Getting known

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Newmetman

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Hi guys, im relatively new here, and im sure this has been asked many times, but how do you guys publicize your band? Our band has myspace, a website, 2 demo cds, t-shirts, and we perform at some local areas on a semiregular basis, and yet when it comes to a crowd, we're stuck depending on larger bands to do poor advertising by the place we play at. What are some effective techniques in getting a crowd? I'm assuming we aren't an awful band, because all our response seems to be positive, yet everytime we have a show, it comes as a surprise to anyone we ask to go
 
Newmetman said:
Hi guys, im relatively new here, and im sure this has been asked many times, but how do you guys publicize your band? Our band has myspace, a website, 2 demo cds, t-shirts, and we perform at some local areas on a semiregular basis, and yet when it comes to a crowd, we're stuck depending on larger bands to do poor advertising by the place we play at. What are some effective techniques in getting a crowd? I'm assuming we aren't an awful band, because all our response seems to be positive, yet everytime we have a show, it comes as a surprise to anyone we ask to go
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You might want to look into local radio stations. Give them a CD and they might have a show which gives local artists exposure. During that show they would say when and where you are expected to play.

You should keep your website current with your "upcoming gigs." HTH
 
College radio is where its at. Get in touch with the local colleges and see if they run a station, most times they do if they offer Media studies etc.
Give them your disc, and give them your freebies. Give them tickets for the next show so they can use them as give aways in a show or something. Make sure you give them a list of gigs so they can pitch that in there for ya.
Try to get a CD review in the college newsletters or magazines, also run by Media students.
Give every radio station in town your CD.
Dont underestimate posters and flyers. Spend a weekend ahead of time (a week before your gig) putting up posters everywhere.
At the show, take pictures of the crowd and tell them they can check them out on your website (pitch your website here). People love themselves more than they will love any band, so theyll go to your website to see the pictures of themselves that you took and uploaded to your page.
Lastly, and I know this is hard, give your cds away for free at shows. Tell the people if they like it they can donate any amount of money they want to via your website, and if they dont they should feel free to keep the CD or give it to someone else who might appreciate it. Speaking of website, give the cd away for free as a download as well, operate it on a donation system.

Good luck,
Mike
 
Support larger bands round the country and make sure to get out in the crowd after to get mailing lists, sell merch, etc.
 
Newmetman said:
Hi guys, im relatively new here, and im sure this has been asked many times, but how do you guys publicize your band? Our band has myspace, a website, 2 demo cds, t-shirts, and we perform at some local areas on a semiregular basis, and yet when it comes to a crowd, we're stuck depending on larger bands to do poor advertising by the place we play at. What are some effective techniques in getting a crowd? I'm assuming we aren't an awful band, because all our response seems to be positive, yet everytime we have a show, it comes as a surprise to anyone we ask to go
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Start collecting email addresses at your shows of people who want to know when you're playing. From time to time, send out a mass email of your schedule and when you have a gig coming up, send out an email about that gig and ask people to attend.
 
Up to a point that 99% of bands never even get to bigness-wise, the best way to gain a bigger audience is to support larger bands. As others have said, the most important thing to focus on (besides making sure your songs are the best songs you can possibly write, and that your live show is flawless and entertaining) is to connect to your audience, both during and after your show. Email lists are OK, but most people will probably ditch it as spam. The way most people hear about shows is by word of mouth, or "buzz". Buzz is created by playing shows and playing them well, and making an IMPRESSION on people. Make your merch the best merch out of any of the bands you play with. Make your CD stand out. Etc. etc.
 
pandamonk said:
Support larger bands round the country and make sure to get out in the crowd after to get mailing lists, sell merch, etc.
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To add to this, make sure you keep the emails for each area of the country separate from each other, so you can inform only the people it concerns about a gig(in their area).
 
hey! y our from the sault!?!?! I'm just 3 hours north of you in sudbury.

You guys have a cool lo-fi indie rock sound..

We should play some shows one of these days.. we're always looking for outta town shows.

www.myspace.com/poorlydrawnbirds


but what steve said.. it's all about your live show.. and playing with bigger bands so more people will see you who may have not heard of you
 
Ask yourself: "If I wasn't in this band, would I buy thier CD or go to their show???". And whether the answer is "yes" or "no", ask yourself why.

If what you're doing is being done by 100's of other bands, you better be tight as hell and do it better than anyone else. Or, don't try to sound like anyone else, and be original.

I think the biggest mistake alot of artists do is worry too much about what's hip right now. Problem is, by the time you start getting somewhere, your sound is dated. Don't follow fads, create them.
 
RAMI said:
Ask yourself: "If I wasn't in this band, would I buy thier CD or go to their show???". And whether the answer is "yes" or "no", ask yourself why.

If what you're doing is being done by 100's of other bands, you better be tight as hell and do it better than anyone else. Or, don't try to sound like anyone else, and be original.

I think the biggest mistake alot of artists do is worry too much about what's hip right now. Problem is, by the time you start getting somewhere, your sound is dated. Don't follow fads, create them.
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VERY VERY wise words
 
pandamonk said:
Support larger bands round the country and make sure to get out in the crowd after to get mailing lists, sell merch, etc.
Click to expand...

while all of the advice is good, this is probably the most realistic, and most common way to get a large crowd. Do this over time (it's not going to happen over night) and you'll be exposed to a larger ammount of people, for what that's worth. If they like what you do, you'll make lots of fans. Bands that I've been in, that have seen some ammounts of success have always done that before we started to play those 800-1000 people crowds... I'm sure if we would have kept going with it all, we could have played to larger ones as well.

It's really hard to get people to give a new band a chance. Everyone is too afraid to chart new territory. Basically, if people really like your music, but you're having a hard time getting crowds... maybe getting a captive audience is what you need.... well and time... it takes A LOT of time for the average band to get to the point where they have a large concert going fan base.

Just keep doing EVERYTHING you can. Be extremely agressive in getting your band out. As much as it's about the music, you need to approach it as selling your band to people. Get a schtick, keep in consistent, try to include elements musicially and visually and in written form that aren't typical and that will help as well. It's absolutely the way to go to promote using the methods you mentioned, but sometimes the WAY you promote using that method can make a big difference. Myspace is good, it can REALLY help to figure out what fans are into, and how to better attract people who will be more likely of fans.
 
eeb said:
hey! y our from the sault!?!?! I'm just 3 hours north of you in sudbury.

You guys have a cool lo-fi indie rock sound..

We should play some shows one of these days.. we're always looking for outta town shows.

www.myspace.com/poorlydrawnbirds


but what steve said.. it's all about your live show.. and playing with bigger bands so more people will see you who may have not heard of you
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That is quite fortunate! If you guys want, just add us as friends on myspace, and we can try and get something set up. We were thinking of out of town shows too, and this could be good for both of our bands. I'm sure the rest of my band will be up for this as well
 
You NEED radio play. Get a SOLID recording of your guys' best song and push it to the radio.
 
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