Members wheresgrant3 Posted April 11, 2011 Members Share Posted April 11, 2011 What are you guys doing for posters these days? Are the clubs you play requiring them. Do some want them and others no? How many do you send to each club and how much does it piss you off when they aren't in view when you arrive at the gig. So this past January we finally ran out of a large (500 copy) order for posters we had placed a few years back and instead of reordering our outdated poster design we decided to create a few new ones and do some smaller print runs. This led to delays and a few bars asked us when they could get their posters... few got nasty about it 7-8 weeks out. Really 2 months before the show your bitching because we didn't drop off posters yet? OK, I get it... we're an expensive band. These venues believe it's the band's responsibility to market themselves as best as possible and posters are part of that marketing. I agree, seeing a poster in a well supported venue will help to create visability while the patron is there at the bar. Sure, maybe in their stupor they will remember that your band is playing 6 weekends from now... sometime in May between Cinco De Mayo and Memorial Day. If it were up to me I'd just stop sending posters period. We have more than 3000 friends on various Facebook accounts. 400 website hits per week. An 8 year old email list with 4500 addresses and we put out a semi weekly video promo which averages 200-300 hits per week prior to each show. On average we're playing in front of 200-300 people weekly all who follow and support the band at various points in the month. If it were up to me I'd just send artwork to the bar and tell them to do what they want with it. But we're still in the day and age where bar owners don't know the difference between a tweet and a twit. They believe that somehow a poster in a bar will influence someone more than a Facebook post, a newspaper ad or radio advertising. We typically send 6-8 posters to each bar (18"X24"). Most we mail because they are not really in driving distance (a few rooms are 90+mins away). Between posters and mailing we're typically looking at $15 per room. It doesn't sound like muc but multiply times 7-8 times per month and 12 months a year it's $1300. Just for posters. So we're looking at other avenues. What are you doing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Zeromus-X Posted April 12, 2011 Members Share Posted April 12, 2011 ...Sending smaller posters! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mstreck Posted April 12, 2011 Members Share Posted April 12, 2011 I design ours using wither Corel Draw or Adobe Illustrator and we print them with an Epson 1280 large format printer on 13 x 19 "supreme photo paper" which we purchase at Staples. The posters are usually similar in design and I just have to change the venue/date. We usually play pretty close to home so we drop them off ourselves a couple of weeks ahead of time. I wish I had your problems. :poke: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Howie22 Posted April 12, 2011 Members Share Posted April 12, 2011 I do the solo acoustic thing and was heavy into getting flyers out for a while. I just have one stock flyer that I change the date/venue/time on. I just have the 8.5 x 11 size, because that's all I can seem to get printed at a reasonable rate in small quantities. Also, I can run it through my home printer and actually print the venue info on there, as opposed to writing it in with a Sharpie. Some venues seem to appreciate it. Others could care less. Others acted like it was a hassle and they were doing ME a favor by putting them up?? Since it costs me about a buck a piece to print them, and then the time it takes to drop them off, I don't really do it anymore. Or rather, I ask the venues first if they would like them. I don't actually expect them to do anything to draw people in to see a guy playing acoustic guitar. Rather, I just hope it helps with a bit of name recognition and gets people to visit my website or FB page. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members bnelly428 Posted April 12, 2011 Members Share Posted April 12, 2011 you could send all the posters out for say january and then bring along with you the amount needed for the remaining dates throughout the year. We've done that. You could also create a high def pdf with your poster and tell the bar to print them out. 8.5x11 no need for bigger, make it easy for them. that way you're not spending money on the printing of the posters either. We are redesigning posters as well, a couple of us lost some weight and we're all dressing a lot nicer now. Unfortunately the same places that busted our chops about getting posters there, are the same ones when we went in for the gig, were no where to be found. shrug Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Rezrover Posted April 12, 2011 Members Share Posted April 12, 2011 We kinda just quit putting posters up short of one for the venue. My singer's GF worked at a print shop so we got good deals on really nice posters, still was spendy though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members guitarguy19 Posted April 12, 2011 Members Share Posted April 12, 2011 I design 11x17 posters and print them at Kinkos. They're like $1.75 each, kinda pricey, but each bar gets 3 usually. I also make them up for bars we play monthly and put 4 ish months worth of dates on 1 poster, then we get to leave them hung up for 4 months. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members TrickyBoy Posted April 12, 2011 Members Share Posted April 12, 2011 We are actually just starting to put up posters at venues. Most of the places we play regularly have big calendars posted up with all the bands playing that month, so adding a poster seems somewhat redundant. That being said, we've added some new venues recently and we've been putting a poster or two at each. We got big ones printed with our picture and logo up top and the bottom blank so we can write in the date, etc. Personally, I don't know if it makes any difference at all, but who knows Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mstreck Posted April 12, 2011 Members Share Posted April 12, 2011 Personally, I don't know if it makes any difference at all, but who knows We're told that it does. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members TrickyBoy Posted April 12, 2011 Members Share Posted April 12, 2011 We're told that it does. That's good to know. Like I said, we're giving it a whirl. