When you play a gig, the responsibility of promoting that event is normally jointly the responsibility of three parties.

1) The artist/band.  You have your social media channels, your website, mailing list and hopefully media contacts; you’ll use all of these to help spread the word and get people down.

2) The venue.  They’ll have their own social media channels.  The venue will have their own mailing list, sometimes they will have a mailing list which comprises customer supplied by the ticketing agency they use.   The venue will probably use flyers, posters, sometimes paid for advertising to promote their events.

3) The promoter.  Again they have their own social media channels.  The promoter will probably buy advertising in traditional media, use flyers and posters and like venues, they’ll possibly have emails of customers provided by a ticketing agency.

Ideally, you need all parties to be working towards a successfully promoted gig!

Why am I telling you all this?  Well, in order to successfully and effectively promote an event you need all three parties to be effective at their marketing.  If the promoter or the venue isn’t up to the job, then despite all your best efforts it’s going to be a struggle to get people there.

If you are an artist that books your own shows, always pay attention to how well the promoter of the venue do THEIR job especially if you are on a 80/20 split rather than a flat fee.   Ask them what size mailing list they have etc. to see if it is actually worth working with them.

Got any questions about this post or how you can better market yourself?

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