No Audience? Your Fault.
February 2001

It’s always surprising to me, in this information age we live in, that many musicians completely disregard the importance of self promotion. Somewhere along the line it became uncool to actually care if anyone showed up to your gig. I can guarantee you, however, that the venue most certainly DOES care even if you wish to pretend that you don’t. If you tell someone you’re in a band, and they’ve never heard of you, then you haven’t been doing your job. No if’s, and’s, or but’s about it, if there’s nobody at your show, it’s probably YOUR fault. Here are some things that I’ve done in the past that have worked for me.

PEOPLE DON’T GO TO SEE BANDS THEY’VE NEVER HEARD OF. It’s the cycle of life. Just like you can’t get a job until you have experience, but you can’t get experience until you get the job. Most bands never get past this stage. You cannot rely on the venue alone to promote your name. they have several shows a week, in most cases, to promote and just having your name in a show listing with thirty other bands in the local rag is not good enough.

You MUST flier for the show, and not just inside the venue. You need to post fliers anywhere that your potential audience might see it. Make sure they look decent-remember that in many cases, that flier is the ‘first impression’ that many people will have of your band. If it looks crappy and amateur, so do you. You know who your potential audience is-it’s your job to go to them. You have to create name recognition. Set a goal of 50 posted fliers, and pick 50 good places to hang one. Find every record store, college lounge, deli, etc... in the area and take one down there. Pay particular attention to areas where people linger-such as cash register lines, bathrooms, etc.

Handbills are also effective. Go down to the entertainment district on a weekend night and give them to people. Be courteous. Tell them something about yourselves. Be quick, but establish some sort of personal rapport if you can. If the weather’s nice, you might even take a guitar and play some of your songs on the street while another band member distributes the handbills. An added bonus of handbills is also that you can stick them on parked cars’ windshields. Concerts or local shows with a similar type of music are particularly good places to be.

Remember that the immediate goal here is NAME RECOGNITION. People want to be ‘in the loop’ and be hip to something before anyone else, but they don’t want to have to work at it. People assume if they see your name all the time that you must be good. There have been many times I’ve had someone drop my band’s name in conversation without them realizing that I was IN the band they were talking about.

I’ve also found that it’s fairly easy to get a rapport going with the local entertainment weekly in most places. If you stay in touch with them, they’ll often give you a review or a little write-up. Writers are like anyone else, they’d rather not have to hunt a story down if it’ll come to them instead. I know in this area in particular, bands complain about ‘favoritism’ from the press-but most of those complainers have never tried to call the writers or send them a packet.

Speaking of persistence, that is perhaps the key word here: The first time a new band tries to promote a show, all this work may not show much return. You have to do it EVERY TIME YOU PLAY. An added bonus is that the venue sees how hard you work and may reward you with an opening slot on a bigger drawing bill, which will go a long way towards establishing yourself.

I know all these things may be considered ‘uncool’-and that the prevailing attitude is for musicians to consider themselves ‘artists’, and totally above commerce-oriented action, but the simple reality of the situation is that as soon as you book yourself a show at a club, you are now a participating member of the ‘MUSIC BUSINESS’, and it’s a business by which people pay their bills and feed their families. The club has to pay the rent, pay employees, buy liquor, and for equipment-the bartender has bills to pay and no customers means no money.

It’s a lot of work to promote a band, but it’s something that simply MUST be done-and nobody’s going to do it for you. If you choose to ignore this aspect of your band’s journey, you can expect a very short trip indeed. The music business is a pretty tough road-but then, if it was easy, everyone would do it.

Chris Meck
chrismeck@thezone.org

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