Jump to content

Exploring the private/wedding market


guitarguy19

Recommended Posts

  • Members

Lately at our club gigs we've had numerous inquires regarding private parties and weddings. For the past few years we've been primarily a club band (although we have done a handful of private parties and also one wedding), but in the coming years we're really going to try to develop into paring back on the club gigs and getting into the private/wedding market.

I know it won't be easy, but I really think we have the potential to get there, although we we need to take some steps to do so. In my mind (well...on my PC at my office) I have a list of some of the things I think we need to do already. I'm curious though, from Dave and the rest of you guys that do this regularly, what does it take to propel yourself from a club band into the private market? What are some of the key things we need to do to get there?

Secondly, we have a serious inquiry for a wedding in 2013 right now...need to follow up with this couple this week to discuss things. I'm thinking of trying to put together a package with both us and a DJ. The DJ can emcee the event and such, plus provide the ability for us to provide anything under the sun (musically) for the event. Is this a good idea, and have any of you done it? Also I'm wondering how much to charge for something of this nature...keeping in mind we'll have to cover us and our DJ...

One thing I'm not sure how to overcome is our lack of testimonials...we haven't played a zillion weddings so if anyone has any advice to sell us with this shortfall...I'd love to hear it. One plus side we have is that this couple saw us at a club gig and quickly said we were the "best cover band they'd ever seen"...so they obviously like us at least a little already.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 62
  • Created
  • Last Reply
  • Members
Quote Originally Posted by kmart View Post
Quality promo...
A good photo, better than average audio, solid video that shows why someone should select you for their event
Vagisil??? icon_lol.gif

Thanks kmart. IMPECCABLE promo materials is actually #1 on my list of "things we need to do" to get there. Early next year we'll be hiring a photographer to do 1 or 2 live show shoots and a "studio" type shoot. We need someone creative to help us with the staged shots. We'll also be hiring someone to shoot some good live video. Fortunately our sound man is a video editing guru...so we've got the editing covered. Also we're redoing our press kit, and I recently made some changes to our website.

Other than the shotty images which will be replaced as soon as we get some good ones taken...I'd appreciate any advice on design/layout/content/etc. We're going for something better than Joe and the Schmoe's bar band site. I'm a novice web designer but I think we've got something serviceable here. If it's WAY off...which I don't think it is...we'll probably look to hire someone here too.

Our Site

One other major thing we're looking to do is gather as many references as we can. Right now all we primarily have to work with is club references and fan comments and such, but they are upscale and well-known clubs at least.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I wish we were as young as you guys: would make a lot of my job a lot easier! icon_lol.gif

There's a lot that can be discussed here so I'll try to break it up and keep things as brief as possible (I know....it's ME we're talking about....)

#1 overriding principle: Treat It Like A Business.
Now that doesn't mean you have to give up your artistic integrity---far from it. But it DOES mean you have to focus your integrity in different ways. At these sorts of events you are really just another 'vendor'. Which makes you no different than, say, the caterer. But that doesn't have to be a bad thing. Think about it this way: we've all been to weddings or corp events that were catered. Sometimes the food and the presentation was great and sometimes it sucked. When it's great, it's obviously and clearly done with a high degree of skill and integrity to the product. The most successful caterers aren't the ones who insist on only serving mussels and mushrooms when their clients would prefer beef and chicken, but are the ones who prepare some KICK ASS beef and chicken and take care of all the details of the cooking and service in a fully professional manner. The best caterers have some excellents chefs---even IF they don't get to fully control the menu.

Same thing with being a successful corp/wedding band. You may end up playing some songs or doing some things you thought you'd never do, but that doesn't mean you can't do them with flair, pizzazz and skill. In fact, you'll be better for it. So put aside any attitudes you might have about song choice, what clothes to wear, etc and realize that the best bands in this niche of the business are the ones who find their integrity and make it happen within the confines of what is really just superficial nonsense anyways. ANY song is only as good or as bad or as cheezy as you choose to make it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

#2: marketing.

