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Band Name Banner?

#41
There is nothing wrong a banner, especially if you are an opening act or at a festival.

To those of you who don't like the idea of a banner, do you sell blank t-shirts at your shows, too? lol

We used a local printing company, who did a great job. Make sure you get one that works outdoors as well as indoors. They're more expensive, but the festival-type shows, where a million people are milling around and have no other way of knowing who you are, are the ones where you most need a banner. We use lighting trees to put ours up, behind/over the drummer. We attach the banner to the trees with bungee cords, through the grommets and around the trees.

I've also used banners with electronic drums, hanging from the frame in front of the drummer's legs, since there's no big kick drum and it looks kinda funny without something covering the front of it.

If you don't have time for a banner (or $ - ours was ~$200 IIRC), you can always spray-paint your cabs' grill cloths.
 
#42
Dave, you have the right mentality IMHO. Nothing is more fun and rewarding than taking nothing and making it into something very successful.

I'll make the set up time for the banner short (somehow). I'm actually getting into the art of developing the most efficient, repeatable system of setting up in the shortest time possible - weird, I know, but I just like that kind of stuff.
 
#46
nsmar4211 said:
They might remember your playing......but if they don't rememeber your name it does you no good.

A lot of people are visual learners, and since the average human has to see something 10 times (TEN) before they start to remember it it only makes sense to have your name everywhere.
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A truer word has never been said, we've started using one and a couple of people have now actually come to other shows because they liked our music and, as a result of seeing the banner, remembered who we were!
 
#47
I used to design and make banners for a living. Some advice...

1> Any sign shop that does vinyl graphics should be able to do this for you.

2> Keep your logo simple and limit it to one or two colors. With vinyl banners, the smaller the number of colors the cheaper it should be. A digitally printed banner allows for more colors and a more elaborate layout, but with vinyl the colors are generally more vibrant and the graphic lasts longer. When you get into a dark club or sunny festival, most of the subtle nuances you've put into the design will disappear anyway, and if the graphic is really busy or the color contrast is poor it'll be difficult to read your band name.

3> If you're mainly playing small clubs, a 3' x 8' banner is probably plenty large.

4> I personally think that it's better to set up a merch booth and have the banner there as opposed to placing it on the stage. And if you aren't at least selling t-shirts at your shows, you have no real business having a banner because t-shirts are a FAR better form of advertising.

5> Having business cards with the band name is probably more effective than a banner, since the people are able to take the card with them and are more likely to remember your band name.

6> If you know someone who is proficient in Adobe Illustrator or CoreDraw, having them prepare your logo in one of those programs and in vector format may save you art charges with the printer.

Let me know if you have any other questions.
 
#48
custom sign made from plywood, foam letters, with acrylic. nice 3d look to the sign. added a few pics to give an example of size. we hang the sign from a 10 foot truss behind the drummer for gigs (it's one heavy mf).
 

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#49
I can't believe some people think a banner behind the drummer is lame. It's mandatory in my opinion. Must have one - period. If you are opening for someone, no, don't do it. A kick drum logo is nice for that. But if you are the last one on, then you need one IMO. Certain members of a band have less setup than others. Make them get their crap setup first, then put them in charge to get the banner ready to go, so it can get hung without slowing anything down. A matte black vinyl banner with white logo and web address smaller on there is all you need to get going. I just don't get where the cheese aspect comes from...a group of musicians standing on a stage with no way to know who they are, and not mentioning a website, or anything, that seems un-professional to me. What on earth can be wrong ever about trying to promote your band in every way possible (within reason...of course)?

I say find any one of a zillion sign shops in strip malls around your house, and walk in. Most charge between 4-5.00 per square foot for a banner, sometimes less. So, an 8 foot x 4' banner is 32sf, or roughly $150.00. That should give you a rough idea. Ask for grommets. Be careful rolling it up, vinyl lettering on the inside, and have someone's wife sew up a bag for it out of scrap material. You are set.
 
#50
I've always thought banner were a little tacky. The only bands around me that have banners are 2nd or 3rd rate butt rock bands (think Hinder) or wanna-be metal bands. All the top flight indie, punk, or metal bands don't have them. They usually look amature and printed on a camping tarp anyways! They may be useful if you are a bar band, or a cover band, or generally a working musician. For original bands, though, they seem like you are attempting to have an "elaborate", rock-star like stage show, but all you could afford was a $60 banner with you name on it! Banners might get you a gig at a local waterhole, or the bartender's cousin's wedding, but won't get you a review on pitchfork!
 
