What it Takes: Making a Performance an Event

Making a show a success takes six weeks of sustained effort if you are where Renegade Minstrels is in the live musicians spectrum (that is, young and capable of getting a crowd excited about the music, but so little-known that getting a crowd of people to show up is all too rare). The ingredient I've been missing for far too long is collaboration with other bands with a bigger following, so I'm working on booking gigs that feature other bands that play music from a similar sphere of influence. You may ask, "Jeez, Joe, why didn't you see years ago that you have to get crowds in front of your band somehow before you're ever going to go somewhere?"

Well, I always did what I could--some posters, telling friends, getting my bandmates to invite friends, encouraging friends to bring friends--but it just ain't enough. All of which is to say: making this band worth something to someone besides a few friends and family takes work and work and work--here's what I do now for each major performance I book, please at least scroll through the list to get an idea of what's involved. Then, come to our show tonight at Airplay Cafe and see how it is or isn't working for us. If you can't do that, look over the list below, and then write to me and tell me what I'm leaving out, under-doing, or overlooking.

I. Publicity - The earliest step I take is to send out a press release 6, 4, and 2 weeks prior to the performance. Then I call up the media outlets to make sure they got the PR, and then I try to keep in contact with any actual human I can reach at their organization to try to wheedle some radio play, newspaper inches, screenbound pixels, or what have you.

The press releases I write look like this:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

January 20, 2009 - Portland, OR

RENEGADE MINSTRELS CD RELEASE EVENT
Frontier Blues: Music with a Wry and Jovial Spirit

When: 8:00pm - 10:00pm. Friday, February 6, 2009

Where: Airplay Cafe / 701 E Burnside Street / Portland, OR 97214

Admission: $5 for singles, $10 for families [open to all ages until 9:00pm]

Renegade Minstrels will perform original songs at their CD release party on Friday, February 6 at Airplay Cafe. Rollick and swing across America's musical landscapes with the quintet's vocals, trombone, upright bass, mandolin, guitar, and harmonica. Bandleader Joe Seamons crafts lyrics that play off his bandmates' sprightly rapport. Together they tickle out epiphanies from each listener.

Renegade Minstrels formed in Portland in 2003, and have evolved into a five band cast of musicians whose tight arrangements use unique combinations of instruments to accompany the lucid lyrcs of original songs. Drawing on poetry and traditional song, the lyrics suggest connections between many blues-inflected styles, from the folk ballads of Woody Guthrie all the way to jazz ballads of Duke Ellington. Many songs feature hip-swinging beats that break down the DNA of jazz to its cellular elements of blues and Western harmony.

The opening act will begin at 7:00pm, featuring the talents of several precocious young guitar students currently taught by Seamons in middle schools around Portland. Families are encouraged to attend the event, which will be open to all ages until 9:00pm. Admission for families of any size is $10, and individuals pay $5 at the door.

Listen at www.renegademinstrels.com
Contact Joe Seamons at (971) 533-6299
rminstrels@gmail.com

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II. Brainstorming - Every time I try to think, "What is unique about this gig that I can capitalize on to make it jive with who we are as a band?" So the PR above shows you that I invited my guitar students to open for us at that show (which worked, and so I'll do it again sometime), and this took having a venue that was kid friendly, and so all my guitar students stuck around with some of their parents, and one school where I teach even brought a van load of kids to come watch, so that drew in at least 20 more people than we would've had otherwise. Of course, there's no limit to the amount of brainstorming you can do for ideas like this--preferably, I'd have three or more such tricks to draw in unsuspecting customers, but so far my bag of tricks is sadly limited.

III. Radio Play - The only way I've found to get radio play is making a personal contact with someone at the station. I've walked in to Oregon Public Broadcasting and asked to see the music folks there, and I wasn't allowed to talk to anyone. All I could do was leave the CD in hopes that someone heard it and liked it. But, unsurprisingly, no one ever contacted me about our music. I also email music@opb.org every couple months with a track attached to the CD (which they ask musicians to do on their website), but I haven't receieved a response that way in over a year. So far as I know, our music has never been heard on OPB radio, which is frustrating, cause I know it's got a large listenership in Portland that would respond well to our music. If you agree with me on that assertion, please email music@opb.org and let 'em know that they should feature local bands more on their station.
This is not whining or moaning, do not mistake me--I'm simply seeking to illustrate the manifold avenues, outlets and frustrations involved in promoting a single show. That is, of course, just one radio station, I've had much more success with KBOO and KMHD here in Portland. When I say "much," I mean that KMHD's Mike Meyer had me on for a quick interview (again, to promote the show in the PR above) and played one of our songs off of our first CD. It wasn't much, but much more than I got elsewhere, so I was grateful to Mike for giving me the time. As it turned out one of the owners of the venue had a friend who heard me talk about the upcoming gig on the air, and that friend mentioned it to the owner, so that's extra points for me in his mind, because I'm getting the name of his venue out there and he didn't have to do anything. In the end, it's largely a whole lot of little things like that that build up to make an event successful.

In a vague and general sense, I know how advertising works, and the only way that one single instance of airplay is going to do our promotional efforts any good is if the people who hear that one song like it, and then they see a poster or flier sometime (not too long) afterwards: reinforcement equals effective advertisement. Which brings me to our next item,

IV. Paper Promo - Posters and handbills and post cards are all I can think of for this section. All such items must be in line with the story you want people to know about your band (more on this later). Generally I'll put up posters and fliers 3 weeks prior to the performance--both in the venue and in likely spots in the general vicinity of the venue. Of course, they should be eye grabbing and also a little engrossing. Ideally, our posters make you stop and look twice before drawing you in so that you go, "Hmmm, that looks rather intriguing, I'd like to make time for it." That, of course, being the optimal response. If I put up 100 posters, I'm ecstatic if 5 people have that response to the imagery and info thereon.

V. Word of Mouth - Again, when you're a largely unknown group such as ours, word of mouth is yer best bet for anyone showing up. I call everybody in my phonebook who lives in the town where the gig is 2 or 3 days beforehand, and let 'em know what's going down. Also, I give fliers to whoever seems genuinely interested.

Later, I'll do a post on crafting a band's story, wherein I'll also entreat you for your help and ideas. Until then, go listen to Renegade Minstrels or Roof Access or Fruition so you can know the music being made in our lil' fracture of a fraction of the globe-o-sphere.