Moving from Bar Gigs to Corporate Gigs

[SuperK]

I'm looking for some tips/thoughts/suggestions on how we can move on from playing 4 hour low-paying (but fun) bar gigs to playing more corporate/private gigs that pay more and don't keep us out until 3am.

Some background on the band:
We are an 80s cover band with keys, bass, drums, guitar, and 3 vocals (2 female, 1 male). We've been playing together for a couple of years so the music is really tight and our singers are awesome. The females are easy on the eyes and can sing powerful leads and the male is a vocal powerhouse with a big stage presence and personality. So we have all the pieces in place but we're realizing that we need to polish up our act.

Some of the areas that I think need improvement:
- Physical appearance of the band. The women look hot, the rest of us are in jeans & t-shirts.
- Too much idle banter/goofing around on the frontline.
- Song selection doesn't cater to a large base (too many obscure songs that the guitarist loves and not enough top 40 hits).
- Too much dead air between songs.

I'd be interested in hearing from people that were able to make the transition and what changes needed to be made. We're in the heart of Silicon Valley so there is no shortage of corporate or private party gigs out there.

Thanks for reading.

 

[WalterBush]

Hello! I play in a New Wave band that made the jump, sort of. We've never played bars, and that would be the first piece of advice I'd hand out; stop playing bars. Find out how to get into casino lounges (who to talk to, etc) and keep hammering them until you're in. It'll put you in a position to meet the people who book corporate gigs. Second, while some people may have had great experiences with agents, my band hasn't. We've got several people we work with in management companies, but no one person has been able to keep us working steady enough to go exclusive, and we've never been asked to. This was something we weren't prepared for, but apparently it's reality, at least in Arizona. Anyway, we met them all through the tribal casino booking agents after doing really well for them. I didn't gig past bars when I lived in the Bay Area and the situation may be different there.

As to the show, I'd advise you to get an image and push it, constantly. Part of that will be how you dress. We discovered a "brand" so to speak, crafted the show and stage look to match, and suddenly we looked like a much bigger deal than we are. Eliminate chatter (unless it's your fronters speaking to the audience to engage them) altogether. Eliminate dead spots with no music. Eliminate, in fact, anything that gets in the way of a loaded dance floor and audience engagement. The floor won't always be crowded no matter what you do, but that mindset helps to insure that the band is entertaining from the second your Converse hit the stage, and that will matter even if you only have one guy in the room. If that one guy in the room is an event planner (something that happened to us and led to quite a bit of work) than that's better than a barful of onlookers.

Anyway, that's some of what my band did and we don't have to do bar gigs. We play as much as we want, although for us that means fair gigs as much as corporate events. Either way, it pays better for less time away from home. Hope some of that helps. As always, just my experience and opinion, YMMV, etc.

 

[whatizitman]

Looks like you already have some ideas to work on. What does the rest of the band think? Are they all on the same page? I mean, how willing is the guitarist to let the cool kid factor go a little to do more hits? How much everyone agrees on the mission and steps to take are likely going to be the deciding factor.

 

[SuperK]

Looks like you already have some ideas to work on. What does the rest of the band think? Are they all on the same page? I mean, how willing is the guitarist to let the cool kid factor go a little to do more hits? How much everyone agrees on the mission and steps to take are likely going to be the deciding factor.

I think you hit the nail on the head. We're all on board with most of the changes but convincing the guitarist to play songs that he deems "lame" is going to be an obstacle. Male vocalist may be resistant to wearing something other than jeans and last night's t-shirt too. A band meeting is in order methinks.

 

[PauFerro]

I think you hit the nail on the head. We're all on board with most of the changes but convincing the guitarist to play songs that he deems "lame" is going to be an obstacle. Male vocalist may be resistant to wearing something other than jeans and last night's t-shirt too. A band meeting is in order methinks.

It sounds like you're working with amateurs. I don't mean that in a pejorative way -- we have all been there when starting out. But you have the vision of what needs happen, and the others, apparently, aren't attaching credence to your comments. That happened to me in spite of the fact I already had a successful jazz act when I started a rock band about 4 years ago. The personalities were such that they wouldn't listen.

