Unsolicited Gig Offers

[jive1]

Just curious to see how many out there get unsolicited gig offers.

I seem to get a small handful a year from the website or word-of-mouth, and I'm curious if others are getting them as well. If so, what do you think is the reason why you get them, or why they find you?

[bassgod0dmw]

We've been getting them more often lately. It's usually word of mouth between the venue owners.

We actually just got a string of higher paying gigs from this. A random place called and asked if we wanted to play there. They booked us for 6 months, 1 gig a month. They also pay more than all of our other gigs. Pretty sweet! I guess the owner knows the owner from another bar we play, and they were talking about us.

[BayStateBass]

Even though our band is relatively "new", we have been getting quite a few unsolicited offers.

Most are coming through some sort of Facebook connection. I actually got a message from a club owner a week or two ago asking if we could play at his bar that weekend.....I'm not the BL so I gave him our BL's number. He saw that I had "liked" their FB page and saw that I was in a local band so he was seeing who could fill the spot.

In our area there is a big demand for country bands and not enough groups to fill the demand, so some of the club owners I guess talk, and the last place we played liked us a lot and the owner gave our name to another bar in the area as well.

Most of these are low-level dive bars with sketchy clientele and marginal paychecks.

So I would say our unsolicited offers come mostly via Facebook or referrals.

[SevenJacks]

The offers that come out of the blue are awesome. Those are the ones that show you make an impression.

So REMEMBER:
No matter what, you should always act professional and be courteous and kind to everyone regardless of their connections and contacts

[jonas_24112]

Same as you Jive, a handful and mostly by word of mouth.

[bassgod0dmw]

Originally Posted by SevenJacks

So REMEMBER:
No matter what, you should always act professional and be courteous and kind to everyone regardless of their connections and contacts

+1

Sometimes it may be difficult, but it shows. Talking to that random drunk guy at the end of the night might suck (it always does, and I seem to always be the one who gets stuck talking to them), but he might be your next biggest fan or more connected than you think.

[rodl2005]

Or the owner/booking agent of a club/s you might get to play-once you do chat to that drunk guy

[Jim Nazium]

A guitarist that I play with gets those once in a while, mostly from his web site I think. I played a wedding and a couple of holiday parties with him last year that were unsolicited. Every one of them, the clients paid us well and were really happy with the music. "Do you guys know Girl From Ipanema? YOU DO? You're awesome!"

[Factor88]

Not sure how much this counts, becuase we are a part-time band. We average 4 gigs per month..three of those will usually end up being at our "house" gig. But the other 25% are all unsolicited, all either word of mouth or by "walk-ups" at our house gig.

[Waffles and Scotch]

We get quite a few. Last year I had to contact venues to get dates and arrange all the bands for almost all of our shows, but this year I've had somewhere around 10-15 shows offered to us out of the blue already. It seems we're making a good impression on the venues, promoters and the other bands we play with. We do all originals btw...

[funkingroovin]

My band is pretty spoiled in this department. For about the last year and a half or so,the BARS have been calling US to book gigs. It's quite flattering,and I'd have to say it's mostly a result of us choosing not to play the same stuff as every other band around..no Brown Eyed Girl,Mustang Sally,Sweet Home Werewolves of Northern Michigan,etc.. Sure,they're solid classics,but there's already a dozen and a half bands in the area that beat them to death and there's so much good music out there that nobody else plays. I can't count how many times the management or owners have thanked us for bringing something 'new' or 'different' to their stage..

[tmdazed]

Originally Posted by jive1

Just curious to see how many out there get unsolicited gig offers.

I seem to get a small handful a year from the website or word-of-mouth, and I'm curious if others are getting them as well. If so, what do you think is the reason why you get them, or why they find you?

Some work out ok , others are pay to play scams. You have to be careful

[Edward G.]

When you say 'unsolicited', do you mean from some person or entity with absolutely no prior connection with the band, however indirect? I don't know if I've ever gotten one of those.

[jive1]

Originally Posted by Edward G.

When you say 'unsolicited', do you mean from some person or entity with absolutely no prior connection with the band, however indirect? I don't know if I've ever gotten one of those.

I guess. I mean not actually calling someone to get a gig, but also those offers for gigs that come out of the blue i.e. someone looking at your website.

[Downunderwonder]

We get the odd one from attendees with my jazz band. One time we got a booking through the piano player's agency who the client tracked down via the bar's accountants. That was pretty cool.

[Nate74]

Not surprisingly, my Irish folk/rock band gets tons from about mid January right up until March 17. We actually had a club call us last year on the 16th of March to see if we would be interested in playing their club 7 to 1 for $350 the next night. They also mentioned in the voicemail that $350 was twice what they usually pay bands but they were having trouble finding a band for the 17th... By contrast, this year we're booked Thurs (3/14), Fri (3/15), Sat (3/16) afternoon and night and Sun (3/17) afternoon and night. Have been for weeks :0