Musician Forum - Band Discussion Board - BandMix

By indie band I am referring to a band that doesn't live off its music but who wishes to. Or at least make a decent profit for its efforts.
Should a band concentrate on merch or on album sales?
How to make a effective budget in order to create revenue?

Thx
gigDoggy
http://gigdoggy.wordpress.com/
www.myspace.com/gigdoggy

Have Good Merch (and lots of it)
CD's at the merch table as well as online (CD Baby is great) and digital downloads is another great seller.
Merch can be a night maker, or at least fill the van up with gas so you can get to the next gig.

I hae a few friends who promote themselves online....they make enough to live off of thier music....im not sure what all they do yet but they are slowly teaching me....so far looks like last.fm coupled with I tunes brings in decent cash....they told me the other night they book local shows and get a % of the door and beer sales....they use their myspace popularity to help them book LOL.....works great for them though the other night they cleared like 5k....myspace me if ya wanna chat about it.

www.myspace.com/muzikmandez

I've said this before but I'll do it again...

Festival circuit, sell your products. Forget bars.

I respect you opinion Irminsul as you are apparently a true "musician".

How does one go about getting "hooked up" with various festivals. Every time I hear of one going on locally Its already set in stone.

That is a good question, SanshouHeil. I have wondered that myself, there are many large festivals down here, and sometimes I see local bands can get gigs at them, but I do not know how it is done.

Peace, GuitarAnatomy.

Promoters plan months, sometimes years in advance. You basically plan a year ahead. Most good stuff is already booked by now.

Who you know helps too.

People, you've got to get off the internet and stop just talking about it.

The promoters hire the people they know who are good enough to play for them.
If you've never met the promoters - then they've never met you, either.
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Whose fault is it, theirs or yours?
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Get OUT there, play in public - and meet people. Get yourselves heard, and talk to people, face to face.
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. . . there comes a time to stop dreaming, and start doing. If you want to play in public - then play in public. It's easy.
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It's so easy - just do it.
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If you are not shelling out money to pay for gas to go to places to play, you'll be stuck home just dreaming about it.

Or, when next year comes around, you'll again hear of yet another concert that is already a 'done deal,' and you'll wonder why you weren't invited to play.
Well, these deals are being done while you're sitting home.
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Don't wait for your ship to come in. Hell, the dock area is too shallow for a big ship.
Get in a damned rowboat - and put in some effort towards rowing out to the big ship, man . . .
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Remember:
Face - to - face.

sanshouheil wrote:I respect you opinion Irminsul as you are apparently a true "musician".

How does one go about getting "hooked up" with various festivals. Every time I hear of one going on locally Its already set in stone.

You have to do it with a year's planning in mind. I mean when you apply, realize that it's for next year's festivals. Also keep in mind that many of those acts are chosen after trying to get in several times before. So the upshot is, get right to it!

The good part is that often festivals have acts signed up that suddenly can't do the show for whatever reason, and they do call backs on people who applied but didn't get in. Many years ago this happened for me more than a few times. And once you slip in as a replacement act you automatically are ain better standing for getting in on the next festival.

Go online and search out states arts festivals - every state I know of has several. You can either apply online or request a packet and they'll send it to you in the mail. There are also special events like company sponsored festivals, or "theme" based ones like biker rallies. I was going to suggest Renaissance faires but I don't think your band really fits that theme, so choose ones that do. What about Southern Heritage events, for example?

Get as many applications and packets out there as possible. With some effort I doubt you guys will be disappointed. Also if you need a sample contract (if by chance the event agreement is not sufficient) then you can download one at my site ->

http://www.irminsul.biz/docs/afmcontract.pdf

Good luck to you.

Cool, thanks, we have a lot of little festivals around here. Oil boom Days Fire ant festivals, Yamboree's etc. I suppose I can start with the various Chambers of Comerce to find out who is the lead dog for these events.

sanshouheil wrote:Cool, thanks, we have a lot of little festivals around here. Oil boom Days Fire ant festivals, Yamboree's etc. I suppose I can start with the various Chambers of Comerce to find out who is the lead dog for these events.

That is a very good idea and I'm ashamed of myself that I didn't mention it...your local Chamber of Commerce is an EXCELLENT resource for some potentially very cool gigs.

If you get into a festival make sure you have plenty of merchandise to sell.

When I had Aint Yo Mama going we sold $1000 worth of t-shirts at a little county fair. I think they paid us $400 to do one set of music and provided PA, staging, the whole nine yards. It was kinda cool playing AC/DC and watching grandmas dance to You Shook Me. We were out of there in time to do one of our regular gigs that night.

Thats a good call Irminsul, I tend to forget about those gigs, but they are out there for the picking.

Yeah, isn't it a great feeling to see, after your show, a bunch of people lining up to buy stuff? That's where you make most of your gold nugget.

How about incorporating your band?
Have any of you tried it? Financially its interesting but im thinking
that determining who represents what percentage of what in the band must complicate matters.

What you gonna have left if it unravels bro??
Corporations cant just "poof" disappear, sounds like your complicating your life and asking for trouble with the "man".