The world of concert promotions is full of contracts, legal agreements, insurance policies and riders. In order to make the optimum business decisions, a concert  promoter has to have a working knowledge of all of these legal documents. Not understanding parts of a contract or rider could lead to confusion and c venue enging ies down the road.

Concert  promoters could make a very large amount of money, and then, they could lose money as well. Many individuals do not realize that quite regularly, performance  promoters actually use their personal money to fund a performance event. All of the party expenses are his or her responsibility up front. Once the tickets have been sold, the band gets their cut and the bills get paid. It is only then that the  promoter gets what’s left. For this reason, it is of the ut most importance to get as a lot of paying customers in the door as possible.

Some of the major expenses involved with concert promotion are the Venue rental and gathering insurance. The  promoter contacts the Venue and works out a cost for the duration of the event. Some Venues will require up-front payment while others can require a down payment with the remainder due at the end of the concert. Insurance is absolutely necessary and endorses to protect the Venue owners, concert  promoter and band from possible litigation.

Also,  the performance  promoter bears the fee of all advertising promotions and other marketing costs.  promoters these days have a variety of options for marketing. They might use the Web, radio, television and even flyers to get the word out about their event. Marketing, when done properly, regularly takes up a fairly substantial portion of the performance  promoters budget.

A successful concert  promoter understands how to advertise to get the most people to buy tickets for the show. They’ve got to have a wonderful sense of the performer that they’re promoting as well as their audiences. Whether a concert attracts a immense audiences or a small one depends on how well the gathering was  promote d, plain and simple. Concert  promoters really have one objective; to make sure that enough tickets sell to make a profit. Ideally, all the tickets will sell for every night or day the gathering will run, but that is not guaranteed.

The location, size and even layout of a Venue has to be taken into consideration by the concert  promoter. In order to put on a wonderful rock concert, everything has to be just right. Everything must be considered, from performer dressing rooms to the house sound system and lighting. Pleasing the performer is only part of the story though. The fans has to be taken care of as well, both inside and outside the Venue. Things prefer security, parking and even restroom facilities all fall under the concert  promoters watchful eye.

At some performance s, the performance  promoter will have to pitch in and advocate in other ways. Concert  promoters are oftentimes responsible for making sure things are ready for the band. This can include performance ting up the stage, doing sound-checks and lighting a DJ ustments. Quite oftentimes it also means they will have to decorate the Venue to suit the performance.

At smaller get togethers, the concert  promoter is again and again responsible for collecting tickets or working the merchandise table. At certain categories of get togethers, they could even have the task of checking ID’s at the door the day of the event.  promoters are again and again furthermore responsible for help ing to break down the stage used by the band. Clean-up following the concert could furthermore be the  promoters job, depending on the negotiated contract.

Being a concert  promoter can be exhilarating, rewarding and risky, but it’s worth it. Concert  promoters have great jobs because they work directly with the musicians. Besides that and the fact that the income can be excellent, recall, they’ve got some of the best seats in the house at every show.

Build your own performer website

If you want to have credibility you need to have your own band website. Register one as soon as possible; otherwise a person else will. I know one musician who achieved major success and now has to fight because somebody else owns the domain name.

It will furthermore be easier to build your own mailing list. If you ever tried placing a sign-up form on your MySpace profile, you know what I mean. There is an annoying message that comes up anytime someone tries to join your list.

The message is standard ally a warning that’s supposed to protect MySpace.com users form getting their password stolen. Even though they mean well, it could really hurt your sign-up rate.

For cheap domain names go to GoDaddy.com. I use them myself.

If You Sell Your Music Web – Do It On iTunes

Tunecore.com is a service that will get your music not only on iTunes but on all other major Internet music stores as well.

It does not fee extraordinarily much to performance up and is extraordinarily simple to use.

You ought to furthermore list your music on compact disc Baby.net. This web site is the number one place to  promote  your compact disc  On-line. compact disc  Baby gets a immense number of visitors every month who are looking for new music to buy.

Promote your music.

Don’t just sign up for these services. You need to vigorously  encourage  yourself if you want to succeed Online. If all you do is to wait for something to happen you will probably end up incredibly disappointed.

You must truly devote yourself to succeeding if you want to make a living from your music.

