I’m sick of articles that contain the phrase, “during these tough times.” (Sick of writing them. Sick of reading them.)
Many of my contacts in the booking business have freaked out about receipts this year. When jobs are on the line and gas prices rise above $2 per gallons, live entertainment is one of the first things that gets slashed from the budget. If you’ve been sweating it out this summer, watching venues fold up as fast as your fans’ wallets, think about how you can stand in service to your audience.
Can you host your own concert at a park or a community center? How about a private house concert for a handful of your most consistent supporters?
Remember to avoid “free” concerts — your core audience won’t value them as much as they will if you promote the gig as a “recession-buster” or an “entertainment stimulus package.”
Here’s where you enjoy the biggest opportunity right now… If your perfect audience member doesn’t want to spend $50 to see their favorite area act, can you redirect them to see YOU play live for $10? They’ll get a great live experience that they’ll value even more — because you turned it into a transcendent experience for them. And then, when times get good again, they’ll still be on board to support you through your own bigger gigs.
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For the past hundred years, the conventional wisdom about marketing your music has been about building a brand and sticking to it. Think about some of the classic stars of the last century: Frank Sinatra, Etta James, Elvis Presley. It’s tough to see them outside the context of the carefully crafted personas we now find familiar.
Cutting through the noise of today’s media environment to find new audience members requires a different approach. “Branding” is still important, but the way you attract new audience to your brand may require you to reconnect with your broader artistic tendencies.
Viral video gives us a few great examples:
- In Bb is an ambient music project built on (at the moment) ten YouTube contributions from artists around the world. It’s interactive, fun, and produces the kind of music that wouldn’t be out of place on something like Echoes. It’s also the brainchild of Darren Solomon from Science for Girls. Although the piece started off as a fun blog post, it’s now attracting plenty of attention from folks who might never have heard of Darren’s more conventional projects.
- Auto-Tune the News is a series of parody songs that include Joe Biden, Newt Gingrich, and Katie Couric showing off their singing chops, thanks to T-Pain’s favorite production plugin. Floating heads and bizarre references make for great comedy, but the songs are actually pretty catchy. Michael Gregory, his brother, and his sister-in-law also happen to have a band with an upcoming EP release. Although Michael auditioned for American Idol, this project stands to grow his audience much more effectively.
Gerd Leonhard’s been writing and speaking extensively lately about the need for artists to “curate” experiences for their audiences. Successful musicians over the next ten years won’t just have crafted single brands. They will have built strong “curatorial” experiences that go beyond a single interest or style, pulling audience members in who would otherwise just have missed out. Because not everyone who though Auto-Tuned gorillas are funny will like “Butter on My Roll, converting samplers to core audience members is a little more difficult. However, getting on the radar of pop culture tastemakers gets a lot easier when your introduction is a lot more unconventional.
