Members chris_feek Posted April 18, 2006 Members Share Posted April 18, 2006 hey guys, my band exist ever since last summer. we're an original band and stuff. we've played about 5 gigs now but it seems really hard to find gigs. so do you have any suggestions what we should do to increase our amount of gigs? btw, we have a home made demo, a website (mostly in dutch but you guys should be able to figure it out) and a mailinglist with about 500 adresses.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members renier Posted April 18, 2006 Members Share Posted April 18, 2006 we never have any problem finding gigs. we are an originals band to. a few idea's: -invest in a decent demo. i havent heard your mp3's yet, but homemade usually doesnt cut it. a lot of barowners have a hard time seperating musical qualities from recording quality, so that will lose you some gigs. - agressive marketing. on a thursday night, make a couple of demo's and visit the bars where you would like to play. have a beer, chit chat, and you'll rock the place in no-time. do not do this on busy nights, the barman will have better things to do.. -subscribe to band contests. not only will you get a lot of experience, but you''ll meet bands in your genre. if you find a cool band, offer to play together at a venue. this cuts costs for a PA, is more interesting for the barowner and gets you a bigger crowd. also, if it's a band from another region, it will get you the chance to play outside of your region. -USE the website, keep it updated at all times, maintain a guestbook. it can be done. it's a lot of work and takes some balls, but the payoff is big. we started out in september last year, and have played almost every week this year, winning some contests and thus playing at some really cool festials. check our site: www.hoover05.nl Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members chris_feek Posted April 18, 2006 Author Members Share Posted April 18, 2006 slightly off topic, but i was wondering if you guys ever get payed for oiginal gigs and how much.... about half of my band has this "no pay no play" mentality. the drummer and i think it is more important to play as much gigs as you can to establish a name and create a hype, if you become well-known you can start asking for money. The 2 other guys are kinda afraid that we will get a reputation that we play for free and therefor will never be able to earn some $$... what do you guys think? Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members JBJ Posted April 18, 2006 Members Share Posted April 18, 2006 Originally posted by chris_feek slightly off topic, but i was wondering if you guys ever get payed for oiginal gigs and how much....about half of my band has this "no pay no play" mentality. the drummer and i think it is more important to play as much gigs as you can to establish a name and create a hype, if you become well-known you can start asking for money. The 2 other guys are kinda afraid that we will get a reputation that we play for free and therefor will never be able to earn some $$...what do you guys think?Chris 5 gigs = not alot ie im assuming you wont have a fanbase and no one is going to pay you for doing originals. to be honest its very rarfe that a normal venue will pay original bands for gigigng, you'll either usually ge4t a cut of the door and tickets. no offence to the other guys in your band but they sound kinda naive about how it all works. look at it this way: if you guys refuse to do a gig if you dont get paid, the bar owners just going to go to any other band who will do it without getting cash in hand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members chris_feek Posted April 18, 2006 Author Members Share Posted April 18, 2006 well we sort of have a 'fanbase'....at most of the gigs there were about 30-40 people but they are friend/people we know, but they keep showing up but then again we haven't really gigged outside of our region and public transport can get you anyway around here all night. the singer & bass player are indeed kind of naive, especially the singer. he's always talking about what we should do and how good we are and that we should get payed and stuff but when it comes to actually calling some bar he doesn't do {censored} he is quite a good singer/songwriter so i guess he compensates Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members renier Posted April 18, 2006 Members Share Posted April 18, 2006 when starting out & playing originals, your goal is to play as much gigs as you can, and get into the B-festival circuit as soon as possible. that means that you play for free drinks, and maybe a small fee for expenses. remember: the venueowner has no indication you will bring in a large crowd, or will entertain a lot of people with songs they don't know, plus, they have to rent a PA and soundman. the trick is: play as much as you can, and get into those band contests! ussually, if you win one of those, you get to open a B-festival (and by B, i mean smaller, inbetween 500 - 5000 visitors) the fun thing is, the headliner for that festival usually is a pretty big name. so having your name on the same bill is good publicity. for example, where playing with Osdorp Posse, Green Lizard, Janez detd and Peter Pan Speedrock this summer. sounds cool or what? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members chris_feek Posted April 18, 2006 Author Members Share Posted April 18, 2006 sound like a cool festival you're playing! i've seen Janez detd & Green Lizzard at a festival last summer in Delft. I'm definitely gonna check out the band contest thing! do you know a website or something were i can find some of those festivals in my region (randstad)? Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members renier Posted April 18, 2006 Members Share Posted April 18, 2006 we have the luxury of having a website (www.spl.nl) for our region, which keeps an extensive library of venues and festivals. we just made a standard email for festivals and one for venues, and mailed all of them with a link to our website (were we hosted a couple of songs.) if they were genuinly interseted, we sent them a copy of our cd. we played (and won) Fight For Fame and egopop the battle both were really cool nights, on wich we had a lot of fun and met some cool bands. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members renier Posted April 18, 2006 Members Share Posted April 18, 2006 this is the link page of www.spl.nl (stichting popmuziek limburg) Link Page this might be a good site for you to start: www.popunie.nl Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Mathew Posted April 18, 2006 Members Share Posted April 18, 2006 network baby its all about the networking Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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