Musicians who want to make money with their music need to think about several more things than just great riffs and solos – they need to take care of the business side of the music business, too. Here is a quick list of the most necessary things you may do to take your music career to the next level. (Solo artists may replace the word “band” with “yourself”) How To Market Your Band:

1. Think like a Marketer. Too generally artists get all consumed with the music side of the business and pay little or no attention to the business side. Do not forget, it’s called the music business, so if you want to be able to make money doing it, you need to learn to market your band. furthermore, if you are the one watching what’s going on, there’s less occasion of sharks ripping you off.

2. Produce a Press Kit For Yourself. performer promotion starts with a wonderful press kit. This may be a physical folder with the band’s photo, member bios, business cards and demo CD, or an Internet version that you may send via email. Get both if you may afford it. Establish with the “e” version first.

3. Get a World Wide Web Presence. These days to  encourage  your band, you simply have to be Internet. You ought to have your own Website, as well as be on other band marketing website s, such as MySpace, Facebook and YouTube. Your own website will be where you could keep in touch with listeners ad go into greater detail, prefer music style, type of etc.. The marketing websites are simply to get your band in front of more individuals and ought to always have some of your song samples and a links back to your own website.

4 Build a Contact List of Your listeners. At least get their email, full address is better. Once you have the list, keep in touch with them never ending ly, telling them what you are doing , where you are playing and how much you appreciate them. A nice way to collect and manage a fan base is by using Constant Contact. It’s an email management tool that furthermore has pre-made templates you might use to send newsletters and email promotions to your listeners.

5 Have Product to Sell to Your listeners. At a minimum have some of your recorded music to sell either on compact discs or flash drives. You ought to additionally get T-shirts, hats and swea tee shirts made that you may sell at your performances and on your Website. You may performance up an Online retail seller selling stuff with your band’s logo on it at cafépress.com. The optimum part is, no performance up fee!

10cc: an urban legend claims that the band who wrote the hit I’m Not in Love has chosen her name as a gesture to the average man ejaculation, which is estimated as 9cc of sperm. As a matter of fact, the band name is originated in a dream the band manager, Jonathan King, had in which he was managing a band by the name of 10cc

Alice in Chains: Lane Stanley and Jerry Cantrell had intended to form a heavy metal band that will perform covers of Slayer while wearing dresses. Although there plan did not come out, the name of the band remained. Alice in Chains is a take off on Alice in Wonderland with an S and M twist.

Bee Gees: The Gibb brothers 1st had in mind the name The Rattlesnakes as a name of their band.

Later they have come up with the idea of honoring the initials of both Brothers Gibb and their close friend and one of their 1st support s, DJ Bill Gates, who has little to do with the founder mof Microsoft.

Chumbawaba: evident ly, one of the band members had a strange dream, in which he may not decide which public toilet door he should enter since the Men and Women signs were replaced with Chumba and Wamba signs.

The Doors: formerly named Psychedelic Ranger, inspired by a William Blake quote: If the doors of perception were to be cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite.

Elvis Costello: was born as Declan Patrick McManus. When he had started his musical career, he adopted an alias created by a combination of Elvis Presley and Lou Costello, mainly because he represents the exact opposite of the other Elvis.

The Fall: taken from the title of a novel authored by Albert Camus.

Grateful Dead: originally named The Warlocks. The origin of the cult band  final name has been inspired by an old English folk tale, which themed around a traveler who’s saved by the spirit of a dead individual who’s grateful for the travelers generosity and his willingness to pay the deads man debts in order for him to be buried.

The Happy Mondays: Shaun Rider has been inspired by the happy Mondays he and the other members of the performer were having as unemployed who were spend ing the day that follows the weekend in sleeping while the other people were off to work.

Ice T: the controversial gangsta rapper has chosen to name himself after Iceberg Slim, a famous pimp who later became an author of books that describe gangsta living.

Johnny Rotten: the Sex Pistols leader has been born as John Lydon. He received a stage name that has been found more suitable for an anarchist punk with a session of rotten teeth.

Kraftwerk: the pioneer electronic band adopted the German translation of the term Power Station.

L. LL Cool J: James Todd Smith pseudonym is an Acronym for Ladies Love Cool James.

Marilyn Manson: the bandleader pseudonym mixes two of Americas preferred celebrities: Marilyn Monroe and Charles Manson. Other members of the performer are using the pseudonyms Ginger Fish, Twiggy Ramirez and Madonna Wayne Gacy.

