Getting the Gig Help

[WilbursaurusRex]

Hey guys,

My buddy and I are in Greensboro, NC and have been trying to book gigs with hardly any luck. A couple of years ago we played at 1 venue (and had several more gigs lined up) right before COVID. It went great! We had a turn out and the staff and owners seemed to really enjoy us. COVID cancelled all of those other gigs and destroyed any startup momentum we had.

Now at 31 (me) and 35 with a family we are having 0 luck. The venue we played before is under new management and has been giving us the run around (even though we have videos from the previous gig) and even offered today to have us on December 28th (we said no bc it was too last minute and a lose lose offer). We were offered to play at a coffee shop the venue owner also owned and took that. It went well for a coffee shop that cant hold more than 20 people. Other places we had talked to prior are also making it incredibly hard to pin down any kind of gig and its incredibly frustrating and disheartening.

Greensboro doesn't have a plethora of options. Mostly coffee shops, a couple of small bar venues for 100 people or so, a couple larger venues (where touring groups usually come through), and then our local coliseum.

Some of this is venting, but if yall have any tips or insights they would be much appreciated.

Music -> Joe Beck - These Good Days

 

[ArtechnikA]

It's kinda like that all over, especially with startups. The momentum you thought you had existed only in your mind; you are starting over from zero.
As a duo, you stand a chance of getting into those small venues. Expect little to no compensation as you rebuild your 'buzz.'
I'm a little confused by your comment that a gig two weeks away is "too last-minute." Are you ready to gig, or not? What keeps you from being ready in 2 weeks?
I get the concept of the lose/lose proposition (BTDT) in theory, but as you're building visibility and are starting from nothing, what's to lose? (You may be building a reputation as 'hard to deal with.')

Places that 'won't pin down' require persistence - lots of it. Expect repeated rejections. Do those places have -any- live music? It can be almost impossible to be the first... If there's someone in there now, what are they doing that got them in that you're not?

Do you have your promotional materials ready to go? Flyers and one-sheets to post at the venue? FaceBook pages and websites and press kits with photographs and sample tracks? Ideally, you have video of you performing to happy people. If not, a goal should be to get booked -somewhere- for the primary purpose of getting video showing you performing to happy people - ideally, lots of them.

Success builds on success and you have to get your foot in the door.

 

[gln1955]

You should have taken the gig on the 28th. How bad could it have been? Only pay to play should be off the table. At this point beggars can't be choosers.

 

[two fingers]

What is your act? Covers duo? What genres? All of that factors into it.

 

[WilbursaurusRex]

It's kinda like that all over, especially with startups. The momentum you thought you had existed only in your mind; you are starting over from zero.
As a duo, you stand a chance of getting into those small venues. Expect little to no compensation as you rebuild your 'buzz.'
I'm a little confused by your comment that a gig two weeks away is "too last-minute." Are you ready to gig, or not? What keeps you from being ready in 2 weeks?
I get the concept of the lose/lose proposition (BTDT) in theory, but as you're building visibility and are starting from nothing, what's to lose? (You may be building a reputation as 'hard to deal with.')

Places that 'won't pin down' require persistence - lots of it. Expect repeated rejections. Do those places have -any- live music? It can be almost impossible to be the first... If there's someone in there now, what are they doing that got them in that you're not?

Do you have your promotional materials ready to go? Flyers and one-sheets to post at the venue? FaceBook pages and websites and press kits with photographs and sample tracks? Ideally, you have video of you performing to happy people. If not, a goal should be to get booked -somewhere- for the primary purpose of getting video showing you performing to happy people - ideally, lots of them.

Success builds on success and you have to get your foot in the door.

I appreciate the response! We have a full band variation but its mostly the 2 of us trying to get in with places. Its hard to always have that group ready to go at short notice as 2 of them also live in Charlotte (90 minutes away).

Being out of town and not having the time to loop the rest of the band in is what is keeping us from the 28th. Not to mention it probably wouldnt draw many people, which feels like they are trying to set us up to do poorly. The date we had been discussing is over a month out then they all of a sudden said that was already booked and offered the 28th.

We are only talking to places that currently do live music. We have a small press kit together and videos of us performing. We dont have social media bc we havent had anything to put there.

 

[portpc]

You have a duo?.. Do you have any Veterans organizations in your area? (Hospitals, Homes, VFW's) Is performing for worthy folks for the sake for brightening their day worth it?
Trust me, It does work & often you create your own luck/momentum, someone who is or knows somebody will hear you and offer you a gig or a lead, You simply need to put yourself out there..