This is going to be a "build a following" endeavor for the most part. Of course, things will vary from band-to-band and market-to-market, but for my band it DEFINIATELY wasn't. We don't play clubs. We don't even actually live in the market we play in the most often. Most of our clients have never seen us before. So for us, and I suspect for many/most corp/wedding bands, it's ALL about the up-front appearance and sale.

 

So I approached it like this (as I would any other business I might be starting up): first I looked to find out what kind of gigs exist in our market that we'd want to play and try to figure out how we'd best fit into an appropriate niche. I looked at the bands who were most successful doing those types of gigs and looked at what was there about their presentations we could copy, what could we improve upon, and what could we do differently that would best fit our band. Before we started putting together the promo, I came up with a clear idea of what I wanted the band to look like, how I wanted us to be perceived and how I wanted our promo shots and video demo to look. Since our market is already saturated with agents and bands, and since we didn't have any big "ins" with those agents, I decided to try and work around them and go straight to the clients via the internet. Hey, it's 2012, I figured. Everybody's shopping on the internet these days anyway, right?

 

This turned out to be largely correct. The vast majority of our gigs come through websites like Gigmasters and Wedding Wire that we pay to be listed with, and directly through our own website.

 

So take the time to search out as many bands like you (or like you want to be) that you can find. And then come up with way you can be better than they are. Like I said earlier, I wish we were as young as you guys. Our age forced us to take a bit more narrow route than I'd like to take, but we can't compete with the 30-something bands head-on in many areas--simply because we'll just never have the same look or attitude. So we worked around that and found our own niche that's a bit less youth-dependant.

 

I don't see anything particularly wrong with your website---I've seen a lot of bands making great money with much worse ones---but, like anything else, there's always room for improvement. I'm big on previous client testimonials. And live crowd pics/video footage. Since you don't have a lot of previous clients when you first start out, you can cover a lot of ground with audience testimonials. Put stuff in your video of people saying how much fun they are having at the gig, how great they think the band is, etc. What's going to sell better than some pretty girls saying they danced their asses off to your band?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

There will be plenty of negativity here (it's BSWTB, after all), so I'll start--my current group got inquiries about a private party or a wedding at our very first, unamplified, street corner performance, and have fielded numerous such inquiries since then. Three years in, we're just now starting to get people to follow up with us and actually book it--a lot of people think it'd be neat to have a band up to the point that they find out how much it'll actually cost.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members
Quote Originally Posted by Chicken Monkey View Post
There will be plenty of negativity here (it's BSWTB, after all), so I'll start--my current group got inquiries about a private party or a wedding at our very first, unamplified, street corner performance, and have fielded numerous such inquiries since then. Three years in, we're just now starting to get people to follow up with us and actually book it--a lot of people think it'd be neat to have a band up to the point that they find out how much it'll actually cost.
I think that might largely be a factor of just fielding inquiries at gigs. They're just window-shoppers for the most part.

You have to go after the gigs to a certain degree. Even with internet marketing, you can't just Build A Website And Hope They Will Come. You have to target the people who are actually looking for bands. That's why sites like Gigmasters and Wedding Wire are a big plus. There ARE people wanting to hiring bands for such event and willing to put out the cash, you just have to do the work to put yourself in contact with them.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members
Quote Originally Posted by guido61 View Post
I wish we were as young as you guys: would make a lot of my job a lot easier! icon_lol.gif

There's a lot that can be discussed here so I'll try to break it up and keep things as brief as possible (I know....it's ME we're talking about....)

#1 overriding principle: Treat It Like A Business.
You may end up playing some songs or doing some things you thought you'd never do, but that doesn't mean you can't do them with flair, pizzazz and skill. In fact, you'll be better for it. So put aside any attitudes you might have about song choice, what clothes to wear, etc and realize that the best bands in this niche of the business are the ones who find their integrity and make it happen within the confines of what is really just superficial nonsense anyways. ANY song is only as good or as bad or as cheezy as you choose to make it.
On the "treat it like a business" part, we're already there. We act VERY professional even at club gigs. We actually really do have our {censored} together.

