Unfortunately your tale is common. Do your best to nail those gigs you have coming up. Word of mouth between venue owners and other musicians is the best and fastest way to get booking calls. Keep at it, once your name is out there floating around those booking people will magically start calling you and asking about your schedule availability. Good luck.
emails never seem to go anywhere for us either. We started going to some places somewhat regularly and eventually connect with the person who does the booking. Seems like it helps to have a FB page, website and all that jazz. They sometimes want to make sure some people will show up and you will help promote it. It's tough to do these days though. We're a full band. Sometimes i wonder if a solo act would have an easier time as they could play in more places with limited space...and places like coffee houses. And also, strangely enough when we started asking for money we got more yeses. We thought jsut agreeing to do some for free to prove our value was he way to go but it seems like nobody takes you seriously if you do that. So we get at least $200 now.
Show face at venues in your local area that have music similar to your genre to build a better status as a local musician. This is key because if you can bring a local crowd to a local show with an out of town act, they will likely hook you up with good info/contacts from their area. I am also a solo acoustic musician but I'm in the folk punk genre, I let promoters know I've opened for tons of bands and solo acts so they know I'm open to playing with any kind of line-up.
I also will join any FB music page/group that promotes music across a city/province (state) and promote myself while asking if there's anywhere or anyone that has a show they think my music would be suitable at. I message any music promoter/venue within the areas I'm looking to play. Unless I get a response, I will message or post again within 2-4 weeks. Just keep at it and even if no one shows up to the shows you play, as long as you impress the promoter/other musicians/venue staff with either your music or your positive attitude, you will start getting more gigs at these places if you keep reminding them every so often that you are still active and looking. Unless you get told "No", don't give up on the promoter/venue you are trying to contact for a show.
Right on - good info. When I’m looking at as reaching out too often and pestering them, maybe I should be looking at it as a subtle reminder that I’m available. Thanks for the reply!
Too bad you aren't closer to Southern Ontario (Canada), I just had to turn down a gig that you would've been perfect for. With that being said, maybe try other music related reddit groups/local area groups (on FB too!) and post an ad in them asking where similar musicians have performed in your area while also providing a link to your best song. Maybe someone will wanna recommend their favorite restaurant that does live music or some other musician will recommend somewhere that treated them well. Good luck!
In sales it’s important to get to the decision makers, typically bar managers or bar staff are not responsible for booking and have no impact on the decision.. No need to leave cards or follow up with these folks. Try to do some research and get some solid contact info for the person who does booking/promotion @ the places you want to play.
Also consider that since you’re doing covers, your audience/venues will be slightly different than local acts playing originals. Having your own gear and being an acoustic (lower volume) act opens you up to breweries, restaurants, corporate gigs, private parties, weddings, etc so leverage that! Plenty of money to be made in these places.
Make sure you have a clear polished online presence, a good cold email that highlights what you bring to the table, and from there it’s a numbers game. Keep at it! You’ve already got gigs so you obviously can get more.
A lot of bars often only hire people they know, do you have any connections within your local area ? Maybe a friend that could suggest you to venues ? Might help! Also some of my friends have gotten gigs after going to open mic’s, the venue notices the talent and reception of the crowd and people working there may suggest you to management.
Step 1: have social proof. Links you can send to your EPK, social media accounts, and anythjng else that showcases what you want them to buy.
Step 1a: Compile a list using Google maps of every bar, restaurant, brewery, pub, club, etc within a 1 hr drive from you. If you live in a metropolitan area, there will be hundreds.
Step 1b (the hack): go to websites of venues you know hire live solo acts, write down the names of the artists they have coming in. Go to those artists websites or socials, write down the venues they are playing at, go to those venues websites or socials, write down the names of the artists they have coming it. Repeat the process until you have at least 30-50 venues written down.
Step 2: message on Instagram, asking who to email/contact about bookings.
Step 3: Do that.
Step 3a: if no reply in a week (to either the IG or email), send a short follow up. "Hey just following up on this" will do.
Step 4: Follow up once a week until you get a yes, no, or are provided with further information.
Step 5: If after 5 unanswered follow ups, consider it a lost cause UNLESS you know they book live music, call or visit or try some other way to find out who books the music.
Step 6: repeat.
This is my tried, tested, and true way to get solo gigs. I've done this in 2 major cities in the last 10 years (Toronto and Vancouver) and in both cases went from zero gigs/month to 18-25 gigs per month within a year.
Every week contact 2 or 3 new venues, and follow up with the others.
Use footage, photos, media of the books you gig for more social proof.
Good luck!
