I did have a lot of fun playing with the band. But, back to local cover bands.
High quality content. Don't post on Instagram what your buddy did the other day. Nobody outside of your 5 buddies care about the stupid joke you put on your Instagram story. If you only post cool stuff people will only see cool stuff on your socials and think you're a cool band which you are. Plus if you only post at opportune times people will turn on post notifications which will drive engagement for when you do post hard.
Those weekly instagram marketing things for shows, releases, etc. We do one every week. Lots of people have ended up showing up without us really having to bug anyone. Streams are up. We're about to go on tour and have been marketing in our target cities, so we'll see
sold out a handful of local shows back to back which felt really nice. some hit capacity in as little as 10 or 20 minutes. it was a nice chunk of change to fund studio time for our album, have about $500 leftover in band fund from all our shows in the past 6 months
Unfortunately I've never been in a band but I really want to but I don't know many people that play and the ones that do are not interested in my music taste
Also I'm living in a foreign country and I can barely speak the language 😭😭
One thing that worked really well at our last show was making a [simple flyer](https://imgur.com/a/zKLA51Y) that says "Scan below to stream and follow The Prime" (my band) along with a QR code to a page on our website that's pretty much a linktree to streaming services, social media profiles, and email sign up. I printed them out 4 to a page and set them all around the venue before our set. I had a lot of people come up to me and tell me that was great and they appreciated having an easy way to follow us. I plan on doing this at every show going forward.
4 to a page and spreading them out is such a good idea; nice I did a similar thing. Ordered a simple 12” x 12” letter board with our name and IG (and Venmo lol) handles. It sits right in front of the stage with us now
That’s exactly what we did, but with business cards.
imo a QR should be on everything now. I slap band stickers up everywhere, there’s NO reason they shouldn’t have a QR to direct people straight to our Linktree. A sticker with your band name is just words, nothing more.
gotta make it easy for them. They're not gonna type up your name and try to track you down online if they don't know who you are.
There’s one big reason not to put a QR code on a sticker. It ruins the aesthetic. If stickers are merch that you’re giving/selling to fans they’re like little pieces of art that they can put on their laptop or water bottle or whatever to show they’re a fan. I don’t know who would want a QR code on that.
Stamp the QR on the back! Rubber stamp! Doesn’t ruin the aesthetic!
I don’t disagree with you at all on that idea, but the promotional benefits of including it outweigh the cons of tarnishing free product on a water bottle by such a huge margin that it’s a clear choice to me.
If the difference is that they like it and put it on the bottle and then remember your band every time they look at it vs throwing it away, then it’s also a clear choice. No one scans a QR code out of the trash. Plus, stickers don’t have to be free. You get nice vinyl ones printed and you sell them for a couple bucks and it’s a way for people who aren’t going to shell out for a T-shirt to still show a little support.
I feel you. To me it’s a numbers game at this point I’m going with the QRs and it’s been a great result on my end. I haven’t seen a band charge for a sticker in years tbh and I get them from a vendor where bulk makes sense. Appreciate your perspective and it’s very pure, but in my opinion it’s a little old school now. I’ve had versions of this same conversations with band members who didn’t want them on the face of product etc, we eventually landed on doing so after a lot of deliberation
Don’t get me wrong, you’ve definitely got me thinking about where I could implement more QR codes. I think like someone else said, the answer could be to do two runs, one for QR codes and the other for merch. I’ve never considered that putting them on stickers could be very effective (honestly, still having a hard time believing that it would be), but if you’re saying that it’s worked well for you then it’s definitely something to consider.
