getting an audience?

Tuesday is tough especially in the winter months but it is still a good opportunity! It's a great chance to video/record/get pictures of the band. Any money involved?

Flyering or making handbills can be done on the cheap using a PC. Make a flyer, save a jpeg, send to your personal printer. Photo wizard will appear, select your printer from the dropdown, choose "next", from Layout Selection scroll down and choose 3.5 x 5" number of times to use each picture = 4, then print a copy. you will have 4 small copies of your flyer you can make copies of. At .04-.07 for B&W copies at a copy shop you can have hundreds of handbills pretty cheap. Cut them out then leave them everywhere. We leave a pile of them at the club so they can insert them in menu's or leave them by the register.

 

No single thing works - you've got to do everything, and keep doing it even when you don't think it's working. Posters at the venue, flyers, invite everyone you know, local radio (just phone in, and they put you on air for 30 seconds - our drummer calls the local station so often they remember who he is, and know he can talk to the DJ/host for a minute or so in a relativly clear and lucid manner, so they're happy to put him on air regularly). If each week you pull in a couple of new people from ALL of this work, it may seem like a waste of time, but after a couple of months you've gone from an empty bar to a packed bar...

Phase 2 is even more important - flyers will get bums on seats ONCE. Then you need to keep them there - especially as you're back next week, and you want them to come back too. Being good musically obviously helps, but it's really only a small part. I remember a local band who SUCKED, that could pack out any venue. Their trick was that the crowd they brought in were mostly friends who all knew each other - they went to the gig to meet their friends, and chat more than to hear the music.

The people who keep coming back to our gigs (and we have a few who will see us EVERY weekend if we're playing anywhere near them) are people we speak to. We know them, and they feel they're part of the event. Our guitarist can remember names and details of EVERYONE who's ever been to our gigs, so if someone comes back he'll say hi by name, and ask them how their work is going (and get it right!). The rest of us do our best to make sure everyone there gets spoken to even if its just "hi, thanks for comming down, see you next time". Gig writeups and photos are on the website with names and pics of regular audience members.

The more involved the audience feel, the more likely they are to come back next time...

Ian

p.s. and flyers AT the gig are essential, so they know your website, where your playing next, and perhaps most importantly THE NAME OF THE BAND. You can't over push the NAME OF THE BAND. We've got a backdrop, plus huge billboards on either side of the stage with the band name, name written on the kick drum, and logo's on the back of the monitors. People still ask us what we're called. If they don't know your name they can't come back.

 

I'd suggest having a couple cute female groupies handing out flyers as people LEAVE, not come in. If they're given as people arrive, you'll just find a lot left on tables and/or the floor. As they leave, you are fresh in their minds. The cute groupies don't hurt, either.

 

Additionally,
This was something I had done in the past(worked for me)
Gather together about 5 or 6 "outgoing and friendly females" (and highly attractive, if possible), that can get a word out beforehand, and can "hang out" every show.
Immediately, you might not see a difference. But from show to show you can potentially see an improvement of attendance. (if it is done right.) Remember, as long as you can get more females, the males also follow.

Then you could always "sweeten the deal" for these ladies, by offering to buy a few drinks for them, if it is financially possible.

Although it's "just an idea" for you, I can safely say It was a successful "campaign" for me.

Very,very true