During my time on the road I have seen more accidents than I can count, numerous close calls and have even been involved in a few incidents. Luckily for my band mates and I, none of our experiences resulted in anything more than a wrecked band van and some minor cuts and bruises.

Here are 8 road safety tips for musicians on tour that I have compiled over the years from my travelling experiences (and from my short lived bus driver career in Western Canada… tweet me and I’ll tell you some stories). I hope some of this advice helps you all travel a bit more safely on your upcoming summer tour adventures:

1. Is your van safe?

Have your vehicle periodically safety checked. We’re not talking about an annual or bi-annual motor vehicle inspection certificate (if that even applies in your province or country). I mean EVERY TIME you are about to leave for tour. When I was a bus driver we had to check fluids and tire lug nuts every day before we headed out on the road. This seems like overkill but at the same time it literally takes less than 5 minutes to do. Have you ever had a tire fall off while travelling at 100 Km/h? I have. It sucks!

Some of the areas that should be checked by your mechanic before you head out on tour include:

• All fluid levels
• Tires wear / Tire pressure
• Brakes and brake lines
• Tie rod ends and ball joints
• Tire lug nuts
• Glass
• Lights
• Wipers

On a daily basis you should check the following (particularly if your van’s odometer reads like a phone number):

• Fluid levels
• Tires and pressure
• Lights

2. Exercise Careful Packing

The time that I did get into a van accident with my band we were lucky to be able to say that the only damage was to a piece of equipment. A ride cymbal or a guitar can be a lethal weapon inside a rolling van. It is important to securely pack your van every time. Ideally your van would have a separate compartment for gear, which is the safest way to check this one off. If this is not an option then be very smart about how you pack. Keep the sharper heavier items low and secured with other items. Use your common sense. Ask your self, how would this pack job fair out if we slammed into the back of another vehicle or if the van rolled over?

3. Stay Clear of Drugs and Alcohol

Obviously your driver should be sober. This one is a no brainer. Another thing to also be cautious of is hangovers. If your driver partied like a rock star late into the evening the night before then there is no way he will be operating at 100% the next morning for that long drive to the next town. It makes sense for your driver or drivers to chill on the substance use. If there are a few drivers amongst your group that like getting messed up periodically then maybe taking turns would be the best bet. Just make sure that someone is being conscious and responsible with this stuff – a license suspension for impaired driving (or worse) can make future touring an even bigger headache.

4. Drive according to conditions

While I write this blog it is spring in Canada so the chances are slim that black ice and snow will be on the radar in the near future. However wind, rain and fog are common all year long and are worth being cautious of. If it’s pouring out your visibility is reduced, there is risk of hydroplaning and you have reduced stopping time. Take it down a few notches to compensate for these conditions. Keep your eye on the weather and leave early so you give yourself the time to drive safely. And again, this is where good tires, lights and wipers can mean the difference between getting there or not.

5. Be Aware of Fatigue

This is a major issue on the road with a band. Late nights and long drives are par for course so driver fatigue is likely to be an issue at some point in your tour. It is important to make sure that there is someone who has enough rest to drive all of the time. In the booking and planning stage of your tour it is important to make an agenda that is actually attainable. This can even become more of an issue when mixed with #3 “Drugs and Alcohol”. Again, just be aware of this. Don’t subject yourselves to these high-risk situations.

6. Ride with a co-pilot

I always designated the passenger seat for the ‘co-pilot’. This person’s job is to stay awake, operate the GPS (or if you’re old-school then read the map), DJ the van stereo, talk to the driver and make sure he or she is holding up ok.

7. Be Prepared for Emergency

In the event that you do run into issues on the road you should have the gear to cope with your emergency. Your road safety and first aid kit should include:

• BOOSTER CABLES
• FLASHLIGHT (batteries included)
• Warm clothing
• Reflective Road Triangles
• First aid kit
• Cell phone
• Flares

8. Get AAA, CAA or another Roadside assistance program

These programs are cheap and they pay back on hotel discounts alone. The major advantage to these memberships is that if you run into van problems you just call them and they send someone to help you. Changing a tire on the side of the highway on a rainy day can be very dangerous or at the very least a total pain in the ass. Marcato Musician powered rockers The Stanfields learned this lesson the hard way and were stuck with a massive towing bill when their van broke down in the Rocky Mountains.