Are there Farmers Markets in your area? Many of the ones out my way have live music to accompany their trade on weekend mornings, It's an instant audience. The marketing is up to you.

Success nowadays is often thinking outside the box of traditional venues.

 

[WilbursaurusRex]

You should have taken the gig on the 28th. How bad could it have been? Only pay to play should be off the table. At this point beggars can't be choosers.

Out of town/other obligations. Its the Holidays. We arent single 20-somethings that can always say yes to anything.

What is your act? Covers duo? What genres? All of that factors into it.

Ideally full band but that takes some planning. We can do the duo thing if need be, but its not as fun. We do some covers, but prefer original music which is in similar veins as hootie and the blowfish, counting crows, wallflowers

 

[WilbursaurusRex]

You have a duo?.. Do you have any Veterans organizations in your area? (Hospitals, Homes, VFW's) Is performing for worthy folks for the sake for brightening their day worth it?
Trust me, It does work & often you create your own luck/momentum, someone who is or knows somebody will hear you and offer you a gig or a lead, You simply need to put yourself out there..

Are there Farmers Markets in your area? Many of the ones out my way have live music to accompany their trade on weekend mornings, It's an instant audience. The marketing is up to you.

Success nowadays is often thinking outside the box of traditional venues.

We were actually talking about this earlier. There is a farmers market but havent done music to my knowledge. Still, I agree, thinking outside of the box is where we are getting to.

 

[gln1955]

Out of town/other obligations. Its the Holidays. We arent single 20-somethings that can always say yes to anything.



Ideally full band but that takes some planning. We can do the duo thing if need be, but its not as fun. We do some covers, but prefer original music which is in similar veins as hootie and the blowfish, counting crows, wallflowers

I totally get the family and holidays thing. Unfortunately, to the venue you are saying you don't want to play that badly. They'll just move on to the people who say yes.

 

[filmtex]

Let’s see the videos.

 

[portpc]

We were actually talking about this earlier. There is a farmers market but havent done music to my knowledge. Still, I agree, thinking outside of the box is where we are getting to.

Back when I was getting a project up to speed I'd often read the upcoming events calendars for nearby areas and offer my band's services to ones that would benefit from Live Music, I ended up with a few gigs that snowballed into more based on that.
I remember we did a Garlic Festival & a few months later the Potato one!...

 

[two fingers]

Ideally full band but that takes some planning. We can do the duo thing if need be, but its not as fun. We do some covers, but prefer original music which is in similar veins as hootie and the blowfish, counting crows, wallflowers

The highlighted section is your answer. Unfortunately, there isn't as much of a market for originals as there is for covers. And originals gigs generally pay very little (if anything). If you were to reverse your approach you would likely get a lot further. I would book yourselves as a cover band, and then sprinkle a few originals in for fun. A 90s band would likely do pretty well in your area. A friend of mine was actually in a 90s cover band (out of Raleigh) called "GenX". They did pretty well for a while.

At your age (not knocking you... heck I'm 50) you guys likely aren't going to "make it" in music. So record an album of your originals and sell them at shows for fun. But to get gigs you'll just have to give the people what they want to hear primarily. If not, I'm afraid you guys will wind up a studio project.

 

[KenD]

I understand completely about the personal circumstances and I say this with total respect but are you creating your own obstacles? Your core is a duo but you would like to be a band but the band members are spread out with commitments and can't get together as often or as quickly as might be necessary to be responsive to opportunities.........

I recently watched an interview with Dominic Miller (Sting's guitar player) and he said something that might be applicable to your situation by analogy. He was asked about how he got started and he said he used to go to every audition he heard about, even if it seemed like a wrong fit. Paraphrasing: "The worst that can happen is a rejection and you never know who might hear you, or see you, or mention your name to someone else....." That attitude worked out OK for Dominic

 

[WilbursaurusRex]

Back when I was getting a project up to speed I'd often read the upcoming events calendars for nearby areas and offer my band's services to ones that would benefit from Live Music, I ended up with a few gigs that snowballed into more based on that.
I remember we did a Garlic Festival & a few months later the Potato one!...

Those sound like fun gigs!

The highlighted section is your answer. Unfortunately, there isn't as much of a market for originals as there is for covers. And originals gigs generally pay very little (if anything). If you were to reverse your approach you would likely get a lot further. I would book yourselves as a cover band, and then sprinkle a few originals in for fun. A 90s band would likely do pretty well in your area. A friend of mine was actually in a 90s cover band (out of Raleigh) called "GenX". They did pretty well for a while.

