Will you ask people to come to your gigs?

[Skel]

Originally Posted by ryco

I agree, there is some truth to this. The club should promote itself and the bands playing there. The bar staff should be informed as to what's up and coming.

But eventually a band wants to break away from having to depend on dumb bar owners, because most barkeeps don't have a clue about how to promote a show. It's really up to a band to promote itself and it's show. You are the only ones you can truly depend on and it's in your best interest anyways.
Once you get ppl to see you, you want to put on a great show with fresh stuff every time so the audience will want to return, bring all their buds, and build up a strong following. This way the party shows up even if the club itself doesn't draw well. They're there to party with you guys!
The beauty of this is then your band can start naming the clubs they want to play in. "Oh, you don't want us that night? Well, maybe we can make Club X down the street 5 grand that night."

story time: We once sent an out of town barkeep 300 posters to put up. Checked with him "How's it going putting up posters?" "Oh great - hired some kid to put 'em up around town!" "Great! See ya inna couple of weeks!" Get up there -- dead club!! Singer happened to look in the back of this guys car and there was the bundle of posters minus 3 or 4 he put up in the club itself. Of course the next night rocked "Hey! Great band down at Speedio Tubs!!"
We met the local poster guy at the show and dealt with him directly after that.

As I'm sure you guys know, there is a heck of a lot of information, more than you realize, in just a single thread like this. It takes me a while to process it all and apply the knowledge, maybe I'm just slow, but that's how it works with me. But I see this as an opportunity to leverage other people's experience in order to achieve the highest success possible. And in all honesty, it must take a lot of guts to walk around a mall handing out flyers. This just reminds me of something my dad once told me..."The harder I work the luckier I get". Thanks again.

[gotmule?]

Whenever I invite people to shows I just ask them if they want to come, tell them where it is, and what time it starts. If they come then thats great, but if they don't its just one less person. Now if they bring friends then thats a bonus.

[Nigel Rahmshard]

dont put flyers on windshields, i instinctively throw them on the ground without looking at them so people get ticked off at whoever made the flyer. Sometimes i email or call whoever is on the flyer to harass them about it. Just as i dont want you visiting my house to advertise, i dont want you visting my car either. I guess thats the good thing about only having a motorcycle now.

[LiquidMidnight]

I've always been a shameless promoter, even more now that people just don't "got out to the bar for something to do." I do tell people about shows. I don't twist their arms either, but I usually add a "you should totally come," to the end. I've been known to use whatever asinine thing possible to hype a show. A few weeks ago, we were playing on my birthday, so I inundated my promotion channels with that. As you gig more, you meet more people. That's why being personable is important. If people like you on a personable level and you connect with them, they will want to come see you more often. People came out to the gig just because it was my birthday.

I pick and choose where I put my promotion energies into. We have some venues that we've been playing for years and are quite established. We may not have hit our ceilings here, but plastering MySpace with bulletins really isn't going to up the body count for a gig. There it's better to rely on people familiar with you bringing out friends. I usually do heavy promoting when we are coming into a new venue, if we are coming into a venue that has a wider rotation for us (i.e., we're there every three months instead of every five weeks), or if there's something special about the gig, such as it being a benefit or if we have an opening band. We have come into venues where we haven't played before, but the owner and a few fans from the area have hyped us so much that we start out with a huge crowd. Of course, we have to deliver once we're on stage, but it's always great when the owner does understand promotion.