In conclusion, it’s important to be conscious of the dangers involved with being a touring musician. There is nothing that can ruin a tour faster than a motor vehicle accident or breakdown and of course it can do more than just ruin the tour! Don’t let an avoidable accident be the end of your music career. Have fun and play safe!

1. What are the key elements an artist website should include?

• Buy your URL: If you don’t have your URL or a site, buy your URL and get something up now! This is important even if it’s just a simple landing page with a link to your social sites and contact info.
• Blog/News section: This is somewhere where you can post updates, and share stuff with your fans. It is critical that this section is easy for you to make updates on your own and embed audio and video. There should also be a way that your fans can easily share anything you post on Twitter, Facebook and other social networks. For an example of this check out the Share section and Facebook like section on the bottom of each post on Carmen Townsend’s website.
• Music Section: It’s critical that there is a way that people can listen to and purchase or download your music on your website.
• Video Section: Having a YouTube video embedded on your site is a great way to provide more insight and content to the viewers of your site.
• Contact Info: Make sure that it is easy for people to get in touch with you for licensing, booking opportunities, etc.
• Press Section: It will make your life easier if you have a place on your website where press and bloggers can go to download high res pics and your artist bio.
• Tour or show section: Make sure that you post your performances on your site. If you use marcatomusician.com to manage your shows and itineraries you can use our web-feed tools to automate these updates
• Website Analytics: It is important to track the success of your website. How many people go to your website? What do they do when they get there? Where are they coming from? How long do they stay? This is a topic all in itself. I would suggest installing Google Analytics in your website. It’s free and their is a tonne of training material out there to help you wrap your head around its complexities. Note: If you use Bandzoogle as your website, they have a built in analytics module. It is key to establish goals with your metrics and to check your performance vs. your goals to assess how you and your team are doing with your online initiatives.
• Focus: Don’t overwhelm the user with options on your website. Some websites can be too busy. Showcase the one thing that you want viewers to do the most or the item you want people to know about the most.
• Call to Action: This is where you want to get your site viewers to do something. This could be to join your email list, download a new track, buy tickets to a show, buy an album, etc. Here is a great post from Bandzoogle on this topic.
• Tweak for Conversions: Once you have established a call to action, and you have analytics working on your site you can now start measuring your conversion rate. That is the % of site viewers that proceed to your call to action. Then you can experiment with different elements of your website to work on improving your conversion rate. Some of the things you can experiment with include: changing placement, changing the call to action reward, changing copy and content, design, etc.
• Driving Traffic to your website: SEO or search engine optimization is one of the ways that you can improve traffic to your site. You can also use your Twitter, Facebook and other social sites to drive traffic. Here is a great post “9 SEO Tips for Musicians” from Lior Levin featured on Hypebot.

For more information on artist websites check out “6 Rules To Make a Band Website That Rocks” from Bandzoogle’s Chris Vinson and “The Musician’s Guide To Affordable and Effective Websites” from Cyber PR’s Ariel Hyatt.  Also, please make sure you check out this great article from Digital Music News that explains why you should not use your Facebook page as your website.

In addition to all the above information, here are some tools that can be helpful in building a fast, functional and appealing web presence. I have used each of these services and highly recommend both of them: OneSheet, Bandzoogle.