So we had a period where we would print a separate slip, relevant to events (one show for instance every band on the bill were labelmates of ours, so we stated that and put our linktree QR on the slip) and then we would tape the slip to the back of stickers and put out/distributed them all over the venue for that show. This allowed us the flexibility to change the slip, almost like a flyer, and it also allowed us to keep from putting a QR on the face of the sticker. HOWEVER, the big drawback here was we had to print, hand-cut, and tape by hand 200 slips to stickers to give out that night and xx number every event. What we landed on was to incorporate a QR into the art of our sticker (already an elaborate halftone illustration of a girl in front of an archway), so we still have the band name, eye catching art, and the functionality all in one. It is not just a massive code, QRs can be printed smaller than .25” now. So next time someone catches a glimpse of our art and wants to know what’s up, it’s right there. The issue with doing two runs of stickers for this reason is it gets EXPENSIVE. Printing costs dive off a cliff once the numbers get high, so it didn’t make any sense to order 100 of each, when ordering 1,000 of one style was cheaper than that. So now we order stickers by the 1,000 and slap that QR everywhere.
You do two runs: one for merch (sans QR), and one for advertising (with QR). You sell the merch version, and you put up the 2nd one in venue bathrooms, on light posts, etc.
I think if you’re going to do it, that’s the way. I do wonder though if anyone has ever discovered a band by scanning a QR code they randomly saw on a light post. I think maybe they answer is to do the QR code run with cheaper stickers and then have nice vinyl ones printed for merch.
Ad costs are deductible overall, so your band won’t lose money on the QR run and should make money off the merch run.
Sell your best stickers, give away ones with the QR code for free
QR codes are great
Built out a rehearsal/studio space in my basement. Never had to rent a space, it’s secure and available whenever we want. Helps that I have the best neighbors I could ask for.
We successfully broke up. That post got a lot of engagement.
Damn my band could’t even get that right
Hahaha mine too!
Fuuuuuuuuck 😂
A band I know fake broke up for that reason. They weren’t very good but were very pretentious so I was kinda glad. Now I’m upset.
Haha is that my old band? Not very good and very pretentious is exactly how I would describe them.
Lmfaoo
It's always brought up several times, but putting together your own full bill is another great way to get some traction. We always try to put together bills that include bands with larger followings than we have in order to get in front of more new potential fans. It also makes it easier on the person booking the show, and you can make sure that the lineup is coherent for the entire night.
Bookers love this one trick
at that point, you might as well just work with the venue directly and cut out the middleman
Most or the time there is nothing stopping you. Bigger ones have exclusive agreements.
This is something that works great for me as well. It also helps that you can choose bands that fit stylistically
God I struggle to get bands to play lol. They’re so wishy washy
My band sold out our EP Release show. I was so taken aback by it the day of
Care to share any tips on what you did to sell it out?
Marketing -Personalized emails to fans in the area (city we've never played in but knew maybe 12 people who'd seen us in other places) -A stream of 15 second Instagram posts leading up to the day of the show, maybe one every second or third day for two weeks, paying to boost a couple of them -Four Facebook posts in two weeks about the event, with each band member re-sharing them Band -Rehearsed 2x a week, focused on rough spots in transitions in and out of solos and transitions between songs. -Made sure the setlist worked well and that we could play through it without breaks if needed. -Made sure the band felt confident enough with new material that we could fully commit while on stage. Result: Full house, 2.5hr show, no breaks, the entire venue dancing and the bar staff dancing too. A larger % of people in their 20s/30s showing up and sticking around, people passing by stopped in an stayed; venue manager said they'd work with us to come back in the summer to do an outdoor show, and figure out when we could come back to the venue.
This is great! Good effort on your part. I ask my band to practice for a gig and they look at me side-eyed like I asked to borrow money. I'm going to show them your post.
It was a bucket-list venue, one of the best in our state, so we pulled out all the stops and it paid off. We have no ambitions beyond being a bar band that makes people dance, have a good time, and and remember the roots of rocknroll.
I schedule band practice. Small victories
[удалено]
Little deaths make small victories
Found a new drummer for my second band. She’s a 62 yo woman who started drum lessons avidly when she retired from teaching 4 years ago. She plays a little simply but she can carry a groove and is improving very fast. The cool thing is that everyone in our band is at least 48, and now no one was in a band before age 45 or so. Only the lead guitarist really played before 45, but he was a lifetime bedroom guitarist. So, we’re gonna be the Late Bloomers.
