Booking gigs is hard. Give up today. Just kidding, here’s what to do
If you are not very well-known and your network of professional contacts in the music industry not that vast, you might struggle quite a bit to find ways to book gigs. Let’s look at the challenges musicians face when trying to book gigs and see how they can be overcome.
Playing a huge live concert is not just the pipe dream of any decent musician, it’s actually often a necessity to be able to make ends meet as a performing professional in the entertainment industry. But not everybody gets to be a rockstar.
What are the key challenges to booking gigs?
No offers, no personal contacts, better acts getting booked over you, venues don’t believe you can attract a crowd, venues booked months in advance, general overwhelm by the process of building a career and making a profit off your music.
Here are 5 ways to overcome them:
- Play excellent gigs.
This one might come as a no-brainer, but in reality, a lot of musicians don’t pay enough attention to smaller, less significant gigs. That leads to poorer, ‘sloppy’ performances that did not have to be that way.
Meh performances affect both your ability to convert crowd members to fans and your chances to meet prospective business contacts at your gigs.
2. Become #1 in your niche.
We are not talking #1 in your genre, but, say, you play a certain style of music in a certain neighborhood of a certain big city. If you are able to become the best in the niche for this sort of style of performance, music and type of crowd, you’ll be the go-to for many venues. They will invite you more often and you’ll be a staple.
That gives you a constant flow of new gigs, new fans, and more chances to make contacts with the right music professionals who will help forward your career, which leads us to:
3. Create a network of promoters and venues.
When someone walks up to you after a show, introduces themselves as a this-and-that, hands you their business card, don’t just shake their hand and toss the card as soon as you get home. Ask them how they can help you get your music to wider audiences and how they see your potential on the scene.
You never know what great ideas you might get, plus you’ll make an impression of someone motivated enough to do the hard work and increase your chances to get invited to partake in opportunities you haven’t encountered yet.
4. Don’t lower your standards.
The music industry is ruthless, and at times it can get disheartening to try and book gigs in the face of so much rejection. Our advice here is simple — just be aware of the fact that this comes with the territory and do.not.lower.your.standards.
You have to be paid fairly for your work, you have to reject some gigs that don’t fit your requirements and you have to have a good understanding of what types of performances can help you propel your career and which ones will just stunt it.
5. Well, the fifth one is just too precious to give away.
Actually, we detailed this one in our blog post, which offers a different take on each of the four tips outlined above and contains the full outline of this fifth one as well. Head onto the piece now to uncover it and let us know if you found it helpful ;)