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members wheresgrant3 Posted April 12, 2011 Author Members Share Posted April 12, 2011 Posters in the Northeast are almost competitive as the bands around here. If you are a big band and the club is paying you alot of money... you'd better supply a poster that looks like it. Nothing is more frustrating than to think you can skate by a large room and not send posters, have a packed night and the feedback from the agent was... "club owner was annoyed you didn't send posters". By contrast, you spend $10 on the posters, another $5-6 on the mailing and arrive at the club a month later only to see they have other band posters hung up except yours. We used to have our Bud sponsor print up large posters to hang in the venues. Then they started cutting back. Another beer distributor we were sponsored by started assistant any band that knocked on their door. Soon there were 10 bands sponored by the distributor all with the same posters and artwork. So we started just making our own to stand out. A short run of 50 posters costs us $40 to print and it lasts maybe a month. Add in mailing costs and again... it starts to add up. $100 bucks a month in marketing costs might not seem like alot for a band that gigs out 7-8 times a month, but then you have to add in van maintenence, gas, web hosting... all of the other fees associated. So we're just trying to have the maximum gain for the cheapest investment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Dancebass Posted April 12, 2011 Members Share Posted April 12, 2011 So we're just trying to have the maximum gain for the cheapest investment. Fat girl behind the counter at Office Depot Print Center??? On a serious note, we run off 11x17's for each show. The volume depends on the importance of the show I suppose. I do get mad when the club makes me hand them over instead of hanging them myself and then they do a poor or last minute job of it. We get them run off for free now, but before we got the hook up Office Depot had the best deal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mstreck Posted April 12, 2011 Members Share Posted April 12, 2011 That's good to know. Like I said, we're giving it a whirl. We try to make ours as "professional" looking as we can. We usually give each venue at least three 13 x 19 posters for each gig and they invariably hang next to other bands' flyers that are usually printed out on plain 8.5 x 11 paper with disproportional graphics and cheesy fonts and it really sets us apart. We've received a lot of compliments because of them! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Zeromus-X Posted April 12, 2011 Members Share Posted April 12, 2011 Or, a more serious answer: If you play the same venue repeatedly, what if you make a poster with a removable date section? That is, instead of writing the date on a whitespace or printing it right on the poster, leaving a "hole" in the poster to slide the date into? We've started doing that with our design. At the top, where the venue name and date are located, we've printed out "strips", and left the actual poster blank. We put two small slits in the poster, and we slide the strips into the poster. When you're done, you can't tell the difference. Then, on the day of the show, before we play, we slide out the strip with the date and slide in the strip for the next gig's date. Once the poster gets beat up enough, we tear it down and replace it. If we have no more shows at that venue, we take it down (carefully), take out the venue name strip, and replace it with a different one. This is really only effective if you play the same place multiple times, though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mstreck Posted April 12, 2011 Members Share Posted April 12, 2011 If you play the same venue repeatedly, what if you make a poster with a removable date section? That is, instead of writing the date on a whitespace or printing it right on the poster, leaving a "hole" in the poster to slide the date into? Along those lines, one venue has a huge 4 x 6 metal "poster" painted with our name on it and a white blank spot for the date and time. I think it says something like "Marina's Rock On Pub and Bud Light present Petting Hendrix live on stage" and they use dry erase markers to write the rest in. It is permanently hung in a window and pretty hard to miss. They have a similar one for another band in another window. They still ask us for our posters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members MDLMUSIC Posted April 12, 2011 Members Share Posted April 12, 2011 We try to make ours as "professional" looking as we can. We usually give each venue at least three 13 x 19 posters for each gig and they invariably hang next to other bands' flyers that are usually printed out on plain 8.5 x 11 paper with disproportional graphics and cheesy fonts and it really sets us apart. We've received a lot of compliments because of them! If you weren't on the other side of the country, I'd say you've been looking at my posters. Mine are intentionally cheesy, because that's the image I'm trying to get across. I often use cartoon images and outrageous fonts to make them stand out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Steadfastly Posted April 13, 2011 Members Share Posted April 13, 2011 What are you guys doing for posters these days? Between posters and mailing we're typically looking at $15 per room. It doesn't sound like muc but multiply times 7-8 times per month and 12 months a year it's $1300. Just for posters. So we're looking at other avenues. What are you doing? We don't do posters but we've found this company has the best printing prices we've found. They also do specials and if you work the system with them, they keep offering discounts that are pretty generous. Perhaps this will save you a few bucks. They are also the fastest at supplying us and the shipping is free and the quality is excellent. Actually it's better than any one we've used previously. http://www.vistaprint.ca/posters/product-page.aspx?xnav=LeftItem&xnid=_Posters Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mstreck Posted April 13, 2011 Members Share Posted April 13, 2011 If you weren't on the other side of the country, I'd say you've been looking at my posters. Mine are intentionally cheesy, because that's the image I'm trying to get across. I often use cartoon images and outrageous fonts to make them stand out. Haha! I love when people can incorporate that kind of stuff and get away with it! I was never very good at that kind of design, so I just try to use the best pics that I can find and make everything "clean and presentable". The cheesy posters I'm talking about look like the creator smoked crack then fired up a copy of MS Works while thinking "this is gonna be the coolest poster EVER!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members wheresgrant3 Posted April 13, 2011 Author Members Share Posted April 13, 2011 Actually for the record, we've been using gigpromos.com and the service and pricing really can't be beat. It averages $.89 for a 20 copy run and I couldn't be happier with their work. The largest they do however is 14x18 and I'm looking for larger posters. But they are excellent and great service. If I put an order in on Monday it's at my door by Thursday and costs $25 for 20 copies with shipping. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mstreck Posted April 13, 2011 Members Share Posted April 13, 2011 Actually for the record, we've been using gigpromos.com and the service and pricing really can't be beat. It averages $.89 for a 20 copy run and I couldn't be happier with their work. The largest they do however is 14x18 and I'm looking for larger posters. But they are excellent and great service. If I put an order in on Monday it's at my door by Thursday and costs $25 for 20 copies with shipping. Hey, Grant... I'd like to see what you guys are using. Would you mind posting some of them here? I can't get to your website or facebook from work (or mine, for that matter). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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