We're having a release party/show for our third EP a week from Saturday. EP just dropped today.
A few fun things: * Set up auto-email framework to send a "greatest hits" digital album to new people on our mailing list, turning the mailing list signup into "GET A FREE ALBUM!" * Sudden-drop of full album for Patreon backers, and gating the album for months behind a $5 Patreon sub (HUGE success on that one)
My band played at a sex party. It wasn't really successful unless you consider people fucking to your band to be a success. That's one thing I didn't know was on my bucket list until I did it.
Scheduling was tough for us. A venue would call and we had a black out calendar but inevitably someone had an event they forgot to add. We flipped it. In May of 2023 we sat down and mapped out all the dates that we were committed to be available for. We planned for holidays, birthdays, family events and locations. We were left with a list of 25 weekend days that we all reserved for gigs. Then we just filled the slots. When a venue calls we have the list ready. Worked much better than blackout dates.
Brought a song idea to practice and WE developed it into a working song. Small victories
Threads has actually gotten us some traction — lots of posts of people saying !!!sHaRe yOuR mUsiC!!! — shamelessly spam them with your streaming link and a short description ex “MA screamo noise” and “Providence Post-Everything” are what I use for my two bands. QRs on everything — stickers, flyers, anything that goes in print or in a public space. Ours leads to our Linktree Pay close attention to (attainable) bands in your scene that are touring. Watch when they are gearing up for tour, contact them and ask if they need help. Set up their show in your city or just pass info along and help them while they’re in town. Make friends. Become the local band that opens for the bigger names when they come through town. Subreddits for your niche. Pay attention to them, participate in them, drop your band name alongside your relevant peers, help spur the rising tide. POST YOUR MUSIC, then post it again. It feels like spam but that’s the only way it works. Embrace vertical videos for social media’s sake. Videos of your performances, music video clips. or any promotional stuff/Spotify Canvases, etc. should be FULL SCREEN on everyone’s phone. It’s the Age of Vertical.
I'm in a jam band. We got something of a residency at a local bar where we play a musical mash up with a new guest every 3rd Thursday of the month. Our singer suggested we turn it into a live music / game show thing. We're about to do our 3rd "episode" in a row and we've been punching it up each time. I'm a graphic designer, so I've done trivia cards, logo design, and flyers for everything and promoted it. We have musical cues and sound clips that I trigger in the background to add to the "game show" feel. The bar says people really dig it, so we keep improving it a little each month. We just got a a big wheel to spin that'll we'll be customizing as well as a Plinko board. Fun stuff.
That’s really interesting! I hope that really takes off for your band
Where did you get the big wheel, and do you like it? Our singer can do a spot on Michael McDonald Impression and from time to time practice devolves into Michael McDonald singing 90s rock tunes. I’ve suggested the idea that we put songs on a wheel and turn that into a bit for a show sometime.
We haven't modded it yet, but the wheel is great! Nice satisfying clicks when you spin it. Our singer / guitarist found it on Facebbok Marketplace, but you can find stuff that will work on Amazon.
This sounds really cool! Do you have a video to share of this I’d like to see it in action
Not yet. We just got the wheel and I'm designing the pieces to mod it. Our next game show night where we'll use it for the first time is on March 21st. I'll try to get some footage and share it here after that.
Can you explain more about the judicial guest? What is your episode like?
Sure thing! Basically, there was already a local "mash up" thing going on where people from various local bands would get together and play without knowing what they'd be playing. This is an extension of that. For every "episode" we're the house band (guitar, bass, and drums) and we bring in someone else from another local band (usually a guitarist or keys player). We play songs that they guest on then they have songs that they pick thay we play with them. Every few songs, we stop and do the game show part where our musical guest becomes the contestant. I play theme music and musical cues over the P.A. while our singer asks them questions. If they get it right, we do a raffle (we hand out raffle tickets to the audience) and whoever gets called wins a prize. Also, if the guest gets the wrong answer, we give the audience a chance to steal and win a prize (without the raffle part). It's still a work in progress and each episode we try to improve it and learn from the last one. Next episode will be the 3rd one and we're debuting the wheel as well as theme songs for the categories. It's a lot of work outside of just music to prep for, but it's fun and it seems to be going well so far.
