Booking your first gig is hard. Even if you’ve played a few shows before, booking can still be challenging. That’s exactly why we created Gigmor – to make booking shows as quick and easy as possible. Here are our top tips for early-stage artists to book more and higher quality gigs. Follow these tips and you’ll book a gig in no time!
· APPLY AND MESSAGE TALENT SEEKERS EARLY
Most venues and talent bookers will plan their schedules many months in advance. If you’re looking for shows this month, you’re probably out of luck. They want to plan well in advance in case anyone cancels or reschedules. That’s why you should reach out at least 4-6 weeks before you want to play. That gives them time to check you out and to begin putting together a full bill of other artists.
Pro Tip: Even though we recommend planning ahead, you can also check out our gigs page for last minute gigs. Talent seekers will often post gigs with short notice to Gigmor because they had a cancellation or change of plans and need to find an artist fast.
· UPDATE YOUR GIGGING HISTORY
This is probably the most overlooked but important part of your Gigmor profile. If you don’t have any gigs under your belt, don’t worry! You’ve probably played at house parties, busked or streamed a performance on YouTube. Put that in your gigging history! Talent seekers want to know where you’ve played and how many people you can draw but, more importantly, they want to know that you’re putting in the effort to play live and build an audience.
· NETWORK, BUT NOT REALLY
Networking is not what you think it is. We should really just eliminate the term and change it to “hang out and make friends” because that’s what real networking is. Let’s say you book a gig on Gigmor, you play the show and it goes well. But now what do you do? Don’t talk to anyone and bounce after your set? NO. This is the perfect time to just hang out. Get to know the people working at the bar, have a drink, make friends. That is key to getting repeat bookings in better time slots.
Hope that helps you gigMORE!
Rock On,
Team Gigmor