Nine Inch Nails: inspired by the nails that attached Jesus to the cross

The Orb: in Woody Allens Sleeper, there is a silver ball that causes individuals who touches it to react in strange ways. This device has been called The Orb.

The Pogues: originally named Pogue Mahone, which is Kiss my Ass in Gaelic, the performer shortened the name to avoid airplay censorship.

Queen: one word that catches both transvestite and royalty connotation was the perfect performer name in the eyes of Freddie Mercury.

The Replacements: according to the myth, the punk rock performer adapted the name following replacing a missing performer in a gig, an incident that made them introduced themselves as The Replacements.

Sex Pistols: Malcolm Mclaren is responsible for the choice of the name, partly to help  promote  the clothes shop called Sex owned by Vivien Westwood who used to be his girlfriend at the time.

TLC: the initials of the band members nicknames T Boz, Left Eye and Chilli. It furthermore suggests the acronym for Tender Loving Care.

UB40: the politically oriented band was named following a kind of British unemployment form.

Velvet Underground: named following the title of an unknown sex book that one of the band members has found lying on the sidewalk

Weezer: the performer front man has been nicknamed Weezer in high school since he has been a geek who suffered from asthma that caused him to make wheezing sounds.

XTC: this punk band was formed in 1976 long before the usage of the drug has been popular. The band had change d its original name Star Park after watching a Jimmy Durante clip in which he states: Im in ecstasy!

Yeah Yeah Yeah: according to Karen O, the inspiration to the hip band name came from the New Yorker phrase, which means something like whatever.

Promoting your band with vinyl stickers is a new way to get individuals talking. Vinyl stickers can be custom made with your band logo or life size photos of your band in action and of the band members.

What’s this new vinyl sticker material called? FotoSticks. Repositionable and reusable vinyl stickers that will not harm walls. You can stick them up just about anywhere and then take them down and move them somewhere else. Assuming that they get dirty, just has been h them off with warm water.

You could give away free and inexpensive smaller vinyl stickers while selling life size stickers to establish a promotion that funds itself.

Here are several promotional ideas:

• Give away small vinyl stickers of your band’s logo at the door

• Sell life size wall stickers of your performer in action and the members along with immense stickers of your performer logo.

• Find out where agents live and plaster their neighborhood bulletin boards and retailer windows (with permission, of course)

• Place them in jewel cases

• Put them on fan’s cars during a gig

Here are some more detailed promo ideas…

The band Brew

Thanks to Mike Larrabee for this idea, it’s great. Do you’ve a Regional micro-brewery? See about getting several cases of beer in the absence of front labels. Then establish your own label and order the design as a FotoStick. You can put them on the bottles and your audiences can buy a beer and get a free promotional sticker that can be re-stuck anywhere they like.

Steal This Sticker

Put your band stickers on bulletin boards, windows and anywhere else you dare. people might simply peel them off and use them again anywhere they want. They will not harm walls or windows.

Artist Co-Promotion

Find a wonderful musician or two and have a monthly promotion that includes a limited run of only a specified amount of stickers featuring a certain artist. When they are gone, that’s it, they are no longer available. Do this each month and you may  encourage  collecting band memorabilia and produce some buzz.

Bar Graffiti

Put your performer stickers all over the bar or club you are playing in and let the fans know that they could peel them off and keep them.

Photos of listeners with performer Members

At each concert have one of the roadies take pictures of your listeners with their favorite band members. Collect their addresses and then send them some FotoSticks a few weeks later to remind them of the night. You may be sure that they will show their friends and family. Since they are repositionable, they might put them on their notebooks or laptops to show around and then put them on their wall once they are done bragging.

A across the board promotion plan will cover many varying areas:

It will permit audiences to hear a band’s music without actually having to present at a concert event. This can be achieved through two distinct methods. Creating a music cd that can be distributed free of charge is a excellent way to build a fan base. Members of the performer can be given an allotment to give out through their everyday lives. Custom stickers can be placed within the jewel case, allowing audiences to  promote  the performer on their own. You can likewise produce music MP3’s and host them on the Internet for free download. Both of these methods will allow prospective audiences to listen to the band’s music in a comfortable performance ting without having to go to a show.

Use the Internet. The Internet is an incredible promotional tool if properly used. Almost every band has a presence on social networking web sites such as MySpace and FaceBook. You might use these to host your free MP3’s, let fans request more information and band stickers and bumper stickers. Stickers and bumper stickers can be custom made to meet a band’s particular needs through custom sticker printing.

