How To Easily Get A Lot More Music Gigs
Are you having a difficult time getting new gigs? You might be holding yourself back due to holding one or more limiting beliefs such as "venues don't need new bands right now," or "the competition is too much for my band to stand a chance". Truth is, these statements are based on fear and excuses. Here is the truth when it comes to getting new gigs:
Music venues are desperately seeking great musical acts to book (despite being booked well ahead of time). That's right, it's not the musicians who are unable to get gigs, it's the venues who struggle to find the right bands to play. Bookers and promoters throw away so much time (and money) by working with bands who just don't know what the venue needs from them. As soon as you can become the kind of musician that venues are seeking, you'll get tons of new gigs.
Four Huge Mistakes You Should Avoid When Attempting To Get More Gigs:
Mistake One: Not perceiving your band as a "business partner" with the venue owners at the venue(s) where you play.
The whole purpose of getting bands to play at a venue is to make money. When a venue looks for a new band, they try to find musicians who are already savvy when it comes to promoting themselves (specifically: their shows), and who understand what needs to happen to fill the house with fans, while putting on a great live show. Musicians who understand how this is done, help venues to make bigger amounts of money and always get the most opportunities to perform higher-paying gigs. Musicians who don't put out any effort (or don't know how) to assist in helping venues earn more money always struggle to find new gigs.
An effective way you can help venues make more money is to begin growing a list of local fans (by storing their e-mail addresses or other contact details). This demonstrates the proof of your value to a venue, since you now have a much greater ability to attract more people to the venue.
Mistake Two: Not understanding how to put on a killer live show.
If you can't put on a great show, you won't be able to put together a strong, loyal fanbase who loves to come to every show you play. Regardless of how cool your music is, if you lack the ability to entertain your fans with a great performance, they will feel no need to set aside time to come see you play. This specifically hinders your ability to get a lot of gigs since booking agents want bands with a killer show and a ravenous fan following.
Mistake Three: Not making the effort to learn how to get more of your fans to come to live performances.
If you think the venue is going to make all of the efforts when it comes to promoting your shows, you will never be able to consistently get more gigs. Reality is, it's your responsibility to inspire your fans to come to your shows - NOT the venue's. If you struggle to get people to see your live shows, no one is going to work with you or offer you new opportunities to play at their venues.
Mistake Four: Not making an effort to separate your band from other local bands.
If your band blends in with every other band around (whether it be in terms of your music, live show, look, etc.), it'll be harder for you to find new gigs. Similarly, when your band's shows are interesting or different, it is more likely to bring in more people to a venue, making venue owners more interested in having you play for them. As an example, many bands pay entertainers to come and perform at their gigs (in the place of an opening band) with the goal of attracting a larger group of people and making their shows a lot more successful.
That being said, don't invest all your time and energy into "being completely unique" just to get more gigs. "Being unique" alone doesn't earn the venue more money unless it is integrated together with the points in the section below.
What You Must Do To Get A Lot More Musical Gigs
To not make the critical mistakes that hold musicians back from getting a lot of gigs, start thinking of the venues you play at as business partners.
Here are four important things that will help you do this:
1. Focus on helping venues earn more money.
Fact is, venues would be completely uninterested in hiring bands to play shows if it meant they weren't going to make more money. You MUST focus on proving to venues that you are 100% dedicated to providing a WIN/WIN outcome for both them and you at all times.
2. Grow an easily accessible database of fans and continue growing it at every performance.
The power to communicate with all your fans at any time (for free), is essential for getting them to come see your live shows. If you can do this, you can easily display proof of your value to any venue you where you want to play. Without a database, you make everything infinitely harder in your music career. Build a database of your fans' names/contact details and begin taking action to grow this list with every step you take in your career.
3. Think about the fans you want to attract to your show.
While it is essential that you can reach out to your fanbase at any time, you also need to learn how to offer tons of value to your fans so that they will drop anything they are doing to come see you play.
4. Work with a music career mentor who has already achieved everything you want to achieve in the music business.
Having a mentor is instrumental for helping you to understand the steps needed for transforming yourself into a much more valuable asset for any venue owner (resulting in you getting tons of new gigs).
Now that you understand more about what it takes to get more gigs for your band, begin applying the points of this article into your career right away so you can quickly move your music career forward.
