Many of the ideas inside of here were developed through extensive discussions with bands and individual artists as well as the monthly Bandcampus sessions.  The venue listings were obtained through publicly listed information and a great thanks goes out to Katie Brown for helping to compile it all. All of the information contained within this ebook is something that I feel every band could use so I’m posting it for free.

Free eBook on Booking Your Band in Texas

If you like this ebook and find it helpful, please consider blogging a link back to this post so that peole know where to get the book. If you’d like to share copies with someone else, please point them to this post instead of the file directly so that I can make edits without concern.

Also, if this book makes you happy please leave a comment below this post. I’d love to know what you think about the work.

Thanks!

Booking Your Band in Texas (pdf format).

P.S. If you’d like just the venue listing without the helpful guidance on how to book your band, leave a comment below so I know how many people would like the venue listing in a google document format.

Included in today’s post are a couple example emails bands can use to initiate first contact with a venue. This form is the third step in the booking procedure as discussed at Bandcamp:BOOKING PARTY. The form is designed like a mad libs story, prompting bands to input, names, genres, adjectives, and verbs. To use the form, simply fill out the required information and contact the venue of your choice to ask for a show. Even if you don’t have a band, try it out, it’s fun!

As you can see below, I’ve filled it out for my [imaginary] band More Better. I’ve written this up to contact one of the best venues around, The Hideout, which provides a community for Chicago artists just like Caroline Collective provides a community for Houston creatives. I’ve even taken the liberty to tailor the form specifically for my band who sounds like a cross between the Boston Pops Orchestra and Big Black. Seriously, this band is awesome. Probably.

Download the mad libs style email to contact venues and book your band a show here (pdf).

For those of you who plan to use it or are using it, what changes did/would you make?

• Prairie Cadets
• Montgomery Walker
• Stateside Stereo
• Western Civilization
• The Favorites (Nominated for a Houston Press Music award 2009)
• Wayside Drive
• The Liquid Kitchen
• Glasnost
• Insert Name Here
• Spin Alley
• Joe Stone

The goal of the day was simple: work together to book shows for bands in and around their geographical area. To begin doing this bands should already have 1. their press kit including (bio, photo, previous accolades, upcoming events, previous press) and 2. a home base (band’s own website) and/or outposts (last.fm, myspace, facebook). Without these items, initiating a conversation with a booker is more difficult.

The workflow for booking a show in and around your geographical area is as follows. The initial assumptions were that a band had zero contacts in this geographical area. If you do have contacts in a specific area, that would be the first place to start, before you go through this procedure.

1. Select Dates

If you’re booking a tour for your band with multiple dates, the rule of thumb is 3 months in advance. If you’re booking just a single show for your band in the surrounding geographical area, you should be able to work in a 1.5 month advance.

2. City and Venue

Selecting the correct venue can be the most time consuming step. Luckily, we have compiled a comprehensive venue list for major cities within a four hour drive of Houston. The venue selection process begins with a trip to their website (if they have one) where you should look at the type of music they play, paying special attention to their calendar. If the calendar shows nationally popular artists that align with your genre, great, but it may be difficult to get onto the shows as an outsider.  If the calendar shows mid-level artists in the same vein as your music, you have a better chance.

3. Initiate a conversation with the venue

Start by following the stated booking procedure listed on the website, if there is one. If not, start with an email or a myspace (*gasp*) message to the venue (a mad libs style email was handed out to attendees). Follow up with the venue by phone later that week (a mad libs style phone script was handed out to attendees). The key points are to be polite and to talk to the booking agent / talent buyer. Follow up as needed with the appropriate contact and be persistent but not annoying.

Knowing all of this allows the group to start booking. The slowest process is researching venues and writing the first mad-libs style email but after the first email it requires just a couple copy-and-paste word switches. A couple hours into writing emails bands expressed comfort in booking alongside other bands and that the booking process was simplified to something they feel is manageable.

Coming later this week:

• a comprehensive venue list for Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio and Victoria/Corpus Christi that your band can use to book shows
• A mad-libs style email for your band to contact a venue to get booked
• A mad-libs style phone script for your band to a contact a venue to get booked
• a to-do list for your band to contact venues and get booked

The fact remains: Overplaying your local audience is not the way to improve your performance skills or increase your income. It IS however a good way to exhaust your audience and decrease your popularity. Bands who are looking to improve their performance skills and expand their audience reach should be playing regularly outside of their local community. Playing in different markets in your surrounding geographical area will expose new audiences to their music and can create an additional revenue stream.

While most bands acknowledge the importance of playing outside their town there seems to be a lack of the practical knowledge on exactly how to secure shows in a region where they have no contacts. Until those contacts are secured and cultured, one tried and true manner of securing a show is contacting venues or other bands. This month we’ll tackle the first method in a way that will not just teach bands how to do it but show them.

Bandcamp: BOOKING PARTY will be a workshop where bands will work together to contact venues to book gigs in cities within a four hour drive of Houston.

Here’s how Bandcamp: BOOKING PARTY will work: We’ll start with a brief overview talk about how to contact a venue about a show, what information to include, what to say, persistence vs. annoyance, and tips to keep in mind. A whiteboard will be gridded out with a list of Houston’s major surrounding cities and dates that bands will select from. Bands will then be given a form email to fill out that helps to describe their sound, their accolades and what they’re asking for. Then bands will be given a printout of venues that match their city for them to email. They will then contact all the relevant venues in that date range and ask for show availability to secure themselves a show. Later in the week, using the to-do list for contacting venues, they’ll follow up via email or contact the venues by phone to further contact between the venue/venue booker and the artist.

WHAT: Bandcamp: BOOKING PARTY
WHEN: July 12, 2009, 2-4pm
WHERE: Caroline Collective, 4820 Caroline, Houston TX 77004
WHY: Book your band to play in Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio and more
HOW MUCH: Bandcamp sessions are now $5/person, $8/band

Things bands will need:
a tentative list of dates that you are available to play
a laptop (notify us if you don’t have one)
a press kit (not a dealbreaker, can be constructed at the workshop)

Bands will be given:
A mad-libs style form email to tailor to their band
A printout of venues for the city that corresponds to their block on the grid
A to-do list for contacting venues to get a show at that venue.

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Regular BandCamp sessions are (mostly) held on the First Sunday of every month at Caroline Collective sometime between the hours of 1pm and 5pm. Please mark your calendar accordingly for future events where we’ll all educate specific skills to musical artists such as, online/offline promotion, tour booking, financials, and recording. Please speak about this event to your colleagues, band members and other interested members of the Houston Music Community.