How To Quickly Get More Music Gigs

How To Quickly Get More Music Gigs

By Tom Hess

Having difficulty getting new gigs? You might be holding yourself back due to holding one or more limiting beliefs such as “venues aren’t looking for bands right now,” or “the competition is too great for my band to even have a chance”. Truth is, these statements are nowhere near accurate. Here is the reality behind getting more gigs:

Music venues are desperately seeking great musical acts to book (despite being booked well ahead of time). That’s right, it’s not the musicians who are unable to get gigs, it’s the venues who struggle to find the right bands to play. Bookers and promoters throw away so much time (and money) by working with bands who just don’t know what the venue needs from them. As soon as you can become the kind of musician that venues are seeking, you’ll get tons of new gigs.

Four Huge Mistakes You Should Avoid When Attempting To Get More Gigs:

Mistake One: Not thinking of yourself as a “partner” with the venue owners who you are performing for.

The whole purpose of getting bands to play at a venue is to make money. When a venue looks for a new band, they try to find musicians who are already savvy when it comes to promoting themselves (specifically: their shows), and who understand what needs to happen to fill the house with fans, while putting on a great live show. Musicians who understand how this is done, help venues to make bigger amounts of money and always get the most opportunities to perform higher-paying gigs. Musicians who don’t put out any effort (or don’t know how) to assist in helping venues earn more money always struggle to find new gigs.

An effective way you can help venues make more money is to begin growing a list of local fans (by storing their e-mail addresses or other contact details). This demonstrates the proof of your value to a venue, since you now have a much greater ability to attract more people to the venue.

Mistake Two: Lacking great performance skills and know-how.

Before you can gain a dedicated, loyal following of fans who love seeing every show you play in, you must understand how to put on a great performance. Even if your music is great... if you don’t know how to truly entertain your fans with an exciting performance, they simply will not make the effort to come out and see you play. This greatly hurts your chances for getting new gigs because booking agents desperately need bands with both a great show and a loyal fanbase. Discover more about putting on a better live performance.

Mistake Three: Not making any effort to stand out from other bands.

If there is nothing that truly distinguishes your band from other local bands (whether it be your music, performance, etc.), you are greatly limiting your potential to get new gigs. Similarly, when your live performances are cool or unique, it is very likely to attract more people and venues will often be more eager to have you play for them. For instance, it’s not uncommon for bands to hire additional entertainers to come to their gigs (rather than working with an opening band) in order to attract a larger audience and make their shows more successful.

That being said, don’t invest all your time and energy into “being completely unique” just to get more gigs. “Being unique” alone doesn’t earn the venue more money unless it is integrated together with the points in the section below.

Mistake Four: Lacking the understanding of how to get more of your fans to come to live shows.

If you think the venue is going to make all of the efforts when it comes to promoting your shows, you will never be able to consistently get more gigs. Reality is, it’s your responsibility to inspire your fans to come to your shows – NOT the venue’s. If you struggle to get people to see your live shows, no one is going to work with you or offer you new opportunities to play at their venues.

What You Must Do To Get A Lot More Musical Gigs

To guarantee that you don’t make the same mistakes that keep other musicians from getting tons of gigs, have the mindset that all of the venues you play at are “business partners”, rather than just people who pay you to perform at their club.

Here are four important things that will help you do this:

1. Work with a mentor who has already accomplished the things you want to accomplish in your music career.

Music career mentoring is the one thing that will help you understand the specific steps you must take to make yourself much more valuable to work with in the eyes of a venue (helping you get many new gigs in the process).

2. Put together a large list of fans and keep growing it at every one of your performances.

Having the power to message your entire fanbase at any time (for free), is key for getting them to cancel all plans and come out to see you play. Once you can do this, you gain tons of value in the eyes of any venue owner. If you do not have a list, getting gigs and growing a successful music career becomes extremely difficult. Continually work on growing a list of your fans’ names/contact info and make this a high priority at all times.

3. Think about the fans you want to attract to your show.

In addition to possessing a means for reaching out to your fans at any moment (for free), you must learn how to offer massive value to your fans and inspire them to come out and see you play. Learn more about how to do this by checking out this article about getting much more music fans.

4. Focus on helping venues earn more money.

Simply put, venues would be totally uninterested in having bands put on shows if doing so wasn’t going to help them earn more money. You need to prove to a venue that you are dedicated to consistently generating win-win outcomes for them and for you. To see how to do this, start this free 6-day mini course on how to build a successful career in music.

Now that you understand more about what it takes to get more gigs for your band, begin applying the points of this article into your career right away so you can quickly move your music career forward.