I haven’t dealt much with booking agents and venue promoters, and for some reason I imagine booking agents resembling someone like that guy on the right. Anyways, I went about asking bands their experiences on the subject so I’ll leave you with two quotes on the matter. I’ll post up more of these in future topics. Please feel free to leave some insights . Mruff !
A: Some bands get paid enough to interest a booking agent. Others have to do their own booking, which means working with the venue or venue promoter. NEVER TRUST or DEPEND ON the venue promoter… he works for the venue, not you. But do politely negotiate with him to get what you want.
Q: I know venue promoters find the bands and actively promote the shows, but do some venues only work with their promoters to fill up the slots?”
A: A real promoter sets up a show, gets financing for it, books the talent, hires appropriate support (sound, lights, etc.), puts on the show, and pays the talent.
A “venue promoter” is just a booking agent for the venue.
You should always do your own promotion to the extent that you can. Posting flyers, mailing your mailing list, sending press releases to the press, are all part of this. If your cash flow supports it you might hire a publicist ($100-$250 / hr, ouch) to do some of this for you.
Most venues will do some promotion – at least to the extent of informing the local press of their schedule. But you’ll get better coverage if you do your own promotion.
Q: Should booking agents be promoting the show as well?
A: A booking agent’s job is get you gigs… but the more money you bring in, the more the booking agent gets paid, so most booking agents will do some promotion or at least give you some guidance on what to do.
Q: Whats the best way to deal with these ppl?
A: Build your business to a point where you have plenty of money for the booking agent to take a cut of and then negotiate the best contract you can (hire a music attorney to negotiate your booking contract – if you’re making enough to benefit from an agent you won’t have any problem affording the attorney)
David Smith- an acquaintance from the SonicBids website.
I worked with one agent who booked us into a hotel gig in Cleveland and then we ended up driving approx 1,500 km to Northern Ontario for the next venue. Or like being not booked for 3 weeks due to all talk – no action. I busted one Manager through the New York Musicians’ Union for attempting to defraud the group with personal and living expenses which he claimed were to promote my band. He’s known locally and elsewhere so I won’t mention names. Like if you’re going to screw me at least ask me to dance first…
Don’t even get me started on the dumb-ass club owners – many of them still don’t have the good business sense to put it in the Mirror, Hour, Gazette or whatever the local rag is anywhere.
Bartholomew – www.myspace.com/bartholomew3
I think how you book shows has a lot to do with where you are in your career or even in your touing/gigging cycle. If you’ve got a bunch of shows coming up, and some momentum from airplay or a new release or review, then club promoters will be enticed to book you into their club on your promise of a decent draw. That number varies, but in San Francisco, anything south of 40-50 people that are there to see YOU play, is a negative in most clubs. Using a booking agent for an independent band is to me a lot like an investment in your business. There will be a contract. You’ll bust your ass to meet the terms of that contract, or you’ll be out some dough. But, if you want a particular venue on your resume, or again – have somewhat of a buzz going on at that particular time, then signing a contract with an agent, can get you to the next level venue – and some well earned respect if you do well. The biggest issue is knowing where you are, how well you can draw, what your financial situation is if you do or don’t draw, and what that particular gig will do for you in the long run. My final thought is that once you get outside of Nashville, San Fran, New York, or LA, and into more rural clubs, if you are a good band, you will do better – of course, then you gotta pay 5 bucks for gas to get there… but hey, its worth it.
For the past 10 years I have tried the agent route as well as the direct appeal to the venue approach. Both have their pros and cons, but for the most part I have been more financialy successful with direct contact with the venue(s). If you have a following in a particular area then it is easier to negotiate prices as you can pretty much guarantee a certain number of people will show up for the show(s). If you are booking a new area where your not so well known, then you have to be patient and willing to be a bit more pragmatic in your approach.
At present, I do 5 or 6 shows a week. All but one of these shows are about two-hours away from my hometown where I am fairly well known. At first attendence was pretty much by chance. I wasn’t as well known so the drawl-factor was off the table for the moment. The best I could really do was hold the crowd that was already there. After half dozen shows, I started to become more familiar to the people who not only go to these clubs but the staff who work these clubs. Don’t under-estimate the word-of-mouth method.
Once I became more established in these new areas, I was able to get more info on other venues in and around that area, and was able to expand my territory.
The difference in my situation and that of other acts from my area is that I am a solo acoustic performer primarily. It is a lot easier to pick up shows as your required price per performance tends to be drasticaly lower than what a full band would require in order to make a proffit. Plus I am willing to travel. That’s a biggie.
There are probably 15 bands in my area that play every weekend, and probably about 10 venues that can accomidate a band. The problem is, most of these bands are full of weekend warriors or part-time players who have families and jobs that prevent them from touring beyond 45 minutes of their home base. As a result, a lot of undercutting and back-stabbing goes on in order to get a booking.