On the choosing songs part...we're 90% of the way there. We pick songs pretty much solely on how well they'll go over with 21-39 year old women. Now sometimes we have disagreements on whether we can "pull off" certain songs or we may disagree on whether or not they'll "work"...but it's not our egos or embarrassment for playing such a stupid song getting in the way. It's a disagreement on whether or not it'll work.

Clothing wise, we all just try to "dress for the gig" for the most part, although we don't put any effort into actually coordinating a "look" as a whole. This is also on my list of "to-dos" going forward. I'm thinking even the minimum amount of coordination here will go a long way. It's not like I want to go crazy and fashion up matching jumpsuits...but I think a little thought could help. Maybe tying in a color or something.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members
Quote Originally Posted by guido61 View Post
#2: marketing.

So take the time to search out as many bands like you (or like you want to be) that you can find. And then come up with way you can be better than they are. Like I said earlier, I wish we were as young as you guys. Our age forced us to take a bit more narrow route than I'd like to take, but we can't compete with the 30-something bands head-on in many areas--simply because we'll just never have the same look or attitude. So we worked around that and found our own niche that's a bit less youth-dependant.
I actually think that this is one of our strongest selling points. Being in our late 20s early 30s, we're young and energetic and we have that image over a lot of the other bands in our area right now. Many of the bands that are where we are (status wise) are older than us by 5-10 years. But we realize we have a limited window to capitalize on this...so we're jumping for it now.

Quote Originally Posted by guido61 View Post
I don't see anything particularly wrong with your website---I've seen a lot of bands making great money with much worse ones---but, like anything else, there's always room for improvement. I'm big on previous client testimonials. And live crowd pics/video footage. Since you don't have a lot of previous clients when you first start out, you can cover a lot of ground with audience testimonials. Put stuff in your video of people saying how much fun they are having at the gig, how great they think the band is, etc. What's going to sell better than some pretty girls saying they danced their asses off to your band?
Definitely room for improvement. We're going to be adding lots of new pics and a new promo video hopefully pretty early on next year. Killer idea on the "interviewing" people as part of the promo video. We will definitely do that! As far as testimonials go, in addition to those we have some good Facebook posts from fans and also some good quotes from club owners. I'm hoping they'll carry some weight because the clubs are fairly well-known places around here. So...I'm planning on organizing these and putting them up to at least get going on a testimonials section. Obviously as we continue to grow this section will vastly improve.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

As I said, I like to steal a lot from the bands that are successful. Here's one I thought of right away when I looked at your website. (4 guys probably in the mid-30s to mid-40s). There's a lot I like about this band and the way they present themselves and the way their promo and website are built and a lot I don't (at 10 min I think their promo video is WAY too long, for example). Some of that is just personal taste and could be argued back and forth; some of it is probably valid. But one thing I WILL tell you about these guys: they make good money.

And here's what I know about that: they are a Gigmasters band, and if you're a member of Gigmasters you can see what other bands book through the website. Now, that's not all necessarily 100% honest: some bands probably play down how much they book through the site so as to not pay so much commission. (5% of each gig.) Others might list non-Gigmasters through the site just to keep up the appearance of booking a lot of gigs. They might even say they book gigs for more money than they actually do to keep their rankings high. (Although I'm not sure to what degree any band would WANT to do that. We certainly don't. If anything, we low-ball figures.) But this band runs six figures through the website every year. So no matter which way you figure they may be fudging numbers (even assuming they are) they're still doing quite well. And yeah, they are in So Cal, where there are a lot of gigs, but there are also a lot of bands.

And I'm not sure I see anything they are doing that you guys couldn't do.

http://www.meetthetrip.com/

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members
Quote Originally Posted by guido61 View Post
I think that might largely be a factor of just fielding inquiries at gigs. They're just window-shoppers for the most part.