Playing any Venue that will book the band, from free shows at a Local bar to annual Battle of the Bands competitions held in many cities. The more Venues played, the amazing the number of individuals that are able to listen to the band’s music and see experience their stage show. This allows bands to dramatically increase the amount of buzz generated about the band and enhance name recognition in the public.

Possibly the single best promotional tool at a performers disposal are custom printed performer stickers. These are an incredibly popular way for individuals to display their interests, causes, political statements and more. Through custom made stickers and bumper stickers, performers might use their original artwork, graphics, logos or designs that they might want to use. They are created through custom sticker printing and can be found many places on the Internet. Virtually all fans are more than happy to put stickers of their favorite performers on their notebooks, backpacks, in their cars, on bulletin boards and anywhere else they might contemplate. This allows a vast number of others to see the band’s name, artwork and logo designs, increasing name recognition by a large amount.

A across the board promotional plan encompasses all this and more. Each aspect listed here dramatically improves the fame and name recognition of a performer and contributes to rising the band’s fame and fan base. In short, the more individuals that are aware of a band’s presence, the more individuals are able to listen to and appreciate the band’s music and attend performance s. fans are what the music industry is all about, in the end, and the more fans a performer has, the greater the opportunitys that the performer will be signed by a music label.

StickerGiant has been founded in 2000 by an unknown mad scientist named John Fischer and world renowned illustrator Mike Brooks. Since then John has made sure that StickerGiant works to source and sell ALL stickers that represent a myriad of views, Freedom of Expression through Stickers is our motto. think about StickerGiant as a non-partisan apparent ing house for the 1st Amendment. all of us don’t write the stickers here, all of us just provide a place for others to express themselves. Remember, Diversity is what makes America Great!

KC and The Sunshine band is one of the most recognizable names from the disco era of the 1970s. Throughout their career, KC and The Sunshine band culminated a total of nine Grammy nominations, winning three of them, including two for KC and The Sunshine Band’s work on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, and an American Music Award as well.

Along with the Beatles, KC and the Sunshine performer were the 1st musicians to have four #1 singles in the span of one year: “Boogie Shoes”, ” Rock Your Baby”, “Get Down Tonight”, and ” That is The Way (I prefer It)”. KC & The Sunshine Band’s other hits prefer “(Shake, Shake, Shake), Shake Your Booty” and ” I am Your Boogie Man” still stand as milestones of the disco age today.

With KC & The Sunshine Band’s funky and vibrant tones, the brass oriented disco flavor that made up KC and The Sunshine Band’s sound additionally in corporate d Motown, Funk, Latin percussion, Caribbean spice, Southern soul, as well as pop hooks which developed their sound. KC & The Sunshine band still tour and perform today.

Today, KC and The Sunshine band are still touring the world bringing to audiences the sensation and flavor which they are known for.

Booking Entertainment is there to advocate you book KC & The Sunshine performer for your next parties. You simply fill out a form and Booking Entertainment will handle all the necessaries to provide you with the greatest experience expected whether it’s a performance or a private event.

2) Guarantee

3) Combination of Guarantee + Door

4) 80/20 split

1) When you are just starting out this is probably going to be the the majority common deal you will see. You may be wondering why I did not mention FREE. Never is there a reason to play for free, unless it’s for charity or a cause of some kind, in which case the organizer for that show should at the least cover all of your expenses and rentals that you may need for the show, getting to the show, food and drinks at the show. As an musician playing live you are trying to get your name out there but more necessary ly you are selling a service.  promoters and venue owners hire you and your performer members to draw people into their establishment so that they may sell beer, food and other drinks to the patrons. With larger shows the  promoter is trying to sell tickets as well as make a cut of the food and drink sales, but we’ll get into that later. For small shows it’s probably the owner of the venue /bar or a  promoter that works internally that is hiring you, so their main concern should be trying to sell booze and food.

In this case, in my opinion, there should be no reason for them to take a cut of the admission to get into the show. You should be able to mutually agree on a “door price” so that it is not too high that it will drive customers away, but enough that you can justify being there. Sometimes the owner will say that he needs to take a cut of the door to cover some of the expenses of the club or for whatever reason. Although I would a number of times disagree with this but when you are just starting out and trying to build a fan base at times you’ve to accept this type of thing in order to get some exposure. Once you’ve a dedicated fan base that will attend to your shows a number of times then you can tell the owner that you are bound to bring in a certain number of people and that you deserve the entire door or to split the door with the rest of the performers on the bill. Assuming that the owner is still not willing to relinquish his clutch on the door cover you can want to think about switching club s. It can be a wonderful sign to your fan base that will see the move a step up in your career.