At your age (not knocking you... heck I'm 50) you guys likely aren't going to "make it" in music. So record an album of your originals and sell them at shows for fun. But to get gigs you'll just have to give the people what they want to hear primarily. If not, I'm afraid you guys will wind up a studio project.

Yeah, we arent trying to make it, but would like to get to write and share our music with more than just us or our spouses.

 

[two fingers]

Yeah, we arent trying to make it, but would like to get to write and share our music with more than just us or our spouses.

Yeah I think that's why you sneak your originals into a cover band set list. Just no market for a 90s centric originals band. I think it would be cool. But I'm a musician... and old.

 

[ArtechnikA]

I appreciate the response! We have a full band variation but its mostly the 2 of us trying to get in with places. Its hard to always have that group ready to go at short notice as 2 of them also live in Charlotte (90 minutes away).

I understand; that kind of logistic issue will make it hard to be responsive. Are you also marketing in Charlotte, since some of the band lives there ?

Not to mention it probably wouldnt draw many people, which feels like they are trying to set us up to do poorly.

Maybe, but what's their incentive to do that? It's always easy to pre-judge an opportunity that might be sub-optimal. Until you have booking agents calling you, they'll all be sub-optimal... It sounds to me like they had a cancellation and gave you first choice. Your best strategy would probably have been to suggest that they give you -both- dates, but if you couldn't put the band together on that date, it's moot...

We dont have social media bc we havent had anything to put there.

You have to get a presence. Post sound clips - the very best rehearsal clips you can get. Post rehearsal video if you have to. Band bios. SOMETHING so you can build a fanbase to promote any future last-minute gig that pops up. Something to show venue managers what they'll be getting. Something you can email to people before you make your call to help prime the pump and spread the word. You need an engaged following, the sooner the better...

 

[WilbursaurusRex]

I understand completely about the personal circumstances and I say this with total respect but are you creating your own obstacles? Your core is a duo but you would like to be a band but the band members are spread out with commitments and can't get together as often or as quickly as might be necessary to be responsive to opportunities.........

I recently watched an interview with Dominic Miller (Sting's guitar player) and he said something that might be applicable to your situation by analogy. He was asked about how he got started and he said he used to go to every audition he heard about, even if it seemed like a wrong fit. Paraphrasing: "The worst that can happen is a rejection and you never know who might hear you, or see you, or mention your name to someone else....." That attitude worked out OK for Dominic

Agreed, the band thing is a pain (though I love playing with everyone when they can), but it is something else we are trying to work on.

I appreciate the encouragement. I agree. Our vocalist has been at open mics and trying to network a bit

 

[captainofsmooth]

This is a problem everywhere. I live in central GA. We house one of the largest Air Force bases in the country and 6 colleges, so we have a HUGE metro area population including military, contractors, students, etc. We have plenty of bars, clubs, venues. We definitely have the potential market for there to be live music every night of the week. Do you know who’s booking live music around here these days? No one. We have a couple of tour-level theatres that house big name acts, but that’s about the only live music. You’ll see open mics or jams (free entertainment). One or two bars will have their buddy’s band play once a month. Same band each month. Boo. I’ve always made a large portion of my income with regular gigging. For the past 5 years, everything has been steadily lowering- the crowds, the pay, the public enthusiasm, the available bookings. Do you know what they do book every night of the week now? DJs. Karaoke Hosts. Trivia Hosts. And they pay them fairly. Guess who learned to DJ/KJ? Went from working 0 nights as a musician to working 5 nights a week for good money. It sucks, and I hate it. But bills is bills.

I blame this on a few things.
-Cost: It’s way easier to pay one guy $250-300/night Vs $100/man for a 5-7 piece band. Also fewer people are going out, spending less, and the bar can’t always cover those costs.
-Efficiency: Less setup, less logistics to work out, quick in and outs, easily adjusted sound quality/volume/mood change.
-Quality: Before the Pandemic, music scenes everywhere were inundated with weekend warriors (nothing wrong with that) who would undercut working musicians (not wrong, but disappointing), play less quality shows, and use their gigs as a weekend party time to get free beer and look cool in front of their friends before they go back to their insurance sales cubicle on Monday. This not only showed venues they didn’t have to pay musicians, but it also burned both owners and customers on the quality of entertainment they should expect from local live music.