You have to go after the gigs to a certain degree. Even with internet marketing, you can't just Build A Website And Hope They Will Come. You have to target the people who are actually looking for bands. That's why sites like Gigmasters and Wedding Wire are a big plus. There ARE people wanting to hiring bands for such event and willing to put out the cash, you just have to do the work to put yourself in contact with them.
This is so true. We've been getting these inquiries for a couple years now. But only recently (in the last few months) have the inquiries become more serious. After a conversation in the club at our gig, we get a phone call or a website inquiry and talk more details. One wedding we got. One out of town gig we bid too high and didn't get...but I think they were looking for something a bit unrealistic considering the gig required a hotel stay and also it was fairly short notice all things considered. The price wasn't so high that they didn't indicate they may be interested down the line though. Bottom line is that we know it may take some time to get here. We're already successful in the club market here so we're riding that out too. Just trying to look at how we can take the next step down the road.

The wedding inquiry we have now I need to follow up on this week. I submitted requests for a few different wedding bands in our area to see what they'd charge for a similar event. A little underhanded but I don't know how else to go about getting this info...? I'm going to charge on the high end of what I find through my research, and try to sell the package based on us working with a DJ also. That way we can handle the emcee duties, play any song under the sun between us, etc. I think putting it together this way should have some high selling points.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

 

Quote Originally Posted by guitarguy19

View Post

I submitted requests for a few different wedding bands in our area to see what they'd charge for a similar event. A little underhanded but I don't know how else to go about getting this info...?

 

Hey, it's done. I've done it. And I've gotten inquiries from people that I'm pretty darn certain were the same thing. There's really not many other ways to find out unless you're going through an agency, and even they are reluctant to tell you what other bands make.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members
Quote Originally Posted by guido61 View Post
I think that might largely be a factor of just fielding inquiries at gigs. They're just window-shoppers for the most part.

You have to go after the gigs to a certain degree. Even with internet marketing, you can't just Build A Website And Hope They Will Come. You have to target the people who are actually looking for bands. That's why sites like Gigmasters and Wedding Wire are a big plus. There ARE people wanting to hiring bands for such event and willing to put out the cash, you just have to do the work to put yourself in contact with them.
I was speaking directly to the OP's statement that he was approached at a gig. We don't really pursue private work, tho we've had a few things come up.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members
Quote Originally Posted by Chicken Monkey View Post
I was speaking directly to the OP's statement that he was approached at a gig.
OK, gotcha.

Yeah, everyone is interested when they are at the gig, excited, and maybe even drunk. Some just wanna play bigshot and talk to the band. Then they get home and suddenly they don't want a band as much as they did the night before. In my entire life I doubt if I've booked more than 1% of "private event" inquiries coming from regular patrons at gigs.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members
Quote Originally Posted by guido61 View Post
As I said, I like to steal a lot from the bands that are successful. Here's one I thought of right away when I looked at your website. (4 guys probably in the mid-30s to mid-40s).



http://www.meetthetrip.com/
Crazy. I actually interviewed Steve, their bassist, about 10 years ago. He's actually in his mid-50s now, but he was a pretty active actor in his late teens/early 20s:



He seemed like a nice guy, so I am glad to see he is doing well.

Quote Originally Posted by guido61 View Post
OK, gotcha.

Yeah, everyone is interested when they are at the gig, excited, and maybe even drunk. Some just wanna play bigshot and talk to the band. Then they get home and suddenly they don't want a band as much as they did the night before. In my entire life I doubt if I've booked more than 1% of "private event" inquiries coming from regular patrons at gigs.
We got that a lot with one of my bands, but on the rare occasion they followed up, they would usually lose interest as soon as we quoted a price. One person in particular stood out . She had seen us and liked us and was having a family oriented event coming up and the band she had booked cancelled a few days before the event. She tried to guilt trip us into doing it for a low cost:

"A friend of ours planned on playing his band for the party, but recently backed out. They were considering it a 'practice'. There are about 90 people invited to the Community Center. What would your rate be for Nov. 20th. 7-10pm? I appreciate your talent, but hope that your rate would be low and more for fun for the kids- otherwise we can't afford to enjoy your music again."