Obviously,in this form of negotiation it will be in the owner’s best interest to have the entry fee be little or zero as this will allow for passers by to stroll in when they hear the music. If the se possible patrons find out there is a cover to get in they might not want to drop the cash. If the  promoter is uncommonly concerned about the cover price being too high you might want to discuss the possibility of a guarantee.

2) Guarantee is where you want to be. When still playing the indie circuit this is the simple st way to book a show. All guarantee means is that the  promoter or club owner guarantees to pay the musician a session amount for the night. In this situation there is never an argument about how much was made at the door, and for the most part, never an argument about expenses. The  promoter books the performer for say $100.00 to performance and the rest is up to the performer to deal with. This way, as an artist, you know exactly what you are going to be making and might plan your expenses appropriately. When doing a door show there are many variables including expenses to get to the gig, sound engineer, gear and then the biggest variable, THAT people attend ! If nobody shows up to a door concert you do not make any resources and all expenses are out of pocket. When doing a guarantee there are still variables but at least there is no variable of people. Either the  promoter is counting on people walking by to come in and have a drink or is doing their level optimum to sell tickets for the show. All you have to worry about in this situation is showing up on time, sounding the optimum you might during the sound check, making a final ing impression on the  promoter and doing what you do optimum… blowing the audiences away.

3) The next perfect thing to having a show that pays a guarantee is having a show that pays both a guarantee and a bonus for the amount of people that attend. This is a rare case and can be a wonderful deal, but at times this does not work to your favor.  promoters who are looking to save some money will try to book musicians with a smaller guarantee and a cut of the door or ticket sales. This might not be as good because it does not “guarantee” you an amount, still if you’re expecting a large crowd to this show or are able to get a good buzz going, this might be the way to go.

4) The 80/20 Spl it’s a common deal when you have a booking agent and are playing large shows. 80/20 splits are al most always booked by an outside  promoter or an organizer for an event. The deal is remarkably similar to a guarantee, the only difference occurs when the  promoter breaks even with his costs. The way it breaks down, the  promoter lays out all costs on his part such as security, Venue rental, advertising, cost for printing tickets, food and drinks for band and crew, gear rental, and all other costs for putting on the show. The  promoter likewise includes a 10 %  promoter cost to pay himself and a guarantee for the band. Once all of these costs have been met from ticket sales, the remainder is profit and that is where the split comes in. And could be to your surprise, as it has been to mine, it’s spilt 80 % to the musician 20 % to the  promoter. This is al most a glorified guarantee and door deal except the musician gets 80 % of the ticket sales once all costs are covered. All artists hope to get themselves here one day as this is the most profitable performance deal, the only downside is by the time you get to this point there are regularly multiple other hands in your pot such as musician managers, booking agents and every now and then record organizations. It’s difficult when you’re an musician in demand to stay on top of your own affairs, and the more in demand you become the more you’ll find yourself neglecting other parts of your job as an artist. At this time you ought to think about giving away a piece of your pie in order to be able to focus on the parts of your career that are most vital to you. Nonetheless, we will get into this at a later point in much more detail.

Here is a standard breakdown of negotiations. The  promoter is going to want something specific from the artist, the majority of the time this to have the performer to play for as little resources as possible. The performer furthermore wants something, often to play for as much resources as possible or for as a lot of individuals as possible. The way that standard negotiations work is that both gatherings are going to try to get as much as they may of what they want. In order to do so, both gatherings are going to ex change other points of the deal to trade for things that they want. So your task in order to prep for negotiating with a  promoter or a venue owner is to evaluate what you want out of this show in a optimum world (these are called deal points) and rate each deal point in order of importance to you as an artist/band. If resources is the the majority vital thing in this show for you then that is what you’re going to be following and may have to give up other deal points in order to get more of what you want. In a situation where the  promoter is willing to give you a session amount say $100.00 for the show and 5 free tickets to invite whomever you want, but you’re playing in a city where you do not know anyone, you may ask the  promoter to cash those tickets at price back to him. If each ticket is $10.00 then it would be reasonable to ask the  promoter for a $150.00 guarantee with no tickets.