I did exactly what you are doing -- posted online and got feedback on what to do from EXPERIENCED people. So, I would get advice here, and ask in private messages for the people who seem to have knowledge to share their background -- number of gigs in corporate world, years experience, amount of repeat bookings -- not to make them feel they have to justify their comment, but so you can share their background and experience with your band -- before you give them the advice you KNOW they should be taking from you....

Start out with -- "I've been trying to figure out how to get us into the better paying corporate gigs, so I got advice from three band leaders who do corporate work. The have an average of 10 years of experience in corporate gigs, get $250 a person per night, and most of their gigs now come from repeat bookings....here is their advice"...

Then list their advice. So, if your band won't listen to you, then give them the advice from the pros here, and see if that makes a difference.

If they continue to act like amateurs, and refuse to dress properly, then I would consider getting a few friends who will dress up properly and get some photos that look professional of your friends in the photo shoot. Clients don't seem to care if you show up with different musicians than appear on the website as long as the singers sound the same. So, you can have a few musicians who are simply models in your pictures, and tell the guys in the band who would't dress right why you had to use them, and that the models don't replace them.

When you get a corporate gig from all this promo, ask the regular musicians to dress up the way you want them to. They will likely agree as the dollars are there. If they refuse, indicate you are consdering getting a pro sub for that gig. The pros will come out for the money. Let the musicians who wouldn't cooperate know that you can't use them for this particular gig due to the dress problem. This could change minds.

It's about faith and crediblity -- you have to act in ways that increase the band's faith in your knowledge and ability as a leader to get them to cooperate. And if they won't play ball, you have to do what you have to do. Just make sure you give them fair warning so make changes so you don't resort to summary executions -- never good for the crediblity of a leader!

 

[Johnny Crab]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ +1,0000.
The above is exactly what needs to happen.
Getting home at 3:30 AM is usually not much fun if you planned on having a life the following day without sleeping a good bit of it away. You and your bandmates will HAVE TO agree and enjoy playing music the CLIENTS and AUDIENCE want or want their visitors/friends/guests to hear.

 

[hrodbert696]

One other thought - join the chamber of commerce in the biggest town near you. Attend chamber events, schmooze like hell, and think about hosting one. At least for our local one here, the various businesses that are part of the chamber rotate hosting each other to show off their facilities and services. Since I assume you don't own a venue, of course this would mean renting one, but that can be done and may repay the investment. But that's a ready way to make yourselves known to local businesses that may be holding an employee Christmas party or client appreciation party or what have you.

 

[buldog5151bass]

1. Looks - jeans and t shirts will not cut it.
2. Songs - you are playing for the audience, not your ego. If the people are going to want Bruno Mars, Pink, or Lady Gaga, that's what you play. When I joined my last band, I told BL I would rather play good gigs with good musicians than the music Iliked in front of 20 people. If everyone is not on board, you won't make the jump, no matter how good you are.

 

[SuperK]

Thanks for all the advice so far. 6 out of 7 of us are on board with moving forward. Our two female singers have even gone so far as to write out a "business plan" for lack of a better word. In essence it's our master plan or mission statement. We all know where we want to go now we just need to come to an agreement on what we want to be when we get there. Our male lead singer is the 1 out of 7 who is probably going to hold us back. He's a super talent but he's involved in several musical projects outside of our band so his level of commitment will be an issue. He reminds me a lot of Andrew Strong from "The Commitments". Super talented but a bit of loose cannon.

Again, thanks for the advice. I think our next step is to have a band meeting (without instruments in hand) to clearly spell out where we want to take our band and what identity we want.

 

[Bassquest]

Shave.

 

[buldog5151bass]

Remember, at that level it's not necessarily about the music. You are getting paid better money to make a professional presentation and entertain professionals, not all of whom (or even most) are there for the music.

 

[JimmyM]

Sounds like you answered your own questions.

 

[john_g]

Shave.

Where?

 

[GK Growl]

Where?

Everywhere, of course. There is nothing quite like the feel of a freshly shaved...

I wish my band could make this leap as well but our weak link (who happens to be the BL) is not capable of anything but bars/pubs/clubs.

 

[bass12]

There are various levels of "corporate events" bands so it's important to have a good - and reasonable - idea of where in the spectrum you are going to fit. The corporate events bands I have played in generally charge between $9,000 and $12,000 CAD per show. In the corporate events/wedding world there are a few things that are of the utmost importance:

- Your look. People who spend a lot of money on a band typically want it to look like they spent a lot of money. You need to look like a show band. The specifics of your look will depend on the precise image you want to project. Unless you are doing a youthful hipster type thing then I would say that jeans are out of the question.