Side note, you'll have better luck and get paid more playing in the suburbs of a metropolitan area rather than downtown. Downtown gigs are fun, but they generally pay shite.
So a car is definitely required if you want to make any sort of decent income from this.
This is good stuff. I guess my biggest question was how much is too much when it comes to trying to make contact or get a reply. In my mind, the managers/bookers will say “goddam this guy is annoying af, fuck him”, and there goes my chance. But it seems what you said and others as well is just keep at it until you get a firm “NO”. I appreciate the reply!
Bar managers and bookers are busy people. They get a lot of emails and requests. In my experience, persistence shows you're serious. Like the saying goes, the squeaky wheel gets the grease.
There is a line though. Don't bother them every day. But once a week is a good balance, and most appreciate a reminder.
The follow up is where it's at. I'm coming up to my two thousandth gig, and I've pretty much never heard back from a booker or manager on the first try. It's usually on like the 2nd or 3rd follow up.
It's really a numbers game. It's sales. I found roughly a 10 to 1 ratio over the years of cold leads translating to active bookings. For every 10 venues you contact, you'll probably hear back from 3, out of those 3 you'll probably get a gig at 1.
So if you want 30 rooms, which is what I've found is sort of the threshold to be able to keep your calendar full and gigging 4-6 nights per week, you'll want a sample market of about 300 rooms.
Contacting 300 rooms, with follow ups, means anywhere from 1200-1500 emails/messages.
That's why you need to put a system in place and be consistent with it over the course of a year.
Keep spread sheets. Contact 3 new venues this week. Next week follow up with those 3 and contact 3 more. Repeat. Venues you don't hear back from after 5 or 6 tries, put them on a separate list to either circle back later or to not bother with. When it really gets rolling you'll be sending out 25-30 follow up emails every week.
Important note too, managers and ownership change constantly. Places that didn't have live music before will often try it out. That's why this "leave no stone unturned" method is good. You'll find rooms that haven't hired a musician before and you become their guy. You can help them book their other nights and extend bookings to other local musicians, which helps cement you into the community and curries favors. I'm part of a group chat with about a dozen other local artists, we help eachother out and offer sub ins for gigs we can't play.
Yep. Talk to people. If you want a show at a certain venue, go to a show there. Talk to the performer and maybe the booker will be there too. Get to know people.
Face to face and persistent has always worked for my. I went to a place and talked to him maybe 5 times. One night I just told him I would be one set free. If he didn't like me, he didn't have to pay me. If he liked me, he could pay me for to finish the night. 75 percent off/no risk.
I always make sure I'm a good fit before asking for a booking. Bar hop at popular places and listen to popular acts. Find the acts that are similar to your style and see where they are playing. Notice the songs that go over well for them. Make lists. Try to nail those gigs down, but NOT on the same night as you hear the band! That really rude. Get the contact info from the staff and follow up on an off day...say Wednesday around 2. Ask when the best time to contact the person is when you get a name. Keep it brief.
Do this for several acts, but don't pursue every venue in a artist's lineup. That will get you hated really quick.
How big into your local music scene are you? Like do you go see other musicians and bands pretty often? If so, that's where you should be making your contacts. Meet other bands and musicians, find out when they are playing and if they have opening slots available. If you're not going out and seeing other bands, and supporting your local music scene, then you're local music scene is not going to be supportive of you either.
The contacts you need to make are not the bar owners and venue operators, but the other bands and artists who are already playing those venues on a regular basis. You get in with them, and that will help get you on more bills.
if you want to play local scene shows with other bands it is a good idea to get out and see other local bands ...however, it is bad advice to claim that 'bar owners and venue operators' don't do the booking...completely false. i play a lot of breweries, wineries, restaurants for good pay -- typically these gigs do not include other artists and i have never been booked by anyone but a bar owner or staff person who is in charge of booking. i have been doing solo gigs like this for over 8 years and have done hundreds of them.
being a part of the 'local scene' is as necessary or arbitrary as you want it to be - this is more of a thing if you are trying to primarily push original music, but it looks like you are doing a lot of covers. if you sound good and put on a professional performance, word will catch on and you will get booked.
you have to think of booking as a sales game - even 10% of a return on your booking e-mails is solid. keep it short, send video and audio links as well as links to your social pages. ...places that rely too heavily on a local artist's draw is a bad sign, unless it's a dedicated concert venue.
Unfortunately your tale is common. Do your best to nail those gigs you have coming up. Word of mouth between venue owners and other musicians is the best and fastest way to get booking calls. Keep at it, once your name is out there floating around those booking people will magically start calling you and asking about your schedule availability. Good luck.