2. What are the best ways to track your presence online?

Today people are sharing music and their thoughts on music and bands in the online world at an alarming rate. This is happening on blogs, messageboards, Facebook, Twitter and various other sites and social networks. In addition, illegal downloads are still one of the most popular ways people obtain music. It is critical to be aware of all of this. Knowing where these people are, who they are and what they are saying or downloading is critical in making tour, release and marketing decisions. There are some awesome and affordable products on the marketplace these days that can be very helpful in keeping your eye on all of this stuff. Here are some examples:

• Next Big Sound
• Music Metric
• Buzzdeck
• Crowdbooster

Track your progress against your goals on a regular basis. Use this data to see what is working and where it is working. Learn about your fans and then come up with innovative ways to nurture and grow your fan base based on this data. Please make sure you compare each product and try and decide which one works best for you because these platforms can change very quickly.

3. What is the importance of a mobile presence for an artist?

First of all, it is very clear that the use of mobile devices has grown considerably and is showing no signs of slowing down. Check out these stats on the growth of mobile devices from our friends at Mobile Roadie.

Also, the amount of e-commerce that takes place on mobiles is growing through the roof. In 2009 eBay did roughly $900 million in sales from mobile devices. In 2011 this number grew to $5 billion.

The first and likely easiest step to your band’s presence being mobile friendly would be to make sure your site is mobile friendly. Here is a great tutorial on how you can make sure a website is mobile friendly.

Once you start growing your fan base and want to take advantage of the features and control offered by mobile applications then it is time to produce an iPhone and or Android app. There are several ways to do this and many companies in this space. The noticeable leader is Mobile Roadie. Their apps are killer and the back-end is top notch! (check below for the differences between a mobile app and a mobile site). If you can only afford one of the 2 platforms the easiest way to decide which to go with would be to compare browser stats from your site’s Google Analytics to see which platform is more popular within your fan-base.

4. What is the difference between a mobile app and a mobile site?

Mobile apps offer a much more control than mobile sites. Here is a great article from the folks at Mobile Roadie that covers the difference between mobile. One of the strongest features of the mobile app is push notification. Read this blog post to learn how bands can use push notifications.

5. How relevant is an email list today for artists? What are some of the best practices with email lists?

The bottom line is that despite all of the growth in social media, your email list and newsletter are still very relevant and integral parts of your marketing and fan nurturing strategies. Unlike many social media based forms of interaction, email is a direct form of communication and requires the end recipient to take an action. At the very least, they actively have to delete the email. With Facebook and Twitter it can simply be ignored or missed entirely. Here are some best practices for managing your email list:

• Opt in only: Do not just start adding email addresses to your list. Make sure people opt in to your list. You can gather emails through your call to action on your website, at shows and through other promotions and contests. It is poor Internet etiquette to just add peoples email address. In fact in many countries in the world (including Canada and the USA) it is actually against the law.
• Do not abuse your list: Do not over send. Do not over sell. Do not share your list with other bands.
• Use a mail/newsletter service: MailChimp; FanBridge; Constant Contact are just a few examples… there are many more. Search the net and find out which one is the best for you. FanBridge is built specifically for bands, which is why it is considered to be one of the more popular services. Sending emails to large groups of people is more complicated than it sounds. If you BCC a message or newsletter to a few hundred or more email addresses in Gmail or within your native mail software you will quickly be spam flagged. THIS IS A BAD THING. DO NOT DO IT! EVER!!! Newsletter services like the ones mentioned above go to great lengths to ensure proper delivery and spam flag prevention. In addition they come with a bunch of awesome analytics for each email campaign and convenient features for growing and managing your list.

6. What can you do to keep up to speed with what is going on with the Digital Music Space?

- Music industry conferences often have panels on digital music topics, check them out!

- Newsletters/blogs such as: Digital Music News, Hypebot, and Music Think Tank

- Podcasts such as Ian Rogers “This Week in Music”

- Watch artists that are doing a good job with their online presence and learn from what other bands are doing, even if you don’t like their music!

- Mashable and other generic social stuff. Here you may find things that are working in other spaces but are not yet tailored for the music space. This can allow you to be ahead of the game by paying attention to what’s up in other spaces outside of music.