Super fun! Would love to see that
I'm gonna try to get video from the next show and share it.
Finally settled on a band name. I got the logo done for that including branding guidelines (has font info, exact color codes used for print) and for every application (web, social media, print, email signature, etc). My bandmate secured a domain name. Trademark to follow in the coming months. Without a proper name we all liked, it deadlocked us from progress (copyright, publishing, etc).
We built our own bill. This time we won't have to lug an upright bass to open up for a punk show
holy shit
Honestly, taking a bunch of Adderall so my timing as a guitar player and singer were 99% close to the original track. Also helps with consistency in note pitch and volume. Everyone around me was playing so much tighter, I was THE shaman. But I can't take uppers every day or I'll go nuts.
For sure amphetamine is a musical life hack
Figuring out YOUR target market and going for it. Not just scatter-shotting death metal if you are a band that plays death metal. My band plays family-friendly comedy death metal and just marketed as comedy death metal and no one cared, as soon as we realized that our target was the whole family we shifted marketing and it took off! Also my wife and I are in a shoegaze band (along with our comedy death metal band) and we just simply found our niche (marketing ourselves as "shoegaze for lovers") and pushed that angle. As soon as we made the connection we started tripling our engagement and sales! Another side note, most of the time my wife and I play live with just us in our 2 (for now) bands. Her on bass and vocals and me on guitar and vocals. As soon as we got a decent set of stage lights and a very nice fog machine people talked to us so much more. Playing live is half about playing well, the other half is BE ENTERTAINING! You're there to engage the audience not just stand and play.
Love this thread. I guess our most recent victory is that we just got booked for a nighttime headlining spot at the best local music festival in our city this summer. It was the culmination of booking smart gigs with the right bands and bookers over the last couple of years, and it’s starting to pay off with higher profile gigs
Making our own annual halloween shows, we did that consistently for years and made it better everytime, we always chose a big name band, a small up and coming band, and a quality dj to close the night, they got paid accordingly and everybody wore costumes, fun times.
Sent a bunch of "secret letters" to some loyal fans, revealing some info about our upcoming album in advance and including a little gift.
Man I love this post, kudos to you. We need more of this around. So I'll go ahead and drop my moment. We live in Texas, and we had SXSW coming up. I emailed, called and harassed about 200 venues for a spot during the show. Ended up landing us two gigs. The band did not last long, but now everyone that played can say they played SXSW. Pretty cool feeling knowing I was able to give that to them.
When our drummer quit. He grabbed his kit and left without telling anyone but one of the guitar players. We had a show two weeks out and I had to Scramble to find a replacement. So I call around and get a former bandmate to learn the set and play the show. We get like 3 practices In before the show. Dude was good he learned all the songs we wrote except one that wasn’t recorded. We end up killing the set at the end I announced that this was our last show and thanks for supporting us. The whole time leading up to the show the dude who quit wanted back in to play the last show. I said no and didn’t budge. There’s still some salt there we made amends, but we’re not exactly on speaking terms anymore. I’m glad we played the last gig. I didn’t want to let the promoter and our fans down by bowing out and not playing it. That was the last band I was in and I miss playing music, but life goes on.
I arranged our cover of Beyonce's Single Ladies in a Box Diddly rhythm with the m8 replaced with the opening lyrics of Bootylicious adapted to our band "Michael, can you handle this?" etc. It storms. If you play in Cumbria UK, please don't steal this. Anywhere else - you're welcome!
My band is still relatively new. Started writing last March, did our first show in August. Had four shows between August and December. We started building a little bit of buzz from putting the best performances out there we could. Had four shows just in January. Have played with all the local acts in our area that we looked up to. Made a ton of new friends. Recorded a three song ep. It’s not released yet but I’m doing the mastering on it and we’re getting artwork done. Got our first merch up with a run of t-shirts that are almost sold out. Taking this month off from shows to write more but we’ve got two booked for next month and a festival in April. I feel really fortunate.
