Get Booked on Your Merits, Not by Cheapening Yourself

I don’t want to get started on the whole “don’t promise a venue that you’ll fill up their place with fans (patrons), knowing full well that you’re not going to bring them any kind of crowd.”  So, this blog is not about that.  While I am, in fact, writing about talking to venues regarding getting booked, it’s a different aspect thereof that I want to shed some light on today.

First, I won’t apologize for again reminding you, the independent artist, that your music career is a business.  Thus, you are a brand that you must continue to consider as such and be on the lookout to protect.  Like any fine company, you want to come across as first class, as professional, as everything being top notch.  In fact, ask yourself this; if you were a hamburger, would you want to be thought of by consumers as gourmet or just as fast food?

Your answer to the above could go a long way toward realizing how you think of yourself as a brand.  And therefore, if you chose the ‘fast food’ answer, maybe it’s time to stop and think of whether that’s the image you’ve been giving off to listeners, music industry people, your peers, fans, media, and so on.

I’m going to encourage you to strive for the ‘gourmet’ opinion.  And therefore, when it comes to booking yourself somewhere, you should not be presenting yourself in a way that appears desperate.  You’re the cream of the crop.  You’re Grade A beef.  The act that you’re bringing them is going to nourish their patrons.

If you go in and don’t have that confidence, you’re going to start making compromises you’ll regret later (whether you get booked there or not) and you’ll find yourself making promises you probably can’t keep and likely shouldn’t have been making in the first place.

Here’s an example.

If you are a performer in the Washington D.C. area and have a connection to (yet not a personal relationship with) former Redskins football coach Joe Gibbs, don’t go in and tell a venue that, “If you book me here, I’ll even get Joe Gibbs to come in and see one of my shows.”  Now you’ve crossed a line, assuming that you’ve never once talked about this with Coach Gibbs.  Even if it’s a private club, you’re still out of line.

If, in fact, it is a private club and you take it one step further and say, “AND, if you book me here, my spouse will probably join your club.  And we have a very successful family business, so the other company officials in the family will likely join too.”  Well, now you’ve really gotten in deep.  What if those people don’t want to join the club?  Heck, what if after all these promises the place does book you to perform – once.  You never get asked back, and now you’ve got people belonging to their club that probably want out.

Never once in there was it about your music and your sound and protecting your brand and, in the process, getting the pay you wanted.  You sold out and looked desperate and probably would overwhelm the booker with all these so-called promises.

Be confident in who you are and let your music and your performance stand on their own and be the reason you get booked.