The Good Musician

4 Ways to Get Gigs and 9 Ways to Make Them Rock

by Arjun Muralidharan on January 27th, 2008

Photography by larskflem.

Gigs are crucial events - they’re make or break for many bands, however small or unimportant the venue. If you have a group or band, chances are you’ll want to play in front of people sooner or later.

There are several ways to actually get gigs, and I’m going to focus on the cheap and free ones here.

1. Call local clubs: Most local bars will pick up on local musicians if you manage to make a proper presentation. Tell them you would like to send them your profile (make a band profile first, obviously free of charge. Ideally go there personally to give it to them.

2. Gift a Gig: If you know of an upcoming birthday party, grab the opportunity to perform with your band. You should have a solid set list of about 45 minutes that includes a Happy-Birthday-session.

3. School gigs: Find out about annual balls and homecomings early on, and get your band in there. It’s all about preparing in January for June.

4. Approach homes and other venues: Unless your a hard-rock death-metal group (which is just great if so), you could approach old age homes or homes for the disadvantaged. Not for really getting exposure, but for getting experience, helping a good cause, and some homes might pay some cash for a new amp you need to buy anyway.

Photography by noortje.

That said, you’ll need a bit more than just a booked date for a gig to actually work. For this, you’ll probably need some management skills and some simple common sense, but if fails us musicians amidst the excitement of playing at a gig.

1. List out necessary equipment: Get each member of the band to list out the equipment they personally need. This includes instruments, pedals and amps, but also any kinds of stands and most of all: wiring.

2. Find common equipment: Apart from everyone’s personal whims, be clear about what everyone needs, like a main power line, a mixer, or a shared PA for singer and keyboard.

3. Sort the list: Start ordering items into a shopping-list of sorts: Mark out how many power cables, midi cables, 1/8 inch cables are needed, and imagine an imaginary (duh) box which will hold all of this equipment.

4. Make the box:Next thing to do is to make an equipment box for all cables. Keep everything that doesn’t fit in near the box. Now do a test run whether you can set up the stage just with the box contents.

5. Clear up about venue equipment: Find out early (I mean EARLY) about what amps, PA and other stuff is available at the venue. Drum kits are often available, and unless your drummer decides to play his own set, use the one available.

6. Test the venue: Finding out about the available facilities is fine, but be sure it all fits with what you have. Cable sizes, lengths and compatibility issues are not welcome on D-Day.

7. Prepare stage markings: When testing out the stage, be sure to use tape and mark positions of items and people on the stage. This is important because in a gig situation, the crowd in the hall might make you all stand in strange places, to close to each other, etc. Get the visual right, at least :-)

8. Don’t change strings on too a short-notice: If you know your gig date ahead of time, plan your string change in about a week before the gig, unless you play 3 concerts a week, in which case you’re not reading this.

9. Do a fail-safe sound check: Get a sound check-time as early as you can on the big day, I like going for around 5 hours before show time if permitted. This lets you take care of all eventualities, and also isn’t too far away from the gig to get a relevant result.

Gigs are exciting, so have fun! Always be prepared, stay calm and try to be comprehensive about things. It’s important to clarify roles within your band and coordinate who does what. It makes little sense to do it all together and no sense if you just let it hang in the room - it will eventually be forgotten.

What are your favorite ways to get gigs working?

POSTED IN: Marketing & Branding