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E-mail for booking gigs

#21
Hey Jong,
In the DC area, a lot depends on what type of band you are in. My experience is that our area is flooded with wedding bands, so if you have a connection that can book you private events, good deal for you.

If you are talking bars, I think a lot depends on the venue owner/booker and the type of music. I was recently able to secure a monthly jazz gig which turned into 2 monthly gigs, using only e-mail. I also used e-mail to arrange another audition/gig that turned into a monthly gig at a different venue. All within the last year, all for jazz gigs at local restaurants, for decent pay (For reference one gig pays $70 per man for 3 hours with breaks, other pays $75 per man for 4 hours with breaks. Both also encourage tip jar for additional revenue).

When I booked rock music, I found that agency clubs always cared a lot more about how many butts we put in the seats than about anything else. Yuck.

And Gigmasters has been very good to the wedding band I play in and book myself. Following leads there is a much better use of my time than knocking on agency and venue doors. But again, it depends on the type of band. I used Gigmasters for the rock band I played in (Dave Matthews covers) and got zero gigs from Gigmasters. Nice thing about Gigmasters is that they are really good at the search engine thing. Google "wedding band DC" and you'll see what I mean. And e-mail works well with most of the Gigmasters clients since they are mostly young and relatively wealthy.

By the way, I am really enjoying the volume boost pedal I won at that last TB GTG. Thanks!
 
#22
I'd like to know is if e-mail is an effective means of booking a band, or if you still need to do the phone calls and legwork like the old days. If there's a better way that makes better use of my time, I'd like to know. I would love to know what your experiences are.

I am in the same boat, I do the bookings for the band and I am new to all this.

I also have less time and more technology, however the club owner might not be so much into technology as we are.Sending everything electronically seems like the faster way to do things.

Unfortunately, club owners like to hide from bands and from my experience don't use e-mail, go figure?

I have asked these types if i can send our press kit via e-mail and they have all said "send me a hard copy in the mail"

As a matter of fact during my lunch break I will be filling out envelopes to send out tonight.

blue
 
#23
bluewine said:
I have asked these types if i can send our press kit via e-mail and they have all said "send me a hard copy in the mail"
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A long time ago, a friend in the biz showed me a drawer full of promo packs that were still awaiting review. Some of them looked like they have been there for ages. There were probably over 100 of them, and those didn't even include the ones he tossed out immediately.

Considering that, I'd imagine an electronic one would save the time and clutter, but some guys just like to just add another hoop to jump through.
 
#24
jive1 said:
I find myself in the position of doing something I hate, booking the band. I haven't done this since the 90s, and I found that I just didn't like dealing with club owners/managers. I've been lucky that in the last decade or so, I got to work with bands that either had booking agents or someone else in the band doing the legwork.

I'd love to just use a booking agent, but the project is new, and from talking to them, they are hesitant about a new band, even though they may be familiar with other bands I worked with. So in the meantime, I still want to get the booking operation going.

Back when I was booking, most of it was done by phone calls, and stopping in. Back in the day, we called the venue, sent them a promo pack, stopped by to talk, and we'd get a gig out of it about half the time. That's what I know to do, but this is now 2010 and I have less time but more technology available. What I'd like to know is if e-mail is an effective means of booking a band, or if you still need to do the phone calls and legwork like the old days. If there's a better way that makes better use of my time, I'd like to know. I would love to know what your experiences are.
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The sales process hasn't changed but email is a great sales tool. It let's you direct a stranger to your website, downloads, promo material, you don't show up at a bad time of day, you can send attachments & best of all, it gives you a reason to call or get past a gatekeeper; "I sent an email the other day, can we talk for a few minutes now?" Condense sound attachments to the max & add a disclaimer to the follow up; "I sacrificed sound quality for fast download. Will you listen to a less lossy sound track?"

If you don't like selling, email won't make it a joyful task. It does make it easier, faster & cost less. 8-)
 
#25
251 said:
The sales process hasn't changed but email is a great sales tool. It let's you direct a stranger to your website, downloads, promo material, you don't show up at a bad time of day, you can send attachments & best of all, it gives you a reason to call or get past a gatekeeper; "I sent an email the other day, can we talk for a few minutes now?" Condense sound attachments to the max & add a disclaimer to the follow up; "I sacrificed sound quality for fast download. Will you listen to a less lossy sound track?"

If you don't like selling, email won't make it a joyful task. It does make it easier, faster & cost less. 8-)
Click to expand...

I love the idea of doing everything via e-mail, believe it or not there are still some people that are not into computers or e-mail. Me, most of the day i am on a cell or on my lap top, but that's just me:0
 
#29
I figured I'd revisit this.

