Note: I (Ozarks Live Productions) did not write this peice. This was found while surfing myspace, and I felt like it might hit home with some local bands and even semi national bands out there that are on the edge of making their dreams come true. Credit for this piece goes to Dan Jansen.
Ticket Sales and your ability to bring people to shows..
"It's less about how many you did once than how many you can continue to do." Who you have played with does not matter if you didn't gain any of their fans.
The cold hard truth about playing shows, is that although we are all musicians and it is 100% about the music and the love for it deep down inside. You always have to keep in mind that the minute you step out of the garage and into a club it becomes YOUR own personal business. Its about "bodies in seats" and if you are signed mostly but even unsigned "how many CD's you can sell".
A short story about my experience with the Cleveland music scene and really any scene for that matter. I played in a band called Last August. We started out playing shows by just showing up, telling a few people and blindly hoping they would show. There was no myspace, or facebook. For a year we played shows in front of crowds of 2-10 people. We complained with the other bands about "the scene", and how it was "dead". Then after a really bad 30 person show at peabodys, I made a decision.. To do whatever it took to get people to shows. I realized it wasn't the clubs and promoters we were playings fault it was mine? We took some time to improve our skills, and made a great CD(A good demo and producer will move your band further than anything in the world) www.myspace.com/junglerecording
and we started taking responsiblity for ourselves and our career. Whenever we had a show we divided the tickets up 20 a person in the band. From that point forward we started making sure no matter what we would sell ALL of them. All of sund, the clubs that we were fighting against started giving us better shows, bigger shows, bigger opening slots, guarunteed time slots, ect. yes we were making them money and producing results so in turn they helped us and our music got out to more people, bigger crowds!! The other people in the clubs saw our friends/fans rocking out and wanted to join in. Everyone talks in this business, if you do well and bring people to shows we all know who you are! Also, if you screw someone we all know that as well. My point is within a year of actually working hard and promoting ourselves for each event. Yes, if you can bring 100 people to a show you can open for lots of nationals, we did Trapt, 30 seconds to mars, The Calling, and more.. Two of those shows were sold out almost 1200 people.. In December of 2002 we headlined the downtown club known as The Odeon. That 2 -10 person fanbase expanded to 400-500 in just a year. Through hard work and taking the bull by the horns in our own career, producing for clubs, promoters, and having a CD that was produced extremely well.
True, its not all about ticket slaes, but that guarunteed pay for your band, its also peace of mind for you and your band to know FOR SURE how many people are going to be there for your band. So... If your sick of playing in front of small crowds take this advice "DO WHATEVER IT TAKES" Its not the scene, its your success.
Club owners, promoters, and labels can only stay in business and countinue to give you good shows, if you are producing results for them. If no one produces then the bands have no where to play, no one to play for, and no labels to sell their music.
Its YOUR career, YOUR dream, we aren't a "system" or "the man" we really are trying to help you take your music to the next level! Its business and its yours, what are you going to do with it?
Just something to think about.
Have a great day! Much Love and Respect to all the bands that put themselves out there, its not easy. If it was everyone would do it