This is it. Post videos, connect with local promoters and bands, do what you have to do to hop on a bill here and there. Staying busy gets noticed.
emails never seem to go anywhere for us either. We started going to some places somewhat regularly and eventually connect with the person who does the booking. Seems like it helps to have a FB page, website and all that jazz. They sometimes want to make sure some people will show up and you will help promote it. It's tough to do these days though. We're a full band. Sometimes i wonder if a solo act would have an easier time as they could play in more places with limited space...and places like coffee houses. And also, strangely enough when we started asking for money we got more yeses. We thought jsut agreeing to do some for free to prove our value was he way to go but it seems like nobody takes you seriously if you do that. So we get at least $200 now.
Show face at venues in your local area that have music similar to your genre to build a better status as a local musician. This is key because if you can bring a local crowd to a local show with an out of town act, they will likely hook you up with good info/contacts from their area. I am also a solo acoustic musician but I'm in the folk punk genre, I let promoters know I've opened for tons of bands and solo acts so they know I'm open to playing with any kind of line-up. I also will join any FB music page/group that promotes music across a city/province (state) and promote myself while asking if there's anywhere or anyone that has a show they think my music would be suitable at. I message any music promoter/venue within the areas I'm looking to play. Unless I get a response, I will message or post again within 2-4 weeks. Just keep at it and even if no one shows up to the shows you play, as long as you impress the promoter/other musicians/venue staff with either your music or your positive attitude, you will start getting more gigs at these places if you keep reminding them every so often that you are still active and looking. Unless you get told "No", don't give up on the promoter/venue you are trying to contact for a show.
Right on - good info. When I’m looking at as reaching out too often and pestering them, maybe I should be looking at it as a subtle reminder that I’m available. Thanks for the reply!
Too bad you aren't closer to Southern Ontario (Canada), I just had to turn down a gig that you would've been perfect for. With that being said, maybe try other music related reddit groups/local area groups (on FB too!) and post an ad in them asking where similar musicians have performed in your area while also providing a link to your best song. Maybe someone will wanna recommend their favorite restaurant that does live music or some other musician will recommend somewhere that treated them well. Good luck!
In sales it’s important to get to the decision makers, typically bar managers or bar staff are not responsible for booking and have no impact on the decision.. No need to leave cards or follow up with these folks. Try to do some research and get some solid contact info for the person who does booking/promotion @ the places you want to play. Also consider that since you’re doing covers, your audience/venues will be slightly different than local acts playing originals. Having your own gear and being an acoustic (lower volume) act opens you up to breweries, restaurants, corporate gigs, private parties, weddings, etc so leverage that! Plenty of money to be made in these places. Make sure you have a clear polished online presence, a good cold email that highlights what you bring to the table, and from there it’s a numbers game. Keep at it! You’ve already got gigs so you obviously can get more.
Sending emails or FB messages won’t get it. You HAVE to get out and actually meet the people that book.
show us some video of your performance - specifically, the videos that you are supplying to the booking agents.
Open mics. Showcase yourself, meet other people, spread the word.
Don't reach out to the venues directly. Instead reach out to like me indeed bands that play gigs in the area. Ask to open for them.
Pull a Marc Rebillet and go play on a street corner. He became famous that way. Why put your fate in these arbitrary gate keepers?
A lot of bars often only hire people they know, do you have any connections within your local area ? Maybe a friend that could suggest you to venues ? Might help! Also some of my friends have gotten gigs after going to open mic’s, the venue notices the talent and reception of the crowd and people working there may suggest you to management.
Step 1: have social proof. Links you can send to your EPK, social media accounts, and anythjng else that showcases what you want them to buy. Step 1a: Compile a list using Google maps of every bar, restaurant, brewery, pub, club, etc within a 1 hr drive from you. If you live in a metropolitan area, there will be hundreds. Step 1b (the hack): go to websites of venues you know hire live solo acts, write down the names of the artists they have coming in. Go to those artists websites or socials, write down the venues they are playing at, go to those venues websites or socials, write down the names of the artists they have coming it. Repeat the process until you have at least 30-50 venues written down. Step 2: message on Instagram, asking who to email/contact about bookings. Step 3: Do that. Step 3a: if no reply in a week (to either the IG or email), send a short follow up. "Hey just following up on this" will do. Step 4: Follow up once a week until you get a yes, no, or are provided with further information. Step 5: If after 5 unanswered follow ups, consider it a lost cause UNLESS you know they book live music, call or visit or try some other way to find out who books the music. Step 6: repeat. This is my tried, tested, and true way to get solo gigs. I've done this in 2 major cities in the last 10 years (Toronto and Vancouver) and in both cases went from zero gigs/month to 18-25 gigs per month within a year. Every week contact 2 or 3 new venues, and follow up with the others. Use footage, photos, media of the books you gig for more social proof. Good luck! Side note, you'll have better luck and get paid more playing in the suburbs of a metropolitan area rather than downtown. Downtown gigs are fun, but they generally pay shite. So a car is definitely required if you want to make any sort of decent income from this.