- You need to be dependable, organized and punctual. There should be one person (or two people at the most) whose job it is to deal with the client. This person will need to have good people skills and be able to keep a cool head in stressful situations.

- Repertoire. Make sure it is appropriate for the people you are playing for. Obscure stuff generally doesn't go over well at such events. If you are playing dance music (which you most likely will be) make sure you play stuff people will want to dance to. That usually means having some material that is in the recent top 40.

- Promotional material. Potential clients will want to see and hear the band. Have a professional level video that makes you look and sound impressive. This will require some spending but it is essential. If you want good gigs don't cut corners with your promo video. Most of the promo videos that I've seen look amateur and you want to avoid that.

- At the gig everyone has to act professionally, off stage and on. That means behaving in a mature manner off stage and it means a tight show. No dead air on stage and no unpreparedness (not knowing what song is next, not knowing a song's key, not knowing lyrics, etc.).

Best of luck.

 

[LordRyan]

The thing that will get you into the corporate and casino world is a professional quality video preferably shot in a theater or other large venue with pro sound and lights. I play with a tribute band that used to play a lot of smaller clubs. Ever since we did the video we no longer do clubs and are playing venues like Infinity Hall, Atlantic City Casinos, Summer Concert Series, and Theaters.

 

[REV]

So you want to trade your fun gigs for better paying gigs that probably won't be so fun? I think the Beatles had this same problem back in the day. Find yourself some management that has a track record and do what they tell you to do. If you want to play the game , get in the game. Mak Schau Beatles!!!

 

[garp]

that would be the first piece of advice I'd hand out; stop playing bars.

+1. Corporate and private clients don't hire bar bands – they hire professional musicians, and they pay accordingly.

Your upcoming band meeting will be critical to making sure everyone is on board with this concept. If not, personnel replacements are probably in order.

 

[Jebberz]

To get corporate gigs, we dressed-up, did a professional video, and change our repertoire to add more pop and less rock songs. We get good gigs that way, (corporate parties, weddings, private parties, and so on) without following the all top 40 path (there is too much all top 40 bands in our area to compete with, so we get our own niche, more rock oriented pop band with a lot of stuff from the '70s and 80's).

We still play bars for fun and play more rock when we do so. You have to adapt for the client, and we took an approach to play music for the customers, not for ourselves. And even the lamest songs, can be fun to play, even more when the crowd loves it.

The cost of the promo video was entirely covered but the 2 first corporate gigs we did, so it worth the price.

 

[PauFerro]

Thanks for all the advice so far. 6 out of 7 of us are on board with moving forward. Our two female singers have even gone so far as to write out a "business plan" for lack of a better word. In essence it's our master plan or mission statement. We all know where we want to go now we just need to come to an agreement on what we want to be when we get there. Our male lead singer is the 1 out of 7 who is probably going to hold us back. He's a super talent but he's involved in several musical projects outside of our band so his level of commitment will be an issue. He reminds me a lot of Andrew Strong from "The Commitments". Super talented but a bit of loose cannon.

Again, thanks for the advice. I think our next step is to have a band meeting (without instruments in hand) to clearly spell out where we want to take our band and what identity we want.

Try it. But I will say this -- democracies of the size you are working with can be a pretty big source of frustration. Already you're seeing it with the singer who is a hold out. Unaniminity, particularly among amateurs moving into semi-pro gigs, is going to be hard to achieve.

I much prefer enlighted despotism, or the "entlightened entrepreneur" model where someone takes all the risk, and then considers the rest of the band as employees of sorts. Unless each of these people are going to help you with all of the heavy lifting (sales calls, promotion, contracts, money collection, banking, taxes) it may well fall on the shoulders of one person. And these musicians haven't, in my experience, stepped up to distribute the work equally.

But if you CAN get everyone on the same page, and they DO share equally in the heavy lifting, it can be an effective little organization. Age and experience has jaded my belief in that model when it comes to a part-time band, unfortunately. Even in our American democracy, our President has veto power, and it's best to have a single point of decision-making on most issues or your get infighting, stalemates, etcetera.