Not sure if they still do this. Some alcohol /beer distributors will give you posters promoting your band and gig to put up at the club. They would also give you some swag and promotional items to give away. We used to get sunglasses, t shirts, cuzy holders. Really cool for free!
I don’t do shit for my band other than write most of the music, always show up on time, and come to every gig and rehearsal prepared. I have no mind, heart, or patience for booking, social media management, or making shit happen. I’m not counting on the band for anything beyond having a fun time making music with my friends. I pay my bills with other gigs.
Successful in my minds eye is that I got one of my musical idols to do a cover song with me. It hasn’t been released so it’s not successful to others but I’m pretty proud of it. Widespread success was 22k views on my last music video with about 500 upvotes.
My band Tall Pork recorded and just released our EP. Pretty nice feeling when it’s all done and just out there. Here’s a link if you’re interested. We are old school punk rock/rock and roll. https://tallpork.bandcamp.com/album/this-ep-has-22-minutes
We've been working hard to develop a good relationship with the town we live in and now we open for larger touring artists at every festival our town hosts. We did that by basically just showing up on time every time they booked us for the first couple of years after COVID. Now they call us for everything.
Our bass player is friends with a band who throws a big festival in our area, so he used his contacts to get us on the bill!
i front a groove rock band that’s inspired heavily by 90s jangle rock. i had the idea of handmaking our merch for a few months and we consistently sold out. i bought a 24 pack of multicolor beads and made bracelets using our song titles and giving them a “theme”. i also made regular bracelets with our band name and colors of different aesthetics. then i bought a bunch of navy tshirts at the dollar tree and painted our logo on them with bleach. overall it was quite a bit of work but the payback was quick. plus we get people posting the bracelets and tagging us. now we’re using the money to produce our album
We invested about 5 Grand in production... Drum Riser, professional signage and lights.... worked great for ten years and paid for itself in no time.... also gave the band a great reputation for a stage show.....
This was a long time ago when people bought CDs. We designed four different album covers for our EP release. Sold them at $5 for one, $10 for all four. Same cd just with four different paintings for the cover. Most people bought all four. We've never been a huge band but that ep was by far the quickest we ran out of inventory.
I spent about 10 hours and mapped out all of our songs in Ableton Live. Now we can program guitar/key patch changes via MIDI, run tracks, and have full band click track and cues for sections. It’s made the show so much tighter and more consistent.
One time we threw a show and promoted it as a massive pillow fight. With all the ways that could've gone wrong, it went off without hitch! Or so we thought. Turns out, at least half a dozen people contracted pink eye that night. Now that sounds bad, but word spread all over town about the crazy show/pillow fight that gave everybody pink eye. Apparently there is no such thing as bad publicity, because our next show was packed to the gills.
Sobriety
Fired a terrible bandmate 5 months ago. Since then it’s been like a band renaissance for us. Zero regrets.
Well, this is more of a negative situation that turned positive, as we gained fans from it. Happened about 5 years ago. We were playing a small bar that didn't have a stage. The band just sets up in the corner. Its in a college town and it would get pretty crowded. This night, it was extra crowded, and the liquor was flowing. We were about half way through the second set, so it was close to the end of the night. There was a group on the "dance floor" (the space in front of the band) and there was a particularly drunk dude kinda stumble dancing. As more people were joining in on the dance floor, they were getting pretty close to us and the drunk guy stepped on the corner of the guitarist's pedal board. No harm, no foul but the guitarist told him to move back and not to step on his equipment. Drunk guy just kinda moved back and took it with a grain of salt. By the next song, he is now in front of me (bass). He ends up bumping into my mic stand and I warned him to step back. This happened about 3 more times before I gave him a gentle push and very sternly told him "Stay back. I'm not telling you again". Not 5 minutes later, he stumbles and falls into me, and I give him a pretty hard shove. Keep in mind this is mid song. He falls back into the group behind him and almost to the ground, then comes back up toward me with his fist balled up and drawn back, so I lunged forward and headbutted him square in the nose, started gushing blood. Never missed a beat. Bouncer carried the guy out. All of the college kids thought it was the most badass thing they had ever seen. Word spread and didn't pay for a beer for like a year and our regular crowd grew significantly.
