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Getting the Gig Help

#41
My experience is that most audience members want to hear songs they are familiar with rather than originals. In my current band we play only covers, and concentrate on 50's, 60's, and 70's music. Our target audience remembers those songs and they want to hear them again.

With my previous band, which was Bluegrass and Americana, we would usually mix in 2 or 3 originals, but again the vast majority of songs we played were covers. With that being said, it's not just originals bands that are suffering now. Before Covid, my current band typically played about 40 dates a year, while taking off every January and February to work on new material. We were constantly getting calls from repeat venues wanting to schedule us; now most of them won't even call us back when we call them. So what has changed; Covid has pretty much killed the market for live music in my area, and I don't see a recovery any time soon.

Thump on,

One_Dude
 
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#42
two fingers said:
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. :D
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This x100. If your goal is to get paid, then put yourself in a venue (business) owner's shoes: YOU have to bring in ADDITIONAL butts in seats than would ordinarily be there in order to generate ADDITIONAL gross dollars for them to warrant paying you some of those dollars.

Unless you can find a venue dedicated out of the goodness of their heart to original music. And those situations often end up being "pay to play."
 
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#43
[QUOTE="We do some covers, but prefer original music which is in similar veins as hootie and the blowfish, counting crows, wallflowers[/QUOTE]
Originals as a unknown local band hardly ever works out to your benefit. IMHO. Start as a cover band and throw and original or two in. As you build up buzz, you can slowly start to change this. YMMV
 
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#45
You either have an availability calendar with packout dates from all members (so you can grab those last minute gigs), or have the ability to contact all members on short notice (so you can grab those last minute gigs). You explain to the owner that with short notice you can't advertise the gig much, but will do your best. Especially if you are hard up, he Dr turn down a gig you can play.

Worst thing that happens is you play to few people and the owner isn't happy. You already warned him, and you are no worse off than you are now. Do everything you can to get some people there. It's a holiday weekend.
 
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#46
NathOBX said:
My 90's centric all original band is booking gigs, keeping folks entertained for three hours and has a pending interview feature in a local interest magazine. 90s nostalgia is a big seller with millenials. We have built our fan base by targeting other local musicians and big live original music fans. It also helps that I am active on my local music scene and have connections. Don't give up. Just make sure the songs are good. YOU NEED SOCIAL MEDIA! Post videos from rehearsals, gigs, your drummers bithday party. Content, content, content!!! We scored the interview by playing an exposure gig, I invited the editor of said magazine. I also went and saw his band the previous weekend. Go see other musicians perform, talk to them. I know plenty of local musicians here who are OK musicians and performers, but get lots of gigs because they conduct themselves professionally, network, and shamelessly self promote. If you wanna get seen you gotta be seen on the scene. Sorry for the big information dump.
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Sadly, it seems the "fans" won't remember anyone unless a reminder is thrown in their face every five minutes. This focus about content, content, content is, to me, not what brings joy from being a musician. I get my income from a different career, so money is not the focus. But even so, having to do all this marketing crap just to get someone to become a fan for five minutes is bemeaning.
 
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#47
N. Kentucky Bass said:
Sadly, it seems the "fans" won't remember anyone unless a reminder is thrown in their face every five minutes. This focus about content, content, content is, to me, not what brings joy from being a musician. I get my income from a different career, so money is not the focus. But even so, having to do all this marketing crap just to get someone to become a fan for five minutes is bemeaning.
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You dont have to like it, but if you dont do it you will be left behind. There are a lot of parts of being a musician that arent always fun and can be a drag, like practicing, even when you dont feel like it, and keeping your gear in good working order, and hell even loading in and loading out. Social Media a powerful tool that allows us to efficiently reach more and more potential fans and SHARE that joy that music brings us. Its a lot, I know. I manage Insta and FB accounts for both of my bands.
 
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#48
Persistence is a big one. I have an originals band slogging it out in NYC. Hundreds/dozens of emails later. Its tough to get a gig and pay is... not great (like $30-50 a head for a 5 piece)

In music, networking is a big deal. We're about to play our third gig next month. Gigs 2 and 3 came from other bands. We have I think 7 originals and half as many covers. People really like the original tunes, but they love singing songs they know. At our last show, we got offers to play paid gigs out of state, at other venues, and we got free drinks.