So far, I've gotten most results by calling or dropping by, but no so much via e-mail. Maybe it's just the way it is around here. But for the guys who do use email primarily, what's your pitch? What do you put in the subject line?
 
#30
jive1 said:
I figured I'd revisit this.

So far, I've gotten most results by calling or dropping by, but no so much via e-mail. Maybe it's just the way it is around here. But for the guys who do use email primarily, what's your pitch? What do you put in the subject line?
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Jive, Its your area. I book 90% of my bands shows and they are not sleazy bars etc. We play allot of community, city events,festivals etc so I deal with management groups,town and city officers etc.They all use email and some phone to book us. For bars etc its a crap-shoot and still email works best in my area. As for subject line? Sometimes I use "Bookings" or "Show" Or if I feel I need to sneek in I use "Need Info" or Info? something like that. If I am really intersted and get no responce then I beat feet or make calls but email first. If i get responce I link them to our sites etc. So far it works but this end of the music biz suks..I hate it!
 
#32
MNAirHead said:
QUESTION....
When emailing what are you sending...

I'm always err on sending way too much stuff.. Trying to fix this.

My though are the following
1-Band Description
2-Band Pix
3-Set List
4-Contact Information
5-Mp3 Samples
6-Link to the website.

Looking to learn.
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IMO all of that's should be in your link to one place.. your website. Let it do the work for you. I do a quick introduction,thank them for reviewing our material and a contact phone number. After that a link to the site..keep it simple.
 
#34
A mix of media works well and they each have their pros and cons. I still think a call or better still a visit can achieve something, but then follow it up with an email containing links to music, pics, FB page or whatever. I've found email alone to most venues with no other contact produces a very low conversion rate to actual bookings.
 
#36
MNAirHead said:
Bassy Bill..

What are you leaving behind for your personal visits.

I'm the guilty one of leaving too much stuff..
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These days, I'd usually just leave a card, maybe a CD if we were actively after gigs in this fashion. It would really depend on the vibe.

But to be honest we don't actually get to do a lot of this nowadays, as most of our gigs are private or corporate functions. We get occasional but regular gigs from one or two local venues just for promo and "fan contact" purposes. Generally speaking if we want a gig of that type we just ask for one and that's it. I know, we're maybe lucky in that respect.

I'd like more of the corporate stuff, though, as that's the work that's really worth getting. The private function stuff generally comes to us based on word of mouth recommendations rather than any actual promo activity.
 
#38
I have no experience booking bands, but lots of experience ignoring email (and sending messages that get responses).

A big issue with email generally is in the construction of the email. The article Writing sensible email messages has some good suggestions on how to craft the message to get a response.

Try a few variations on your message and see if you get better responses from a different version than what you're sending now.
 
#39
bassbully said:
Jive, Its your area. I book 90% of my bands shows and they are not sleazy bars etc. We play allot of community, city events,festivals etc so I deal with management groups,town and city officers etc.They all use email and some phone to book us. For bars etc its a crap-shoot and still email works best in my area. As for subject line? Sometimes I use "Bookings" or "Show" Or if I feel I need to sneek in I use "Need Info" or Info? something like that. If I am really intersted and get no responce then I beat feet or make calls but email first. If i get responce I link them to our sites etc. So far it works but this end of the music biz suks..I hate it!
Click to expand...

I don't like this part of the business at all. That's why I glady paid an agent 15% for many years.

You'd think in a metropolitan area like DC that has lots of technologically savvy people and a big tech industry that e-mail would work better than a smaller market like Ohio. Maybe people around here have more information overload, and more likely to ignore an e-mail. Maybe, I'm more compelling in person or on the phone. I dunno.
 
#40
jive1 said:
I don't like this part of the business at all. That's why I glady paid an agent 15% for many years.

You'd think in a metropolitan area like DC that has lots of technologically savvy people and a big tech industry that e-mail would work better than a smaller market like Ohio. Maybe people around here have more information overload, and more likely to ignore an e-mail. Maybe, I'm more compelling in person or on the phone. I dunno.
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Maybe folks in DC have thicker skin? Don't know never been there. It's funny, although I use email I have been on the phone a bunch this week working on bookings and emailing too. I talked to a new venue last night a trendy bistro,martini bar that is doing music like my band, Folk rock ,Americana , jazz...lighter stuff. Looks like I sold us by phone and got 2 possible gigs on the books. I am better on the phone too. I was self employed for allot of years and know how to sell and am good with talking to peope from the work I'm in now. This might not always come across in email thats for sure.
 

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