#51
we got ours here for about $60, its great!

http://www.halfpricebanners.com/


It looks great on stage. Sometime we have to fined a place to hang it. When we play outside we setup our tent (band camp) with color photo's, schedules, mailing list, demo's and hang the banner up.



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Promotions is just as important as the music, you can be the best band in the world but nobody hears you your just another band. Don't forget that most people have a short attention span and 'will' forget about you, so give them somthing to remember.


We mention the website repeatedly durring every show. We have a sort of rule if one of us say rivergard.com on the mic at least two band members have to repeat it back. It's worked and now I can point to the crowed and they will say it back!

My wife takes care of a lot of our PR work and can talk for the band. I know that some bands think thats a bad thing but its paid off for our band. She makes sure we have cheat sheets listing the bartenders, bar maids, next show date, drink specails, birthdays/aniversaries, anything important. She also snapes tons of pictures and we make sure to have new promo shots about every 3 to 6 months.

Organisation is key! Getting your music down is top priority and keeping a large enough library to play two nights without sounding like the same band! Be intertaining and sell a lot of beer!
 
#52
Modulator said:
I used to design and make banners for a living. Some advice...


4> I personally think that it's better to set up a merch booth and have the banner there as opposed to placing it on the stage. And if you aren't at least selling t-shirts at your shows, you have no real business having a banner because t-shirts are a FAR better form of advertising.
Click to expand...


Gold!


The problem we are having is finding a place affordable to print our shirts and don't want me to buy 500 shirts up front!
 
#55
this our banner...i took this picture in the dark with a flash.....when making your banner i highly recconmend using a reflective material like this....its freaking pops out at live venues and during pictures...

also check out www.purebuttons.com

you can get 250 1'' buttons made for under $66 bucks...its awesome to throw out during shows and cheap to have your band mates throw in on.......its all about promoting the band....take every step you can i say.....good luck!
 

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#56
Name recognition is paramount! But big banners are a pain in the ass! I've played it two bands that tried to use them, and 8 times out of 10, we couldn't. Either there was no room on an overbooked stage or the headliner wouldn't allow us to put it up. (Yngwie Malmsteen threw a fit, it's was kinda sad.) Go with the bass drum head, but use art and color that is easy to read from across the room.:cool:
 
#57
In the past, my bands have done many weird things to get our name out there. I once had a bassist who threaded some yarn through his amp grille to spell out the band name.

We actually have a band name banner, and it was super cheap... Just a banner kit from Wal-Mart. A little cheesy, but this was when we were just starting out and couldn't afford anything else.

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These days, we don't usually use the banner (we've retouched it and sometimes we'll put it behind the merch booth), but we do have a big logo on the bass drum...

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We also have a rule of saying the band name at least three times over the course of the gig. We mention the merch, the website, and we explain what the band name means throughout the show.

We sell tshirts, hats, CDs, buttons... We've discovered that homemade tees sell just as well as the professionally printed ones- sometimes better (our bassist is a graphic design major and makes it all). We usually carry both pro and amateur shwag. Our hats are always handmade- logo on the front, and usually the website address on the back. They sell out faster than anything.

The only thing that necessarily sells better when it's professionally done are the CDs.

Have business cards, half sheets of paper talking about your gig schedule, and photos of the band (with name and logo at the bottom). We started throwing in free buttons (another recommendation for purebuttons.com).

The last thing you want is to let the audience walk away saying, "That was AWESOME! I just wish I knew who they were so I could see 'em next week!" Like it or not, most people know nill to zilch about music, and can't really tell a huge difference between a "good" band and a "bad" band. When they're booking a band, they'll go with any band that they know. Get your name out there.
 
#58
Banner's are useful and achieve their goal (making sure everyone knows your name), but so often they look so cheesy and unprofessional that it makes it hard to take the band seriously. Some butt-rock/nu-metal band came through here recently and they had a projector pointed where a banner would normally go and it had their name in cheesy windows 3.1 screen saver style fonts behind them. It looked like a 13 year old made it in MS Paint and it immediately made them look completely hackish and amateur. The couldn't have been any more blatant with their name, yet the only thing I remembered the next day was how goofy it looked... no clue who they were. In fact I spent as much time laughing about their "banner" as I did listening to their music.

I say free CD-R samplers are the way to go.
 

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