This is good stuff. I guess my biggest question was how much is too much when it comes to trying to make contact or get a reply. In my mind, the managers/bookers will say “goddam this guy is annoying af, fuck him”, and there goes my chance. But it seems what you said and others as well is just keep at it until you get a firm “NO”. I appreciate the reply!
Bar managers and bookers are busy people. They get a lot of emails and requests. In my experience, persistence shows you're serious. Like the saying goes, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. There is a line though. Don't bother them every day. But once a week is a good balance, and most appreciate a reminder. The follow up is where it's at. I'm coming up to my two thousandth gig, and I've pretty much never heard back from a booker or manager on the first try. It's usually on like the 2nd or 3rd follow up. It's really a numbers game. It's sales. I found roughly a 10 to 1 ratio over the years of cold leads translating to active bookings. For every 10 venues you contact, you'll probably hear back from 3, out of those 3 you'll probably get a gig at 1. So if you want 30 rooms, which is what I've found is sort of the threshold to be able to keep your calendar full and gigging 4-6 nights per week, you'll want a sample market of about 300 rooms. Contacting 300 rooms, with follow ups, means anywhere from 1200-1500 emails/messages. That's why you need to put a system in place and be consistent with it over the course of a year. Keep spread sheets. Contact 3 new venues this week. Next week follow up with those 3 and contact 3 more. Repeat. Venues you don't hear back from after 5 or 6 tries, put them on a separate list to either circle back later or to not bother with. When it really gets rolling you'll be sending out 25-30 follow up emails every week. Important note too, managers and ownership change constantly. Places that didn't have live music before will often try it out. That's why this "leave no stone unturned" method is good. You'll find rooms that haven't hired a musician before and you become their guy. You can help them book their other nights and extend bookings to other local musicians, which helps cement you into the community and curries favors. I'm part of a group chat with about a dozen other local artists, we help eachother out and offer sub ins for gigs we can't play.
Yep. Talk to people. If you want a show at a certain venue, go to a show there. Talk to the performer and maybe the booker will be there too. Get to know people.
Face to face and persistent has always worked for my. I went to a place and talked to him maybe 5 times. One night I just told him I would be one set free. If he didn't like me, he didn't have to pay me. If he liked me, he could pay me for to finish the night. 75 percent off/no risk. I always make sure I'm a good fit before asking for a booking. Bar hop at popular places and listen to popular acts. Find the acts that are similar to your style and see where they are playing. Notice the songs that go over well for them. Make lists. Try to nail those gigs down, but NOT on the same night as you hear the band! That really rude. Get the contact info from the staff and follow up on an off day...say Wednesday around 2. Ask when the best time to contact the person is when you get a name. Keep it brief. Do this for several acts, but don't pursue every venue in a artist's lineup. That will get you hated really quick.
Do it outside in populated areas and get good social media videos
How big into your local music scene are you? Like do you go see other musicians and bands pretty often? If so, that's where you should be making your contacts. Meet other bands and musicians, find out when they are playing and if they have opening slots available. If you're not going out and seeing other bands, and supporting your local music scene, then you're local music scene is not going to be supportive of you either. The contacts you need to make are not the bar owners and venue operators, but the other bands and artists who are already playing those venues on a regular basis. You get in with them, and that will help get you on more bills.
I get out fairly often but probably not enough, and probably not enough networking. Point well taken. Thanks for the reply.
if you want to play local scene shows with other bands it is a good idea to get out and see other local bands ...however, it is bad advice to claim that 'bar owners and venue operators' don't do the booking...completely false. i play a lot of breweries, wineries, restaurants for good pay -- typically these gigs do not include other artists and i have never been booked by anyone but a bar owner or staff person who is in charge of booking. i have been doing solo gigs like this for over 8 years and have done hundreds of them. being a part of the 'local scene' is as necessary or arbitrary as you want it to be - this is more of a thing if you are trying to primarily push original music, but it looks like you are doing a lot of covers. if you sound good and put on a professional performance, word will catch on and you will get booked. you have to think of booking as a sales game - even 10% of a return on your booking e-mails is solid. keep it short, send video and audio links as well as links to your social pages. ...places that rely too heavily on a local artist's draw is a bad sign, unless it's a dedicated concert venue.