Do you sometimes feel that your band’s draw is languishing? Are you tired of seeing the same people at your shows and want to play to a new crowd, even in your hometown? Just listing a show on your Facebook Page will not bring people. Bands sometimes think that all they need to do is go on tour and get their shows listed on the venue’s website and people will magically show up because they are a ‘touring band’ far away from home. You must understand that venues do not promote their shows. They can’t. They have just too many. It is the reason Venues work with Promoters or expect bands to bring 100% of the crowd.
If you’re like most musicians, you know that you absolutely can do better, that you have more fans out there than who actually show up at at the venue, and despite always receiving positive feedback, you don’t know why more people aren’t showing up. Here are some tips on building some momentum back into your tour dates so you can increase your band’s draw:
1. Find a Different Angle for The Show: It’s easier to get more people to show up if it’s your band’s first show, when you’re releasing a new album, it’s a tour kick off, or when it’s your final gig. Obviously, it’s because your fans realize those as special occasions and want to be there.
So rather than making every local show the same, find creative ways to make them more enticing: film a live music video, let fans write the set list, do special covers, play acoustic if you normally don’t (or vice-versa), record a free download of a live track, etc. In other words, give your fans a compelling reason to show up. Answer: Why will this show be different than any other? What makes this exact show special?
2. Play Less Often: It’s easy to overplay the same cities, span it out every 4 weeks. Get out and expand your exposure in different cities.
3. Build Up Buzz About the Show: How is your band promoting shows right now? With the occasional post on Facebook by some of the band members? Even with social media, people can read through the energy: if your own band isn’t excited about the show, why should your fans be? In addition to your band, find some fans or friends who are willing to promote the show with you by using social media, hanging out flyers, and personally inviting people out. In fact, the way to create a buzz is to get people talking: a personal invitation will do more than dozens of generic tweets or Facebook invites. Create a 1:00-2:00 video specifically for that show. Include clips of music videos of the other bands (you can add annotations in YouTube to the actual music videos) and impressive (high quality) live clips. Upload the video to both YouTube, Facebook and a shorter 1:00 minute to Instagram directly. If bands don’t have high quality video, then at the very least run a photo stream with each bands’ music. Make sure you showcase all the bands on the bill and work with each band to promote the video. Making a show specific video legitimizes this specific show and turns it into an event.
4. Make the Event Interactive: Think of some new ways to make fans a part of the experience. Try creating branded cards and handing them out at your gigs. Every time a fan comes to your show, they can stop by the merch table and get their card punched. Once they’ve racked up enough points, they can exchange them for a free ticket, backstage pass, T-shirt, CD, or other merch item. Maybe you can invite some other artists who are fans to guest perform during your set. Or maybe you can shoot a fan-made “live video” for YouTube shot entirely with Vine videos on cell phones. Whatever it is, get creative and make fans feel like they’re an important part of the experience so they won’t want to miss out.
5. Actually Promote: Don’t expect people to check your website’s tour dates on a regular basis or for them to notice the posted you hung up at the local shop. Do those things and more: issue a press release and try to get local coverage, call the local radio station and see if they’d like to give out free tickets, share information about your show multiple times over a few weeks on social media, physically mail postcards or invites to your mailing list, and more. Think about it: how do you find out about local shows?
6. Title Your Show: Make each show unique. Why people will come out to this show versus a random 4 band bill Wednesday night show is because this is an EVENT. Giving the show a title automatically turns it into a talked about Event. “Are you going to the Unknown Order show?” Versus “Pink Shoes are playing Chop Suey on Thursday again. Want to go?”
7. Run a Contest: Run various contests for promo efforts and advance ticket purchases. For one show, I gave out to advance ticket holders goodie bags containing a poster, stickers and other random fun nick-nacks from each band. It might be good to give the bags out after the show, though, as people are leaving – biggest complaint was that they had to hold onto the bag the entire night. Also, run contests on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter to encourage people to share the Show Video and Show Poster. On the Facebook Event you can explain the contest like “Share this Event (or Video) on your Timeline, invite all your friends to this Event and then write MISSION ACCOMPLISHED on this Event’s wall. Everyone who does this will be thrown into a drawing to win a Tshirt and Poster at the show.” Then on stage at the show announce the winner.
As you can see, there are plenty of easy little strategies you can use to get more people to your gigs, but this is just scratching the surface.
If you have a great show that people thoroughly enjoy, you’re off to a great start. However, these days it simply isn’t enough. Chances are, you and your bandmates can do a little more to help bring the crowd out to your shows. A bigger crowd means you’ll have some more income, as well as a buzz about your music that can get you into larger venues.
