Band Promotion ideas?

kesslari · #1 01-30-2009, 06:52 PM

I've been out of the band promotion thing for so long...
Mostly worked with bands that had either a booking agent, or an extremely good booking person in the band.

Now I'm in a duo, and we're both way overworked.
So I need to do some bookings...

The band is Folk in A (say it fast and think Canadian)
www.folkina.com

We have a new CD coming out in a week or two (just finishing production).

The forum sticky has only one link on press kits, and that link/thread is focused on what makes a good band photograph. Search has not yielded much more.

What goes into a promo kit nowadays?
Gigging musicians - what works for you?

I'd like to put something together to mail out to some festivals around the West Coast, as well as for local gigs in the SF/SJ Bay Area.

kesslari · #2 01-31-2009, 11:58 AM

Wow.
Maybe there are fewer successfully gigging musicians here than I thought...
Bet if I said "I just don't get Jaco" I'd get more responses...

nsmar4211 · #3 01-31-2009, 07:43 PM

You lost me after you said you were in a duo and way overworked and now you need promotions? If you're booked too much for your taste, why would you want more? Or do you mean your "day jobs" are taking too much time?

According to your website you had two gigs in late 2008 and that's all.... May want to take down the already past dates, maybe putup a "past places played" area instead so bookers know you're still active.

Around here it's the bands that are having trouble booking, duos and solos can still find work (usually at the expense of the bands). Do you have a local blues society? Joining them might help with some word of mouth......

kesslari · #4 01-31-2009, 08:23 PM

Ah, good questions. Clearly, I wasn't clear

We both have significant day gigs, hence not much time to book music gigs .

Next - thanks for checking the website.
We gigged a bunch last year, and took old gigs down. Then took time off (guitarist got married, then we were recording...).
So your idea to post "recent gigs" as a list, rather than with dates, is a good one. I'll get on fixing that this weekend.

Working with the Blues Society is also an excellent idea.

nsmar4211 · #5 02-01-2009, 06:39 PM

If you google " band press kit" there's lots of good links.....

We're still working on ours, but for example the one I did for a festival gig we were trying to get had a sample CD (burned label in lightscribe with all contact info on it and a pic of the group and the members names/instruments), a band picture with the name and contact info on it, a bio sheet, sample set list, and a sample of promotional material we use to advertise to show that we do advertise. However, for a bar gig, that'd get knocked down to a "one-sheet" and a cd. One sheet would have short bio, band picture on it, and contact info (no set list or sample promo stuff).

The fact that you have a new CD could really work for you-you could use it as an opener to approach the booking people. "Hey, we'd like to play here, here's our new CD... can I call you next week and see if you think we'd work out well here?" Might work.... might get you laughed at but hey

. Don't forget to have the contact info ON the cd itself because cd's get lost....

If you have friends that frequent places you'd like to play, hand em a few CD's and have them recommend you to the owner/booking person..... nothing like word of mouth!