The hard truth for an artist playing shows and getting paid is that not one venue owner cares about your music, nor should they. They simply care about their ROI (return on investment). If you are being paid to play music, you better be bringing people into the venue specifically to see you play. A lot of artists are under the impression that they are being paid for their music, but in reality they are getting paid to sell food, drinks and marketing. This is why there is such a lack in the variety of music being played in bars. A booking agent needs to book an act that will draw people and keep people there for the duration of their show and spending money. The most logical thing is to book an act playing playing generic covers of classic rock songs that most people will know. The problem with that is, the market gets to be a saturated mess of artists and bands willing to play what people and the booking agent want them to play. There are some exceptions to this in that some very talented acts will have a big enough draw to play their own music, but most artists don't have enough of a following in smaller markets to generate the ROI for the venue. Often times the best talent is overlooked because they don't want to become a human jukebox for the people in the bar yelling free bird. I 100% get the position of the booking agents and booking the acts based on draw. That is exactly what they are getting paid to do. This leads me to my next point of the venues not doing a good enough job of marketing as well. As an artist, our reach is only so far with people that follow us, but let's say a venue has a reach of 2,500 people that like their FB page and their "marketing plan" is to put out a post on the day of the event. This doesn't give anyone a chance to plan for a night out. Maybe it's me, but I think the venues that don't take the time to put together a decent marketing plan to tell people that they are having live music far enough in advance, don't have any right to be pissed off when they have a light crowd that shows up for their hired music. I moved to Raleigh from Las Vegas and maybe that is one of the reasons I understand the importance of marketing more than most, but the competition is strong for bars and you have to be willing to let people know far in advance on what is happening at your establishment in order to start getting better crowds. I'm not saying you need a street team in place passing out flyers to everyone that walks by, but making a good effort to let the public know what is happening would be a good step in the right direction. The booking agents do a pretty good job of marketing and the artists (for the most part) do the best they can with getting the word out to their limited reach as well. The venues have a great opportunity to create bigger draws and often fall short because of all the other things taking up their time with running a business, but if you are too busy running the day to day operations of the business and failing to put adequate time/resources towards marketing, don't be upset when the crowds don't come in. Let one of the booking agents handle it so you don't have to. Let's face it, the venues doing their own booking typically have no music background and the closest thing they have to music knowledge is a spotify account. This means they are often booking talent and expecting amazing results because they are paying someone $250 for a few hours of music. You're not hiring Bruno Mars, you are hiring a local act with typically a minimal draw. It takes a lot of time and effort to make music a priority at your venue, but if you take the time and effort serious enough, it can be a great return on your investment. Just my two cents from the artist side of things.
-Jeremy
Reply
Jeremy Burns / Blog
Playing for money
The hard truth for an artist playing shows and getting paid is that not one venue owner cares about your music, nor should they. They simply care about their ROI (return on investment). If you are being paid to play music, you better be bringing people into the venue specifically to see you play. A lot of artists are under the impression that they are being paid for their music, but in reality they are getting paid to sell food, drinks and marketing. This is why there is such a lack in the variety of music being played in bars. A booking agent needs to book an act that will draw people and keep people there for the duration of their show and spending money. The most logical thing is to book an act playing playing generic covers of classic rock songs that most people will know. The problem with that is, the market gets to be a saturated mess of artists and bands willing to play what people and the booking agent want them to play. There are some exceptions to this in that some very talented acts will have a big enough draw to play their own music, but most artists don't have enough of a following in smaller markets to generate the ROI for the venue. Often times the best talent is overlooked because they don't want to become a human jukebox for the people in the bar yelling free bird. I 100% get the position of the booking agents and booking the acts based on draw. That is exactly what they are getting paid to do. This leads me to my next point of the venues not doing a good enough job of marketing as well. As an artist, our reach is only so far with people that follow us, but let's say a venue has a reach of 2,500 people that like their FB page and their "marketing plan" is to put out a post on the day of the event. This doesn't give anyone a chance to plan for a night out. Maybe it's me, but I think the venues that don't take the time to put together a decent marketing plan to tell people that they are having live music far enough in advance, don't have any right to be pissed off when they have a light crowd that shows up for their hired music. I moved to Raleigh from Las Vegas and maybe that is one of the reasons I understand the importance of marketing more than most, but the competition is strong for bars and you have to be willing to let people know far in advance on what is happening at your establishment in order to start getting better crowds. I'm not saying you need a street team in place passing out flyers to everyone that walks by, but making a good effort to let the public know what is happening would be a good step in the right direction. The booking agents do a pretty good job of marketing and the artists (for the most part) do the best they can with getting the word out to their limited reach as well. The venues have a great opportunity to create bigger draws and often fall short because of all the other things taking up their time with running a business, but if you are too busy running the day to day operations of the business and failing to put adequate time/resources towards marketing, don't be upset when the crowds don't come in. Let one of the booking agents handle it so you don't have to. Let's face it, the venues doing their own booking typically have no music background and the closest thing they have to music knowledge is a spotify account. This means they are often booking talent and expecting amazing results because they are paying someone $250 for a few hours of music. You're not hiring Bruno Mars, you are hiring a local act with typically a minimal draw. It takes a lot of time and effort to make music a priority at your venue, but if you take the time and effort serious enough, it can be a great return on your investment. Just my two cents from the artist side of things. -Jeremy
Reply