Every show is an opportunity to build your career. That opportunity spans the entire day, not just the 45 minutes where you’re on stage.

Assuming that you’ve been able to book yourself a one-off show in a surrounding city you have a great reason to spend the entire day in that town maximizing the impact and making it into an event. There are a number of things you can do over the course of the day that will help your show and contribute to creating/solidifying an audience in that market down the road. Below are some preliminary notes of some career building activities for day of show. Some of these ideas require very little planning, some of the ideas build off of each other. Notice not one of them mentions playing the show itself. This list is for all the other time you have, outside of the setup through the break down.  I’ve separated them into four categories and I recommend  you try and do one from each category each time you visit a city to play a show. Over the next several days I’ll dive into the specifics of how and why these actions can be beneficial in both the short and long term for your band’s financial solvency, audience size, and presence in any city.

Day of Show Career Building Activities for Your Band:

1. Increase Attendance for that day’s show

• Play an impromptu  live set
  • Outside a Coffee Shop
  • On a Street Corner
  • On a College Campus/College Radio
  • Outside a Thrift Shop
• Promote
  • Pass out flyers on a college campus/coffee shop/thrift store/record store
  • Drop in a college radio station
  • Drop by a college campus
  • Drop in local taste maker locations (in Houston I’m talking about Coffee Groundz and Caroline Collective)

2. Grow Your Audience

• DJ an afterparty
• Hold a happy hour for fans
• Hang out with fans after the show

3. Solidify Your Presence

• Take a music writer out for a drink before the show
• Get a drink with other bands in the city
• Visit another venue to get booked for the future
• Pick up all the local publications

4. Make Money

• Drop off your music/merch at a local Record Store
• Sell music/merch @ a coffee shop
• Sell merch/music while busking

What are some other things that bands can do day of show to help their careers?

The following bands were in attendance:

• Espantapajaros
• The Bottom Four
• <Insert Name Here>
• I-45
• Wayside Drive
• Inner Lights
• Golden Cities
• Prairie Cadets
• THEM
• Winter Wallace
• Glasnost
• Reckless Endeavor
• Golden Narrow Holy Face
• Hollywood Floss
• Council Music
• Nosaprise
• Fat Tony

The session began late as printing of the ebooks took longer than expected (85 pages each!!!). Thanks to Jeremy Osborn of Wayside Drive for helping with the cover and the printing transport. Ebook copies went fast, the ones who came late had to share it and wait for it to be made available online (later today). We reviewed the process of booking a live show, beginning with two assumptions, 1) each band had prepared a digital toolbox of press, bio, pictures, media, stage setup to send to bookers or promoters as needed. 2) if the band had contacts or relationships with other bands or booker/promoters in desired cities, that would be the first place to start when booking a live show, aside from the following process. Then, we reviewed the planning steps for booking shows; selecting desired dates and targeting venues based on genre similarities and the size of venue.  Next we talked about the phone follow-up, the importance of writing out a script and remaining to-the-point and professional. For each of these steps we highlighted the specific sections of the ebook for the bands to refer to later.

During the discussion session, before getting down and contacting venues, several points were raised by Golden Cities, I-45 and Glasnost, three bands who have set up everything from their own shows to regional and national tours.

• Lance and Marcus of Golden Cities say: the most difficult thing is getting venues to reply. You have to understand and get over the fact that not everyone is going to reply to your email ever.
• Chuck of Glasnost recommends also having a standard contract for your band as part of your digital toolbox. Glasnost compiled theirs from several different examples available online. Here is an article from Music Biz Academy with several example contracts
• All bands agreed that asking for money can be the most difficult part and that the actual rate is completely negotiable and situational. It is not recommended to play for free though.

Additionally we had several members of the media in attendance:

• David Sadof
• Craig Hlavaty
• Marc Brubaker
• Adam Newton

The most rousing portion of the entire session was the discussion that ensued when Houston Press Music Writer Craig Hlavaty stood up and let bands know that they needed to take better advantage of the musical infrastructure that exists to help them:

• Music writers love to write about local bands, local bands seem to not understand this or take advantage of this opportunity
• Craig spends a ridiculous amount of time looking at venue and band sites to find out who is playing and when, because venues don’t list it themselves
• Local Bands need to be sending information about their upcoming shows to the music writers 1.5 weeks in advance of the show (minimum)
• Bands need to send: The cost of the show, the bands on the bill, the time and venue of the show
• Bands expressed a lack of knowledge on who their local music writers actually are (I have a two-part post for tomorrow and Wednesday opening this up for musicians)

With the ebook in hand bands were ready to start booking themselves live shows in and around Houston. We will be following up with each and every band to make sure that they actually work towards this and not sink into a hole of apathy. By discussing how these bands are using the ebook and leveraging community-based support every band in the Houston Music Community can begin to practice these career building steps.

More information about the next Bandcampus: SXSW PREP coming this week.

Check out some other press on this round of Bandcampus: BOOKING PARTY

• Houston Calling
• Houstonist
• Houston Examiner
• Space City Rock

• 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

There are few bad reasons to tour. It gives you the opportunity to connect with fans you don’t run into every day. It allows you to promote your new album or EP. It gives you the opportunity to test out new material or hone old standards to an audience of people who will give you visual and realistic feedback. It allows you to meet and discuss your music with new people and new bands. It allows you time to digest the material that you’re working on and potentially come up with new material. It pulls you out of your comfort zone and forces you to focus on performance rather than just doing covers of your own songs. According to Jim DeRogatis of Sound Opinions, it’s one of the easiest ways to find out about new artists.

What can touring do for you in your home environment? When you return from a tour you’ll have a new perspective of your performing skills, a better grasp over your old material, ideas for new material, tricks picked up from bands you’ve met, new contacts that can help you further promote your music, closer bonding with your bandmates, great stories, new ideas for your band, (potential) financial gain from merchandise sales, new fans who will listen to your music, prosthletize, consume, attend your shows.

With all those positives you’d think that every band you know would be mounting tours regularly. This isn’t the case and there are several reasons for it. First, it can seem daunting to book and mount a tour. Second, everyone falls back on the economy negatively affecting shows. This is only partly true but it can contribute to an overall perception that touring is more difficult than it should be.

Is touring difficult? It’s certainly not as easy as getting booked and selling out a show in your hometown. It doesn’t have to be as difficult as the widely held perception though. There are hard and fast rules for how to book a tour, promote a tour, execute a tour and have an impact. Some of them will be discussed at the next Bandcamp (link), some others are mentioned here, here, and here. The question is, where do you want your musical career to go?

In the short term, the easiest way to learn how to book a tour, the responsibilities of a touring artist and improving your merchandise sales on tour, is to attend the next Bandcamp. The next installment of Bandcamp will be held at Caroline Collective on January 4th, 2009. The topic will be Touring and we’ll cover the entire process of touring from the booking to the promotion to the execution of the tour and getting home safe and sound. Speakers include Gretchen Schmaltz of Western Civilization, Sara Winter of Warehouse Live and Terry Crane of Commerciant.

*The biggest bonus for members of the Houston music community looking to book a tour is that we’re going to help you do it. Bandcamp will be taking proposals from bands for length of tour, location, budget, goal. From the submitted proposals we will be booking a tour for one Houston band.*

WHEN: January 4th, 2009, 1-3pm

WHERE: Caroline Collective, 4820 Caroline

WHAT: Bandcamp:TOURING