It was actually really close to our rehearsal place, so we were going to do it for our usual bar fee, but that was still too high for them.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

You asked about your website so I'll give you some tips where I have some expertise
- your site will load faster if you shrink your images in Photoshop instead of re-sizing in the browser
- in general, either GIF or JPG will load faster than PNG, only use PNG when you need semi-transparent images
- do not rely on external sites for your content, you never know when they are going away (the exception here is YouTube)
- paragraphs of centered text are very hard to read. text-align: left please.
- using a frameset to hide the fact that you are using webs.com can screw up your bookmarking and does screw up your page titles. At least make your title generic, instead of "Spacecat Home".
- You will eventually find webs.com either limiting or a liability....but they are a good way for a non-web-developer to get up and running, so my professional advice and pragmatic advice are in conflict here.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members
Quote Originally Posted by wesg View Post
You asked about your website so I'll give you some tips where I have some expertise
- your site will load faster if you shrink your images in Photoshop instead of re-sizing in the browser
- in general, either GIF or JPG will load faster than PNG, only use PNG when you need semi-transparent images
- do not rely on external sites for your content, you never know when they are going away (the exception here is YouTube)
- paragraphs of centered text are very hard to read. text-align: left please.
- using a frameset to hide the fact that you are using webs.com can screw up your bookmarking and does screw up your page titles. At least make your title generic, instead of "Spacecat Home".
- You will eventually find webs.com either limiting or a liability....but they are a good way for a non-web-developer to get up and running, so my professional advice and pragmatic advice are in conflict here.
Thank you for the feedback!

- I will examine all the image sizes and edit with photoshop.
- I think most of the images are jpg files, but I will check and edit the images as necessary there too.
- I'll figure out how to utilize the space on the webs server. Unlike the rest of their platform I didn't find that to be very user friendly so I went to photobucket...but you are right. I should save them on space that I know will be there when we need it.
- I will change the centered text paragraphs to align left. I assume you're talking about the About Us page where I have shots of each band member. I think the rest of the text on the site is all aligned left.
- I have TRIED to change that damn title and haven't been able to get it to work. I need to dig in and find out how the heck to do that. If I go there using the .webs.com address the title appears with the changes. If I get routed there through "spacecatband.com" which we got to eliminate the crappy ".webs" from our address, the title won't change from the original title we chose (which was that SpaceCAT - Home).
- I already don't like webs.com much, and I do find it limiting. But I'm far from a web developer and we still would like to try to avoid hiring this out because I know it would end up being pretty expensive. So until we take enough steps up to warrant it, I need to try to make this site at least serviceable.

Another thing that's driving me CRAZY is the sidebar titles are a different color on the 1st two pages of our content (from the 4 clickable images on the home page) than on the last 2. No fricken idea........
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

We've been a club band since 2003. We've actively pursued weddings/corp/private since 2008 while straddling both ponds. We've average 8-10 weddings per year and about 60-70 club dates. We really haven't done much to attract weddings beyond referrals until recently. We're all at that stage where we want to limit our nightclub exposure going into next year. Now we are actively pursing weddings as a component for this band. We're shooting to see if we can push for 25 weddings by 2014. It's a natural progression. A few factors have stalled us from marketing too heavily into the wedding space. For one, unlike alot of wedding bands we're earning terrific money playing in the clubs (which is an easier show, and most times more enjoyable). #2- We've never made the effort to package and market ourselves beyond just being a younger themed club band. But we're all getting a little older. And the chance to earn as much at one wedding vs an entire weekend of playing in clubs is becoming more temping.


I'm currently working on a wedding video demo and a wedding page on our website. Last fall we took some promo photos for both acts:
NutsFlyerPartyCMYK.jpg

NutsFlyerWeddingCMYK.jpg

None of us are thrilled with the Wedding image but it's something to work with until we get ourselves another shoot scheduled.

I'll defer to Guido on this as he has some of the best experience on this board in terms of booking weddings (probably Space Norman and a few other bandleaders). As he stated, being organized, treating the band as a business and most important marketing, marketing, marketing.... Even as well known as we are, we still have to market ourselves to prospective brides and vendors. Many brides off the street have no clue who we are... especially if they haven't been out and active at local clubs.


