Booking More Gigs

A Coffeehouse Changes Hands

Booking More Gigs

Steel City Coffee House has grown into a Phoenixville institution. The first time I was there, about eight or nine years ago, it had developed a reputation as the best place in the outlying Philly ‘burbs to see a real blend of singer-songwriters and eclectic musicians. Today’s headline that the owner has sold the shop [...]

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NACA Schools Block-Booking Live Music

Booking More Gigs

Every time I write about booking shows on college campuses, I get two kinds of e-mail. One burst of e-mail comes from artists who are so frustrated about how difficult it is to nail down dates through college activities boards, especially at schools who belong to the National Association for Campus Activities (NACA). The other [...]

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During tough times, make time for more fun.

Booking More Gigs

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 [...]

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RETRO: Booking Agents and Music Managers

Booking More Gigs

I’ve been wanting to write some new articles about booking concerts. It seems like we’re in another cycle where folks ask me questions like, “now that we have Twitter and Facebook, it should be totally easy to find a booking agent, right?” (Three years ago, it was, “now that we have MySpace…” Before that, it [...]

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Neon Armadillo: Redefining Live Country Music

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Many of my friends and colleagues have gravitated into the country music space over the past few years. It makes sense, given that Nashville is probably the last stronghold of the traditional music business model that relies on teams of writers, producers, artists, and marketers to make things happen. In so many ways, country is [...]

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Listeners Use Your Music in Context — How You Can Spread Your Own Music Using iMixes

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Listen to this great description of how one listener uses and enjoys iMix selections from the Apple iTunes Music Store. People in America used to use radio and mixtapes for that kind of experience, but now they turn to other listeners online. So here’s one suggestion to boost sales of your music while growing your [...]

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Ticketmaster and Venues Experiment with Auction Pricing

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Instead of selling every seat in the house for $30, INXS recently staged an auction on Ticketmaster. The highest priced ticket sold for $500, the lowest for $3. Nine Inch Nails used a similar model, and watched online scalping drop substantially. Venues and ticket sellers are finally clued in to the idea that pricing for [...]

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Internet Buzz Is Not the Same as Street Buzz

Booking More Gigs

I was helping to produce a seminar for musicians at the front end of the MySpace explosion — this was a few years ago — and a band pitched a booking agent at the event by saying, “we’ve already got 2,000 friends on MySpace!” And the booking agent replied, “ugh, you’re not one of those [...]

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CBGB: Punk’s First Theme Park

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[Thanks to a Stereogum commenter for a great headline.] In my books, I’ve written about the ways that baby bands would push hard to get a date at a venue like CBGB, then complain when a talent buyer would insist on preselling dozens of tickets for a showcase slot. (Hint: the talent buyer knows you [...]

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Getting through to Talent Buyers: Pest vs. Persistent

Booking More Gigs

Jay Flanzbaum from the indispensible OnlineGigs has a great article at Galaris this month about the distinction between being effectively persistent and just bugging the snot out of a talent buyer. Most of the bands that claim “nobody will book my band” probably had someone Jay’s describing screw up their potential relationship. Technorati Tags: music+industry, [...]

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