A lot of you have been bugging me for my notes on last week's meeting of the Guild - a booking mini-panel with Tom Hartman of Screaiming Beaver Records and Sophie Hall from United Talent. It's been a busy week - but here they are at last!
If you were at the meeting and remember something I've not mentioned here, help us out and comment at the bottom.
What agents do: An agency like United Talent builds relationships with bars and clubs, then works on behalf of artists to get them gigls there. Agents do NOT promote shows for you (hire a publicist!), and they do NOT have the final word on who plays where - that's up to the venue. Agencies work for and are paid by the artist - United Talent typically takes 10% of what's paid to the band at the end of a night. A typical fee might be $45 of a $450 band wage. United Talent books about 500 shows like this EVERY MONTH.
Getting booked: Myspace, Myspace, Myspace. Hard-copy press kits are expensive and less likely to get listened to.
The three things that should absolutely be on your Myspace (or, if you like, Facebook) page:
- music
- artist photos
- upcoming shows
A good candidate will have a FREQUENTLY UPDATED page with ACTIVE fans and several upcoming shows. Repeat shows at the same club are a good sign because it indicates that you already have a following in a particular area - you were successful enough the first time to get booked again.
Remember to view things from the venue's perspective - most make money by selling drinks. If you can bring a lot of people to their bar, you're worth booking - if you can't, you might not be. (Frustrated that audiences seem to pay for beer, but not for music? Me too - but that's a conversation for another time...)
Those are my notes - what'd I leave out? Comments below, if you please...
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