For an opposite situation where money is not that vital to you and exposure in this new town can be a higher priority, you might want to ask the  promoter to pay you $50.00 for the night and get 10 tickets, and invite members of the Local press or might be some record label representatives to attend for free to expose your music to them in hopes you might get on their show or reviewed in their newspaper/magazine.

Decide what you and your performer mates find are necessary to you for this specific show and fight for those points. A master negotiator knows how to get everything that they want and giving up wonderfully little of what they have. You have to learn what you think will be necessary to the  promoter and what isn’t so necessary to you and use those points to trade for what you want. also, attitude with negotiations is half the game. Assuming that the  promoter feels that the deal points you’re giving away are not necessary to you, then he/she can not feel it to be an adequate trade for something that they do find necessary to them. You need to give the impression that everything that you’re trading away is wonderfully necessary to you. Make a ample deal. Make them feel prefer they stole it away from you. Still another approach is that you make the  promoter feel prefer you’re doing them a favor. This approach can either work well or back fire and make you feel stupid. Assuming that the  promoter has any brains he knows what’s necessary to you and what’s not. If you try to tell him that you’re going to ” help him out” or give him the whole “I willtell you what” line, then you better be giving him something worth his while. Otherwise he won’t be fooled and will ask for much more from you then you can be willing to give up.

Understand that in practicing negotiations you are could going to blow a couple of deals. If you push things too far, the  promoter may get sick of getting nowhere and book another band. Unfortunately this is going to happen. This is wonderful time to practice another, al most more vital skills when dealing with the music business, DAMAGE CONTROL. No matter where you are in your career things are going to go wrong, that’s just a fact of life. Issues will arise and you will have to recover from mistakes. Being able to fix your issues or at least make the most of a bad situation is a nice skill to have and sign of a wonderful business man. In a case when you have pushed a  promoter too far you may have to apologize and make up a story of how you had been dicked around by another  promoter and was just being careful. Whatever the excuse can be, there is usually a way to boost the situation as long as you haven’t burned the bridge completely.

In the same breathe I’m going to reiterate something that I said in the last podcast. If you find that you are giving up too much in the deal or the deal is just not sounding as promising as it once was, get out. Yes, every now and then you need to give a little to get a little, but you cannot let  promoters step all over you. If you are not getting what you feel that you deserve, make a statement and tell the  promoter that you are no longer interested because you are not one to be taken advantage of. Advise the  promoter that If they wish to renegotiate they have your number. One of two things will happen, either the  promoter will look for another performer who will quietly accept what you refused to, or they will come to their senses, give you a call and try to work something new out. Assume they won’t call you back.

Well that about does it for booking. If you have any questions or a situation that you can be in that you would prefer us to comment on, send us a message in our contact section and all of us will either email you back or mention it in the next podcast.

As a new band, the idea of booking your 1st show may prove to be a daunting task. However, it doesn’t have to be. By following these easy steps, you may turn a seemingly overwhelming process into a productive one.

Making sure that the members of the band are all on the same page is an essential first step in the booking process. Agree on a number of shows per month that everyone will play. Put together a session of your optimum tunes and make a demo. Your demo should not include full-length tunes ; several short snippets of your strongest material will showcase your band’s strengths and will sell your band to potential Venues with little or no effort. With your demo, include a photo of the band, a short statement about the music or type of that the band plays, and your contact information, including the band’s website. Decide what Venues you’re interested in playing and how much you’ll charge them for playing, if anything. Getting these details out of the way early will create nice communication among the band members, thus avoiding misunderstandings in the future.

Next, do your research. Scope out the Regional scene; find out who your competition is, which bands play where, what Clubs cater to your specific sound, and who your target fans is. Talk to seasoned Regional acts; a number of times times, your fellow artists will be your perfect sources of information. Getting to know your competition, your fans and your Regional scene will prove to be an indispensable tool when you are selling yourself to club owners and booking agents. additionally, be open to anything. Limiting yourself to venues and bars will hinder your occasions of booking your band. Find out about open-mic nights in your area, provide to open for other bands for free and find out about Regional fairs and festivals where your performer could get some exposure.