We've marketed ourselves as a great 'anti' wedding band (no offense). Many couples who hire us are either fans or have seen or been recommended to us by fans. We offer a cleaned up version of our nightclub act (which is high energy). We'll work with couples to cherry pick through medleys IF there are songs and material they don't want us to play. We'll learn 2 songs by request (at no charge) the remainder we'll spin with our DJ. Plenty of praise and no complaints yet. I find that we're playing about 30-45 minutes before and during dinner and 1 hour after dinner. The DJ spins the rest. It's alot of sitting but we get fed and we get paid.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

You need to change the title on that redirecting frameset page you have before the user gets sent to webs.com. You will not be able to change it on a page-by-page basis.

And there is at least one site besides photobucket you are pulling content from, the blue bar images are from a third party.

The site's not bad though, for a hack (no offence - just a fact) you are getting decent results. I have seen so-called professionals do far worse. If you were in my band I would let you do the web work and only help out if you got stuck. smile.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I've done tons of weddings-I've done a ton of ceremony gigs as a soloist, and then after securing the support of a good agent, a bunch of cocktail hour wedding gigs and also been the main band for a bunch more. The difference was money. When I was booking them on my own, I was getting decent money, but the money went way up with the agent. I think if you are booking them on your own, it's pretty easy-you'll probably ask a lot less than an agent and will get the gig if you are what they want. Getting the confidence of a good agent is what will propel you into getting the better wedding and corporate gigs IME. It could be different in your area.

We are submitted for many gigs by our agent-it's the ones that the client decides we are what they want that come through. My advice is just be really good at what you do as opposed to trying to turn yourself into what you think people want. Every bride has a slightly different idea, and many want something different that the typical wedding band. If you want to be the typical wedding band, it's clear what needs to happen-just scope out that type of band and emulate them-two girl singers, keyboards, optional horn section, and be able to play some popular jazz tunes for dinner, "celebration" "shout" and all the other known wedding tunes. Don't forget the ethnic tunes for the Greek, Jewish, etc weddings. Have tuxes. It's a big job actually to be able to offer the typical wedding band. You really gotta want it to be good at it.

As far as what to charge, you fee should have some relation to what your already earning. If your a $400.00 a night club band, you can't expect to start booking 2k weddings. Start at 800-1000 if that's the case, and work your way up.
Be prepared to use subs, so charts and a list of guys who can read them could save some hair pulling.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members
Quote Originally Posted by wesg View Post
You need to change the title on that redirecting frameset page you have before the user gets sent to webs.com. You will not be able to change it on a page-by-page basis.

And there is at least one site besides photobucket you are pulling content from, the blue bar images are from a third party.

The site's not bad though, for a hack (no offence - just a fact) you are getting decent results. I have seen so-called professionals do far worse. If you were in my band I would let you do the web work and only help out if you got stuck. smile.gif
No offense taken. When I sat down to make this site I didn't even know a single line/command/whatever of html or any other language. I've actually learned a lot and I think I've managed to get something serviceable together. Is it a professional quality site with all the bells and whistles? Hell no. But to the average passer-by I don't think it looks like someone's Uncle Joe whipped it up on a Saturday afternoon either. But what do I know I'm just a hack. icon_lol.gif

I figured out the title thing, thanks!

Not sure what "blue bar images" you mean. I'm using a webs template that was provided on the site. Are they using a 3rd party for imaging???

And believe me if we were in the same band YOU'D be doing the web design. No way I'd ever touch it. You actually know what you're talking about, and there's only room for 1 programming dork per band. Pretty sure I read that somewhere. poke.gif
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members
Quote Originally Posted by guitarguy19 View Post
And believe me if we were in the same band YOU'D be doing the web design. No way I'd ever touch it. You actually know what you're talking about, and there's only room for 1 programming dork per band. Pretty sure I read that somewhere. poke.gif

Hmmm... funny you should say that. I manage most of the marketing and communications. Our singer is a PHP programmer. There's a big difference between programmer and designer. He built our previous website in PHP which lasted 9 years and looked pretty dated even when we launched it. But it was functional and very efficent. He wanted to do a redesign, but all of the designs were very dated. So have months of pleading with him we went Word Press. I know it killed him to use a template, but honestly the site looks modern enough and now updates take me minutes instead of hours.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members
Quote Originally Posted by MartinC View Post
Getting the confidence of a good agent is what will propel you into getting the better wedding and corporate gigs IME. It could be different in your area.
We already are working with a few different agencies for club gigs, some of which work private events as well. I'm going to really get us streamlined with all our promo materials and everything before I pitch us to them for that market. We may have some opportunities there though.