Most customers absolutely don’t want live music anymore (a generalization from my experience and conversations within my market). Of course there are always the die hard music lovers who are always looking for it. But the general “going out” public is very young and grew up in a time where live music wasn’t as important as it was for those of us who couldn’t just hop on the internet to find live performances or song clips that we didn’t have readily available. They like electronic music. They like trap music. They like to dance. They gladly pay a $3 cover on Fri/Sat for a good DJ, but ask $3 for live music, and they’ll go down the street to the next bar. It’s really sad, but unfortunately this is the way things are going, I’m afraid. I know I sound like a “Boomer,” but I’m only 33. But think about this- the majority of the crowd market going out to these bars/clubs was born in or around the year 2000.

I apologize if my rant went of topic. I just thought some perspective into why it’s hard for everyone to book currently might help. I wish you guys the best in getting some shows on the books!

 

[WilbursaurusRex]

This is a problem everywhere. I live in central GA. We house one of the largest Air Force bases in the country and 6 colleges, so we have a HUGE metro area population including military, contractors, students, etc. We have plenty of bars, clubs, venues. We definitely have the potential market for there to be live music every night of the week. Do you know who’s booking live music around here these days? No one. We have a couple of tour-level theatres that house big name acts, but that’s about the only live music. You’ll see open mics or jams (free entertainment). One or two bars will have their buddy’s band play once a month. Same band each month. Boo. I’ve always made a large portion of my income with regular gigging. For the past 5 years, everything has been steadily lowering- the crowds, the pay, the public enthusiasm, the available bookings. Do you know what they do book every night of the week now? DJs. Karaoke Hosts. Trivia Hosts. And they pay them fairly. Guess who learned to DJ/KJ? Went from working 0 nights as a musician to working 5 nights a week for good money. It sucks, and I hate it. But bills is bills.

I blame this on a few things.
-Cost: It’s way easier to pay one guy $250-300/night Vs $100/man for a 5-7 piece band. Also fewer people are going out, spending less, and the bar can’t always cover those costs.
-Efficiency: Less setup, less logistics to work out, quick in and outs, easily adjusted sound quality/volume/mood change.
-Quality: Before the Pandemic, music scenes everywhere were inundated with weekend warriors (nothing wrong with that) who would undercut working musicians (not wrong, but disappointing), play less quality shows, and use their gigs as a weekend party time to get free beer and look cool in front of their friends before they go back to their insurance sales cubicle on Monday. This not only showed venues they didn’t have to pay musicians, but it also burned both owners and customers on the quality of entertainment they should expect from local live music.

Most customers absolutely don’t want live music anymore (a generalization from my experience and conversations within my market). Of course there are always the die hard music lovers who are always looking for it. But the general “going out” public is very young and grew up in a time where live music wasn’t as important as it was for those of us who couldn’t just hop on the internet to find live performances or song clips that we didn’t have readily available. They like electronic music. They like trap music. They like to dance. They gladly pay a $3 cover on Fri/Sat for a good DJ, but ask $3 for live music, and they’ll go down the street to the next bar. It’s really sad, but unfortunately this is the way things are going, I’m afraid. I know I sound like a “Boomer,” but I’m only 33. But think about this- the majority of the crowd market going out to these bars/clubs was born in or around the year 2000.

I apologize if my rant went of topic. I just thought some perspective into why it’s hard for everyone to book currently might help. I wish you guys the best in getting some shows on the books!

No, while we definitely have our own stuff to figure out, I agree on a lot of this. In a lot of ways the market is just not there ESPECIALLY for original music as was pointed out earlier.

 

[Bullitt5135]

By the time the pandemic hit, I was pretty burned out looking for gigs for my weekend warrior cover band. Even with decent talent, website, social media, and other promotional efforts, the time and effort (not to mention money) just wasn't worth it to me. Venue managers around here are hard to track down and even harder to work with – it's like they go out of their way to make it difficult for the talent instead of looking at it as a business partnership.

With my new band, we decided to forget the bar scene (or what's left of it anyway) and create our own opportunities. We're not doing this for the money – we're doing it because we love to play and entertain people. Our first gig was at a local distillery that usually does not have live music. We were willing to play for free – we had a blast, and now they are thinking about how to host live music more often and support local musicians. Last fall we put on a very successful show at a local farm collective along with another band and had more than 200 hundred people in attendance. We raised over $600 for charity and picked up leads for 2 paying gigs next summer in the process.

Be honest with yourself about what you are in this for. If it's all about the music, then why not play that 20 seat coffee shop? You may meet one person in the process who becomes a fan and advocate for your band. Maybe they book talent for community events? Maybe their uncle throws a huge Christmas party every year and hires a band.

I am reading a biography of Phil Lynott night now. When Thin Lizzy first started out in London, they were playing to empty rooms for 10 bucks a night, if they were lucky. Keep plugging away and things will happen.