It's 2015, does everyone still do a demo CD/promo kit?

[jazblugtr]

In the early 2000's, when I booked my swing band, a professionally recorded CD and promo kit with glossy 8.5x11 pic, etc. was mandatory. For the past few years, however, the blues/rock band I've been playing in has gotten festival gigs with just a ReverbNation and Facebook page with some MP3s and videos of mediocre quality. No bar gigs, however.

 

So now I'm preparing to start booking my new heavy 90's band at bars, festivals, etc. Do I need a demo CD or is a link to online audio/video preferred? Promo kits were always of dubious value, but are they especially passe now that its so easy to have a Internet presence that you can pull up on your smartphone?

 

Interested in opinions and experience. Thanks!

[abzurd]

I've always tried to push people to the website, but stopped mailing promos completely 5-6 years ago. Every once in a while I'll solicit a bar to try and fill a dead spot in our schedule and they'll ask for a demo. I'll refer them to the site..... usually that's the end of it and I never hear back from the bar. It seems when I handed out demos to venues back in the day they were thrown in a pile with the rest of them or pitched. A demo by itself never seemed to work. The tenacity of beating on doors repeatedly is what seemed to work, or just blind luck of hitting someone up at a time they needed to fill a date, or actually finding the person responsible for booking, which is rare.

 

At the end of the day I got sick of the whole bar game, taking a year to get into a neighborhood bar.... they like us and want to book but don't get back to us until we're booked out most of the next 8+ months.

[J.Paul]

90% of everything I do and (most) everyone I work with is done online w/ links. There IS one band I play with that DOES have and use a physical press kit (along with the online link stuff) but it’s an agency act (APA) and is starting to get the band into some Live Nation type rooms. I really don’t think it’s needed these days …. if anything it is swinging back to the old school method of having something physical in the buyer’s hands just to be different and stand out (since virtually everything is online or exists as a PDF EPK), which IMO doesn’t make it passé, it makes it ahead of the game these days because it’s different. The real issue is : is it cost effective? I think a promo kit is NOT cost effective if only 40% of the pitches actually get listened to and only 15% of the pitches get booked that’s not a good bang for the buck for a promo kit that will have to be updated yearly. The issue is context as well. If your client is the weekend sports bar gig then they can go to Reverbnation and book the band. If the client is AEG or Live Nation the stakes are higher and you are competing with the cream so there is no use for "being cost effective"….. if I had the budget I would send the promo kit with a new Jaguar just to get their attention.