General Music Chat

Hello to all! It's been a while since I've been on this forum. Hope all is well.

I'm organizing a gig with 5 bands on the bill for some website promo launch and I would like to send out press releases to local media.
But this is my first time so I decided to launch a thread on how to this properly.

How much time in advance should bands send them out? How to approach the media? (directly via mail?, or by email? or call first?).
Basically I'm would just like to know what the dos and not dos are when trying to get as much out of my PR as possible.

I'm not expecting any miracles like tens of thousands of people flooding my venue thx to the PR, but it surely can't hurt to try.

Advice anyone?

Thx

Had a guy in a carodid press once. I released it after he stopped squirming.

Keep it short. One paragraph. Any more & it's just too much. I've done a gazillion of these for myself, &, as my usual posts on here clearly demonstrate, I'm way too wordy! When I finally cut it to a single paragraph, they used it in the paper. I sent all of them to the Lifestyle section of the local rag, where it ended up in the weekender section. Include a good quality photo that works either in color or B&W (they're harder to make, btw), cuz in some papers you never know how it'll be printed.

An example of how I'd do one today for myself;

"Phil Montgomery will be appearing at so & so's on someday. His performance is rather eclectic, mixing many genres of music. He's appeared on Fox TV doing his original songs, has written for a kid's Saturday morning TV show, & has opened for The Marshall Tucker Band at the Apollo Theater in Martinsburg, as well as performing at various festivals & 'concert in the park' series. He's been in several bands in the area since 1992, including musical styles ranging from bluegrass to rockabilly to jam band & jazz. He has over 35 years of solo & band performing experience, & always has new material in his act. He should have a great new show at so & so's that shouldn't be missed."

I'd work on the wording to make it flow better, but that's the gist of it.

If the paper wants more than something along those lines, they'll interview the act & have their own writers do it.

That's been my experience, anyway, with one exception, when they actually did put in some stuff from my promo pack that explained me more clearly, along with 2 pics. I think they needed paper filler that week.