I grew tired of this very fast, and dropped the whole band scene and concentrated on going the extra mile (literally) with the solo thing. As a result, I have little trouble finding shows to do. As I do it full-time I’m able to clear enough proffit to be able to sustain a constant flow of revenue even durring the slow months. Again, my willingness to travel opens up a lot more opportunities to both find more venues and cash, as well as expand my recognition factor in areas that normally wouldn’t be available to hear or see my shows.
An easy way to do this is to set a territory that is going to fit into your comfort range. What I did was to get a map of my region and first I drew a circle extending 60 miles in all directions and concentrated on venues within that circle. Later on I extended the circle to 100 miles, and then on and on, and now that circle extends 250 miles in every direction from my home.
A big concern now is the expenses incurred due to fuel and overnight accomidations. Sometimes this can be worked out with the venue, but sometimes this has to come out of your own pocket. You just have to do the math yourself and figure out what you have to have to be able to retain enough cash to make a proffit at the end of the day.
I know it may sound like a lot of number-crunching, but in order to sustaine a “tour” you have to schedule things propperly, or you end up back-tracking and wasting a lot of time and money. No one hates math more than me, but it takes some of the sting out of it when you end up doing more addition than subtraction.
You can make decent money at it and have fun at the same time as long as you prepare for it. Nothing is more satisfying, to me at least, when I wake up Sunday afternoon with a week’s worth of shows behind me and money left over after meeting my expenses.
Having a house-gig at the local watering-hole is cool if you have a day-job and you don’t depend on gig money to live on, but as far as propelling your career, it can be a real killer. If you live and play in an area of the country that is off the beaten trail, it will be hard to get any national expossure if 90% of your shows are seen by a handful of people in the middle of nowhere, who know they can check you out any Friday or Saturday. If its nothing special, pretty soon you become a last resort for entertainment instead of a first choice.
So, my situation is a bit different but perhaps someone can offer me some advice.
I am currently working to book a show, not for me, I am not a performer. However, I have brought together some decent musicians that should be able to gurantee me a draw of 200-300 people, the capacity is 400. This is my first attempt at anything like this.
I have secured the venue through a third party booking and promotional company. My contact there informed me that he had previously tried to book 2 of the artists on my bill, but their fees were just too high for the venue to pay.
I have a bit more of a personal connection with the artists, and have been able to get them to agree to play the event for a cut of the door. This is fine by me.
My concern is this: My contact at the booking/promotional company has told me that they will need to have 30% of the door in order to make this event happen. It seems a bit steep to me. I will have to pay two of the bigger-named artists between 20 and 25% of the door to ensure that they come close to making what they would normally expect, this means after the two headliners and booking company, I only have 20-30% of the door money left over to pay another band, a DJ, a keyboardists, and a visual artist. Not to mention it pretty much means I will have to forgo any compensation on my own behalf for all the hard work I’ve been putting in to get this together.
The booking guy says that the 30% fee will cover door staff, a sound guy, 3 or 4 secuirity guards, and some promotional work (2000 fliers, street team).
Am I wrong to think that the booking company is trying to pull one over on me? I’ve put together an event that will potentially pack out their venue, shouldn’t they be happy knowing that their registers will be taking in cash all night?
Is it acceptable for me to ask for a cut of the register?
Any advice would be appreciated.
Hey Good,
I’m definitely going to shop your question around the forums where I find answers to my own questions, hopefully someone with concrete experience will be able to provide an answer to this really interesting scenario.
I do have a question though: does the third-party booking/promo company have exclusive rights to organize events at this particular venue? I know this can sometimes be the case (LiveNation has exclusive rights in over 2000 venues in the states alone), but if not, is the venue open to you doing that work yourself? If you’ve already got the bands to agree to play that venue, you could probably hire the rest of the staff – which might even come out cheaper if the ppl at the door are you friends – and depending on how much time you have before the gig, you might be able to promote the show yourself.
Also, if the promotion/booking company has exclusive rights to the venue, have you considered organizing the event somewhere else?
I’m really interested in hearing more about this, and will try to get some more answers for you.
Cheers,
Greg
Also, I found this article a few weeks ago I found interesting :
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/22030/how_to_promote_a_club_or_band_in_your.html?cat=31
The content of the article doesn’t answer your question per say, but the reason I asked about the possibility of you taking care of the whole promotional/booking aspect of the gig stems comes from reading this article.
Let me know.
I found this quite interesting website http://www.virtualbury.com you can get a virtual gig!
Hi Im a solo singer keyboardist for R&B funk jazz. IM based in Spain but gonna make the move to NYC.Im thinking of get a publicist for radioplay albumreviews etc.I really dont know how to aproach the gig thing,should I contact the venue directly?shoulld I talk to the dj?(like here if u friends with the dj you got half way win…And where do I find booking agent/promoter? are they legit?.Here we got the yelow pages for that.
Do they work on a comission basis?if so how much is it? thank u.Any advice will b emore than welcome at fede4real@hotmail.com
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