Spent the ride home from our last gig talking about going full steam as a covers band that also does his original tunes, with originals gigs sprinkled in between, because some of those offers came with strings attached. Even huge bands like the Beatles and Led Zeppelin started off doing covers

In contrast my professional covers band does upwards of 20 shows per month post covid when we're in season and making 100-150$ per head in a 5 piece and we pack venues.

Other pro-tips: find versatile players who can harmonize and/or play multiple instruments. People go ape when the band can sing or when they play something that isn't guitar/bass. It'll help you stand out more.
 
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#50
FWIW I don't rely on music to pay the bills, but we are of similar age (I'm 32) and I've been actively gigging since I was 12 years old.

I live in NYC. There are more venues than you can shake a stick at, but there are many less venues in general.

The issue that I've found is that there are very few serious promoters and venues left. The promoters don't promote and they expect a huge cut of the door. I did the math on a recent gig offer in Times Square and if we brought in 50 people, each guy in a 5 piece would make $10.

The other reality is that bad promoters have led to bad bands. You have bad bands, the only folks coming are the significant others and friends of the bandmates and the venue doesn't really make money to pay folks. You have consistently bad bands, and you scare away even the casual drinkers because too many guys are loud af.

Really good bands can still make money, but because of these things as well as stuff you've highlighted, it takes a LONG time to get off the ground financially.


dopejohnpaul said:
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!
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#51
ArtechnikA said:
You're getting work with 10 tunes? I am impressed. Seriously.
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We're getting a gig a month with 10 tunes and I'm pushing the band to expand their repertoire to get us stuff that pays more than $50 a head. We definitely have our social media game down and have filled out all our music platform bios appropriately. Right now our focus is on getting good quality video to fill out our EPK. If you want to hear us, I'm more than happy to drop a link!

In contrast, my professional covers band has about 5 hours of music, however many songs that shakes out to.
 
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#52
themickster said:
I took a gig this week at two days' warning and one the other week at one day. What was the lose lose?

Don’t feel too upset about being in your 30s. I'm 58 in a few weeks and only now starting out since October. Covid might have slowed your musical career. It lost me my job and killed my girlfriend. Take what you can and be thankful for everything you have.
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Very sorry about your tragedies. Hope recovery is swift.
 
#54
two fingers said:
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.
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In a nutshell. ^this^
 
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#56
I’d just take any opportunity to play out live with my best buddy, for the experience alone if not for just the enjoyment of it. I’d not worry about band shows until you’ve exhausted local spots as a duo. There is no lose/ lose if you aren’t already producing a product in demand. Most ‘successful’ artists I know personally have played a lot for free, especially early on. It’s all part of building your network.
 
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#57
WilbursaurusRex said:
if yall have any tips or insights they would be much appreciated.
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there are so many great suggestions that have already been tendered that i can't think of much to add.

except this: don't. give. up. try the suggestions that seem to be a good matchup to your 'style' and if they don't produce as expected: try the ones that don't! but whatever you do = don't give up! ever.

good luck getting some gigs! :thumbsup:
 
#58
There are already tons of good input here but I will say, its all about who you know/what they know about you. Our singer (cover band) is amazing at getting gigs, even during this covid depleted era. But he knows EVERYONE. Every venue owner/manager. He made it a point to get to know them over the years in previous bands. Before we had him, we had to cold call and while we did get some gigs, it was really difficult because the rest of us didnt put in the time to go to these places to get to know the right people. I have a family and busy day job so hanging in bars/clubs wasnt likely to happen for me either, but, besides that, the best thing you can do right now is get your social media going. Get a decent professional logo that looks like "something". The times before our current singer where we got cold call gigs I believe because we at least looked pro and they took a chance.
 
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#60
Your best bet, IMHO, is to post band/duo videos on tik tok, youtube, and instagram. Do live performances as well. You need to post every week with new content.
You've chosen to do originals which most people don't care about. The only way to get a following is to plaster yourselves all over the internet.
And lastly, if you want to play in an area with limited venues it would be wise not to turn down gigs, especially when your new to the scene.
Good luck.
 
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