When you are out and about checking out potential Clubs, ask for the names of the people responsible for booking performers at that location. Get their contact information and keep track. Use all of your contacts and, when calling them, be brief and to the point. Ask them Assuming that they have time to talk, and if not, when it would be a good time to contact them. Ask for permission before submitting your demo. Be persistent, but not pushy, and realize that it will take some time to get that job. Once you do get the gig, be sure to discuss payment, if any, as well as what you will need to bring as opposed to what the Club will provide. Be professional and be honest.

With determination, a little know-how, and some clever self-promotion, you may land that 1st gig and be on your way to success in no time.

For the legion of dedicated unbelievers out there, this is an article that attempts to shed light on the true value of an performer manager. Following are 8 reasons why a performer or performer needs a good manager:

1. Career Guidance – It is a number of times extremely difficult for musicians to step back from the day-to-day activities and see the extensive picture (you know – the old ‘forest-for-the-trees’ thing). A knowledgeable manager can see how everything in the extensive picture fits together, and can help the performer navigate through the a number of times -confusing maze of activities that seem unrelated yet are all part of a massive jigsaw puzzle. The manager offers career guidance and helps to session the overall game plan for the performer and the musicians’ team to follow.

2. Cheerleading – Even though fans are the central cheerleaders for an artist, someone has to communicate the same enthusiasm to the music business community. An performer manager will trumpet the artist’s message to record labels, booking agents,  promoters, media individual nel, venue bookers, independent retail accounts, etc., in order to keep them all engaged and enthusiastic.

3. Prestige – According to the majority record industry professionals, there is something to be said about an musician that has a manager. The logic is that if an musician is wonderful enough to attract management, there must be something of worth present. In fact, the majority major labels refuse to sign an musician unless they have solid team (manager, attorney and publicist) in place. An musician in the absence of management is just too much drama! Labels would rather deal with someone who knows how the music business works and can make decisions on a non-emotional basis.

4. Buffer – A manager might act as an effective screening buffer between the artist and people that want to do business with the artist. This buffer tends to attract legitimate industry players while at the same time scaring away scam artists. There are no scarier words to a scam artist than “please talk to my manager”.

5. Time management – There simply is not enough time in the day to do everything that needs to be done in order to further the career of an artist. In among writing tunes, conducting interviews, designing artwork for compact disc’s and merchandise, managing a mailing list, filling out copyright paperwork, rehearsing with the band, employing and firing musicians, updating band web sites and MySpace profiles, getting pictures taken, shooting and editing DVD’s and YouTube videos, sending out packages and/or updating EPK’s, researching, repairing and buying equipment, etc., there isn’t time to also craft a master game plan, solicit potential sponsorship partners, handle licensing requests, reach out to industry gatekeepers, attend industry networking get togethers, harass labels for tour guide, and so on. Some tasks may be delegated to the band while others may be handled by the manager.

6. Accountability – Part of a manager’s job is to hold individuals accountable. What happens when the financial tour help that was promised by the label fails to materialize? Or the check from the booking agent bounces? Or the FOH engineer at the show is MIA? Or the licensee fails to sign and return the contract but is using the artist’s songs anyway? Or the beer in the tour van vanishes? Somebody has to keep individuals honest, and that’s the majority appropriately the manager’s job.

7. Good Cop / Bad Cop – Need to fire the bass player but do not want to establish an enemy? Let the manager play bad cop and do the firing. Need to re-negotiate your contract and request more of a promotion budget? Let the manager play good cop and keep a positive spin on the proceedings. There are plenty of chances when the artist and manager could trade off playing good cop / bad cop.

8. Sounding board – A manager, even though basic ally an “honorary member of the band”, is a number of times on the outside looking in. Managers a number of times see things disparate ly than the artist, and can a number of times offer disparate perspectives, insights and results to problems the musician is encountering. Running pointers by a knowledgeable manager prior to making decisions a number of times allows for wonderful pointers to become better and bad pointers to be removed altogether from the to-do list.

Now,there you have it! 8 nice reasons why an artist needs a manager. Having said all this, however, it’s vital to note that having a bad manager is worse than having no manager at all.  A lot of wannabe managers think they could just “wing-it” with an artist, and continue to operate with the “lets-record-a-3-song-demo-and-shop-it-for-a-record-deal” mentality, even though the music business continues to undergo meaningful differ s. New business models are emerging, and only those managers that stay at the leading edge of the learning curve will establish successful strategies and provide meaningful counsel to their clients.