Quote Originally Posted by MartinC View Post
We are submitted for many gigs by our agent-it's the ones that the client decides we are what they want that come through. My advice is just be really good at what you do as opposed to trying to turn yourself into what you think people want. Every bride has a slightly different idea, and many want something different that the typical wedding band. If you want to be the typical wedding band, it's clear what needs to happen-just scope out that type of band and emulate them-two girl singers, keyboards, optional horn section, and be able to play some popular jazz tunes for dinner, "celebration" "shout" and all the other known wedding tunes. Don't forget the ethnic tunes for the Greek, Jewish, etc weddings. Have tuxes. It's a big job actually to be able to offer the typical wedding band. You really gotta want it to be good at it.
We're not going the typical wedding band route. I think we have enough variety (and we're always adding more) in our repertoire to be able to pull off more of a different type of show. We plan on offering a little tamed down version of our club show, splashed with some additional tunes that we might not play at clubs. We can also offer some of the wedding standards if they want. But I suspect our market (for weddings anyway...keep in mind we're also going for the private event market...) will be for younger couples that want a fairly energetic, dare I say rowdy, type of party for their wedding.

Quote Originally Posted by MartinC View Post
As far as what to charge, you fee should have some relation to what your already earning. If your a $400.00 a night club band, you can't expect to start booking 2k weddings. Start at 800-1000 if that's the case, and work your way up.
Be prepared to use subs, so charts and a list of guys who can read them could save some hair pulling.
We have a couple of subs at our disposal right now that we've used for club gigs when necessary, so that's a plus on that note.

As far as what to charge, right now our club gigs vary from $600 (gigs where we provide no PA or lights) to $800-$1200 for us providing everything. After contacting several wedding bands in our area to get bids to see what the going rate is, I got quotes from $1000 to $2500 so far. I actually expected them to be higher...but that was speculation.

I'm thinking of charging $2500 if we put together a package for both us and a DJ; I'd try to sell this as sort of an "all inclusive" package...we handle all the emcee duties, coordinate with them ahead of time to nail down a detailed itinerary, provide band sets plus DJ sets, learn 2-3 songs free of charge, allow for everything under the sun musically, etc. This would leave them absolutely nothing to worry about on the day of...we handle everything.

A lower tier package would be $1500 for just the band to perform as if it were a club (essentially)...without the emcee duties and the full on DJ. I'd still offer our sound system to be available for whoever wanted to run the music during breaks and host/make announcements/etc. Does that sound viable?
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Your site is pulling content from freewebs.com and websimages.com -- I guess webs.com must own these.

wheregrant3 is totally on the money on designer vs. programmer. I'm a good programmer with allllll kinds of web programming experience, but my design skills suck ass. Your design is better than anything I am likely to come up with.

My new band's current website -- http://DrBombay.ca/ is basically contentless and boring to the point of ugly.... but I was able to whip it together in an hour and it scales very nicely to any sized browser (try changing your browser size, then ooh and ahh, LOL). I'm waiting for us to have some media collateral together, then I'm going to sit down with the artist in the group (who has formal training as an illustrator) and see if we can't come up with something together that isn't ugly as sin.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members
Quote Originally Posted by wesg View Post
Your site is pulling content from freewebs.com and websimages.com -- I guess webs.com must own these.

wheregrant3 is totally on the money on designer vs. programmer. I'm a good programmer with allllll kinds of web programming experience, but my design skills suck ass. Your design is better than anything I am likely to come up with.
Lol...I found a couple of other bands sites that I liked and just tried to copy what they did. It's not as flashy as theirs are, but the structure is similar. That's what I like most about what we did. All the pertinent info is easily accessible, with the exception of venues and reviews. That will be much more accessible when we gather some reviews and organize them enough to show them off.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.


×
×
  • Create New...