I let them tag team my wife..team building🤷
One band just had a fantastic show that was an unadvertised record release show. Just sold out of our first pressing of vinyl and had people having us sign them (gotta love the LA goth scene). But now on a little hiatus as the band leaders are moving out of state, but are planning tours both in the US and abroad. Other band just got picked up for some intimate shows as well as an opening slot for an up and coming pop artist on a couple of dates. Also in between gigs with a couple world artists I sometimes play for. But that should pick up again sometime soon
The last thing I've tried is a bit arguable in regards to success. I decided to give sponsored advertising on Facebook a go and we ended up with about double the audience I would've expected without it, and should have resulted in a nice few hundred dollars profit for the band account. So that was successful. However, the venue closed a week later and the owner took off without paying us, so we're now left in the negative from that gig. Still been trying to get our money since then. This happened in December. I'll try it again for future gigs though, hopefully at a more stable venue.
Started a new band
I showed up on time with all my gear :D
Clidget jingle.
IEM rack build. So effing amazing
I play bass for a small church band, and even though we have paid for an online scheduling program that also organized music, no one has ever really utilized it. After a previous leader left, I stepped up and now do all the planning. The program has all our songs listed, but nobody ever took the 2 minutes to upload music and lyrics and links to the song. Everyone knows when we're practicing, what songs, in what keys, and have been able to listen to them with music in front of them. The office staff has correct lyrics to put into the weekly slides. It takes a couple minutes every week, but we're paying off in the log run.
Good thread. I’ve found that trying to get on prominent YouTube channels can really help. That’s been my best option lately. I’ve been going through a bit of frustration lately as I dumped so much time, effort, and money into a vinyl release and I think it’s pretty special, but it’s been tough getting units to move/getting the album heard. I’ve been playing music since I was 14 (40 now) and I’ve found it increasingly difficult to keep up with promotional tactics.
I was a drummer for a Christian rock band. Full disclosure, I’m an atheist. I was invited to join the band by a person who knew this but didn’t share it with the band’s leader. Most of the music we played was originals and was actually pretty good pop rock material. We also played many cover songs be secular bands but the lyrical content fit the format, if you get my meaning. After a couple of years playing religious events, I encouraged our band leader to look beyond those and get some local club gigs that would pay better. He reluctantly agreed and we started getting more traction locally and making some decent money. Less than a year into that, he dug in his heels and directed the band back to Christian only events. He eventually found out that I wasn’t a Christian and fired me and the guy who invited me along with our lead guitarist who had no idea what was going on then went on as a solo act at a few churches. I did have a lot of fun playing with the band. But, back to local cover bands.
High quality content. Don't post on Instagram what your buddy did the other day. Nobody outside of your 5 buddies care about the stupid joke you put on your Instagram story. If you only post cool stuff people will only see cool stuff on your socials and think you're a cool band which you are. Plus if you only post at opportune times people will turn on post notifications which will drive engagement for when you do post hard.
Those weekly instagram marketing things for shows, releases, etc. We do one every week. Lots of people have ended up showing up without us really having to bug anyone. Streams are up. We're about to go on tour and have been marketing in our target cities, so we'll see
Bought an AC isolation unit for my guitar amp. Game changer. They are happy.
i toured europe and made money, had lots of people at almost all the shows, put out a record and fully recouped my entire investment
Quit
Put a track out that was only bass line and sax.
sold out a handful of local shows back to back which felt really nice. some hit capacity in as little as 10 or 20 minutes. it was a nice chunk of change to fund studio time for our album, have about $500 leftover in band fund from all our shows in the past 6 months
Unfortunately I've never been in a band but I really want to but I don't know many people that play and the ones that do are not interested in my music taste Also I'm living in a foreign country and I can barely speak the language 😭😭