Promotion?
The main focus we need to have for booking a gig is getting good promotional material as well as writing a short biography to explain what we can do and what we are about. This way the people who are wanting to book us know more about us and will want to book us. To be able to get a gig we must have high quality videos with good sound quality. Another way we could promote ourselves is by getting our name out there to potential clients, influential industry players and reputable promoters/venues.
Another easy way to get gigs is by just going out and performing at events like open mic nights, Jazz nights and other jam sessions, or even battle of the band nights if researched properly about to make that good promotional material. We could also try performing at house concerts or potentially try busking to promote my duo. (How to get gigs, 2020).
Social Media is the best way to promote yourself everyone uses it in one form or another and links and posts can be shared around very easily and quickly. Facebook groups such as:
- Dep Musicians in the UK needed or available (53.1k members)
- UK Musicians for gigs (40.2k members)
- ENGLAND IS ALIVE WITH MUSIC (19.9k member)
Those are all UK based groups that would help with promotion, finding gigs, making bands etc. Closer based groups to home would be:
- Yorkshire musicians network (8.9k members)
- Bradford music scene (5.0k members)
- What’s on tonight West Yorkshire (Music evens only) (1.5k members)
Fees?
Fees is something I hadn’t even thought about until I researched into gigs and how to get them. For a single performance fee for musicians performing in groups and clubs for up to 3 hours, the national gig rate is £147 per musician (how to get gigs, 2020). However Octavas states that for a 2×1 hour set it should be £200-£300 for the performance. I also asked a family member who performs in an acoustic duo often how much he thinks the fees for my duo should be, he said when he started off he went as £120 for the performance. Because I am not yet at a professional standard in the industry I will set mine and Faye’s duo at £120 for a 2×45 minute set.
Open Mic’s?
For looking at open mic’s i’ve mostly been searching facebook and music groups in facebook as they usually have a lot of information about open mic nights on them. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find much around open mics so I have also been asking around friends and family to keep an eye out for me.
My dad was the person to tell me about the Open Mic night at the exchange bar on Easter Sunday and we will definitely be going to it. Going will allow us to promote ourselves, if we have a gig booked already we can tell the audience at the open mic night about it, and if we don’t have a gig booked yet, someone might ask us to perform elsewhere (maybe the owners of the bar will ask us to come back again or an audience member is a promoter or venue owner).
There is also an open mic night at Grayson Unity in Halifax on the 27th of March but unfortunately I can’t attend that one as I am going to a funeral. If I were to go, it would be a great opportunity to get some exposer somewhere other than Bradford. Halifax is also a town that has some good music venues and I would lie to perform there at some point.
Havard Referencing:
How to get gigs (2020) How to get gigs as a band or musician: 8 steps to success, How To Get Gigs. Available at: https://www.lastminutemusicians.com/how_to_get_gigs/ (Accessed: 07 March 2024).
Octavas (2020) What are the costs for hiring an acoustic duo?, Octavas. Available at: https://www.octavas.co.uk/news/costs-for-hiring-an-acoustic-duo/ (Accessed: 07 March 2024).