Non-bar gigs? Suggestions.

[Guitar Slim]

Hey HC,

I'm just looking for suggestions on non-bar places to gig. My band has played a couple casinos, a wedding, a municipal show, a few private events, and we have a Kentucky Derby party coming up in May. We have a website, a facebook presence, and a gigmasters account; though we've not yet gigged through gigmasters.

I suppose I'm also wondering how to improve our number of gigs in all non-bar areas. How do we reach more people?

Thank you for any suggestions.

www.aninnocentband.com

[Vito Corleone]

A lot of it going to depend on your specific market.   The best way to reach people and get those types of gigs is probably going to be somewhat different in Northern California than it is in Des Moines or Southern Florida.

The first thing I would do (if you haven't already) is look to what other bands in your area are doing successfully.   If the best way to get these gigs seems to be via hooking up with certain booking agents, or playing certain public venues---then that's the way to go.

For weddings, we get a lot of work through Wedding Wire.  It's a bit pricey, especially if you want a full profile in more than one location (the peculiarities of our market require that we're listing with 4 different locations), but hooking up with them automatically sets you up on a bunch of their affiliated sites like Martha Stewart Weddings and the like.

 

[WynnD]

There's a "Martha Stewart Weddings" site? Somewhere else I'll never go. I put her with OJ Simpson and will never do anything to enrich either of them. (Yes, I know she's an ex-con and Simpson was acquitted of murder. Still no reason to let either one of them have my money.)