How To Get Your Audience to Actually Listen To Your Set
Nobody likes playing to a crowd that doesn’t care…especially after you’ve driven 4 hours to get to your show. It can be a huge waste of time, gas, and energy. It’s important to remember that the type of audience you play to depends largely on the type of space you’re in. If you’re in a [...]
Dear Coffeehouse: Please Fix Your Music Situation!
Having played my fair share of coffeehouses in the past 7 years, lets just say I have a laundry list of what makes a coffeehouse venue a good concert space, and an even longer list of what makes a bad one. And though this website is specifically for musicians, we really felt it was necessary [...]
Grassrootsy’s Top 10 Posts of 2011
Here it is! The top 10 posts of 2011. The below is a cross between most read posts, most commented on, and most engaging. We encourage you to check out reader comments below each post because you all had alot to say. 1. TURNING FACEBOOK LIKES INTO LOVES Just because they happened to like your [...]
Is It Possible to Play Several Shows in One Month & Get Great Turnouts at All of Them?
This question is the average local artist’s biggest dilemma. You don’t want to dilute your show turnouts, but you do want to play out as much as possible to get as much exposure as possible. So how do you do this while ensuring that each show is good, well-attended, and worth it. Here are some [...]
5 Tips for a Booking a Successful Show
I’m knee deep in booking shows, and here are some more things I’m learning along the way about booking. If you’ve recently learned a thing or two, put it in the comments section. 1. Call Ahead If you are unsure about the venue you’re about to book, call the venue (as if you are a [...]
How Do I Start A New Business Relationship?
gotta love this photo! Got a question for us? You can always submit it via our contact page. Here’s today’s “Ask Grassrootsy” post. ARTIST: Bridgette Perdue (Pittsburgh, PA) QUESTION: What is your advice for cold-call networking? Or, what’s the most successful approach to creating a business relationship out of thin air? How does it alter between [...]
Booking a Gig – Why Not Do it Yourself?
Today’s post comes from UK-based artist, Andy Mort. He goes by the moniker, Atlum Schema and has written a few articles for Grassrootsy in the past, including reader favorite, “Pay What You Want? Does That Really Work?“. Today he spells (really spells out) a step by step plan on how to book a show from start to [...]
How To Negotiate With A Venue that Says They Can’t Pay You
Its a topic we return to time and time again on this blog. Payment. And by the way, we really loved hearing your comments in “Do You Really Expect To Get Paid” a few months ago! My approach to payment is continually changing on a case-by-case basis…depending on whether an event is a benefit concert, [...]
Putting Things in Context
Have you ever walked down the street and accidentally evesdropped on someone’s conversation. You’ve caught 1 sentence in a discussion and what they’ve said makes no sense whatesoever! But you know, if you could have kept listening or jumped in earlier on the conversation, you’d be on the same page. This is the same idea [...]
Making the Most of Your Club Gig
On Monday’s post, we talked about the pros/cons of booking nightclubs: Coffeeshop or Club? Pros and Cons of “Nightlife” Booking. Here are a few tips on how to make the most of your show. Who’s on the Bill? Don’t just play with any artist, play with artists who will willingly help you promote the gig. You can get [...]
What If…[1]
____________________ “What if venues cared about their artists as much as they cared about their money? And what if artists cared about their venues as much as they cared about their money? The whole system would be turned around! Everyone would care more, everyone would work towards the best possible show, and because of this, everyone would make [...]
Improvising…Because We're In a Recession, Yo! (Cutting Costs Without Cutting Corners #2)
A friend of mine is super cheap! She likes to make butterred popcorn by coating raw kernals with butter, putting them in a brown lunchbag, sealing the bag, and sticking it in the microwave. I think its funny but give it a try and tell me if it works So…in light of coming up with alternative methods, here are [...]
Tour Maintenance: Things You Should Do Before Hitting the Road
1. Is your website’s show calendar completely updated? Do you have links to all facebook invites? Do you have links to where people can buy tickets? Proper show times? Correct addresses? Don’t just stick the name of the venue and time of event on your calendar. Give people good, solid information so that they can [...]
Booking: Writing the Perfect Email Pitch
It’s frustrating. You send out emails to this venue and that venue but nobody gets back to you…and then you start to wonder if you ever sent those emails in the first place. It happens all the time. At least it happens to me! So when I began book this year’s summer tour, I [...]
The Venue & The Booking Process
Last weekend I spoke at an artist workshop at the Kelly Strayhorn Theater. The discussion was focused on booking, touring, and presentation from the perspective of the artist (myself) and the booker (a theater event’s manager at a local university). While hashing things out in the group, I took note of how a booker decides [...]
What to Do When You’re More Serious Than the Venue
We’ve probably all run into that one person at that one place who is hard to work with. His/her communication sucks and you don’t even know why you bother. She never got back. Does this mean you’re not really booked? Did they get your posters? What time does the gig actually start? All questions that [...]
5 Tips for Picking the Best Venue for Your Sound
1. SEE WHO ELSE IS PLAYING THERE Visit the venue’s website and see who is on the calendar. If there are mostly rock bands, then you probably won’t go over well as a solo artists 2. ASK YOUR FRIENDS AND FELLOW ARTISTS Shoot an email to some friends who have played the venue. Ask [...]
Booking a Show – From Start to Finish
I often find the below process comes into play when I have no relationship with a venue. They are new to me, I am new to them, and we are basically starting off a new “partnership”. Here’s a loose step-by-step of what happens. If you’ve got steps you’d like to add to this process, post [...]
Should You Steal Other Artists’ Fans?
I dunno, it sounds kinda cruel. I mean, there are only so many avid music listeners…and they’re already listening to other bands. How do you steal them? Should you? Is it fair to your fellow artist? What exactly does fan stealing look like? As I sat back and re-read this older post, Breaking Into A [...]
Starting a Music Series
Have you ever wanted to start a music series – a Coffeehouse series up the street from your house, a regular singer-songwriter night residency with your favorite venue, or maybe a ticketed house show that’s known for quality music, good food and company? Fall is a really good time to do this. I recently had [...]