Your homepage is usually the first page visitors to your website will see, so it’s important to make sure that you have the right elements in place to grab their attention, make a strong first impression, and keep them on your site. A well-designed homepage can get you more sign-ups for your newsletter, more sales from your online store, and convert first-time visitors to becoming active and engaged fans. Here are 6 essential elements to have on your homepage that will help you do just that:

1. Great Header Image

Your header image is arguably the most important element of your homepage. It’s likely to be the first thing that people see on your website, so think about what image can best represent your music and who you are as an artist. Having a great photo of your band along with your band name is a classic example of an effective header image. Here’s a nice one from singer-songwriter Tyler Kealey:

From the picture and description, you know Tyler’s name, what he does, and you can probably already get a sense of his music just based on that image.

Your header image can also be artwork rather than a photo, but same rules apply: it should represent your music and who you are as an artist.

2. Short Bio

You should never take for granted that people visiting your site already know who you are or what you do. Yes, your current fans will be visiting your site, but so will lots of potential new fans, and journalists, bloggers, promoters, bookers, etc. Folks you want to impress. Having a short bio, or an “elevator pitch” right there on the homepage will let a potential new fan immediately know who you are and what your music is all about. Here’s a screenshot from the homepage of Ben Cooper:

For this bio, keep it short. A longer version can be saved for your “About Us” or “Bio” page. You can probably stick to the “Who You Are” elements of your bio, like:

• What’s your band name?
• Where are you from?
• What do you sound like?
• What are your influences?

Make it the blurb that you want bloggers and lazy writers to copy-paste in their articles about you. For more tips on creating your pitch, check out this blog post by Music PR superstar Ariel Hyatt: “Creating a Perfect Pitch – Laser Focus Your Message”

3. Music / Video

First time visitors should be able to sample your music in one, easy, obvious click. So the next element you should have on your homepage is a song that people can listen to right away. This can also be an embedded video they can watch. Adding visuals to the experience means that you can grab their attention through both their ears and their eyes. Less chance that they’ll get distracted by their e-mails, Facebook or anyhting else, and you might get their full attention for the whole song. But for both audio and video, be sure that it is your best, freshest track, or a song that you think best represents your band.

In the bio example above, Ben Cooper had a live video showcasing his performance at a festival, but it could be having a site-wide music player available, or you can even call people’s attention to listen to your music, like Tyler Kealey did here:

4. Call-to-Action

Speaking of calling people’s attention to something, the next element to have on your homepage is a call-to-action. A call-to-action is designed to direct people’s attention to something specific that you want them to do while on your website. It could be to join your mailing list, buy your latest album, listen to your latest track, or donate to your fan-funding campaign.

But it’s best to limit yourself to one, maximum two calls-to-action. What your call-to-action is depends on what your goals are for your career, at this point in time. For an emerging band, collecting email addresses to build up your mailing list would be a good goal to have. For a more established artist with a solid fan base, directing people to purchase new music & merch through your online store might be the way to go. If you’re raising money to fund your next album, you can direct people to your fan-funding campaign.

Here’s a good example of a call-to-action from Laura Marie:

5. Latest News/Blog

With this next feature, it can come down to personal preference. Some artists have a full blog on their homepage, others have a news feed with all of their news from the past few months. Just remember that your website should have a blog, but it shouldn’t be a blog. Most people don’t scroll down on a web page (one study showed it was as high as 80% of people), and will only read what they can immediately see on their screens.

So put the top news items on your homepage (maybe 3-5 items), and direct people to your full blog from there to see more. Info about your new album, a new show announcement, or a press article/interview are all things to feature proudly on your homepage.

6. Social Media Links

People might only have a short time to check out your website, so it’s a good idea to give them a quick link to connect with you on social media sites. That way, if they only have a minute, they can go to your Facebook page and “Like” it, or follow you on Twitter, right from your homepage.

Don’t overdo it, you can simply list the social media networks that you are most active on. The goal isn’t to send people away to 10 different places other than your website, but to make it easy for them to keep up with your latest activity.Then you can draw them back to your website with the content you put out through those social media profiles that you are active on.

Here’s an example from Static Cycle’s homepage, where the social media icons are right below the header image:

Keep it Clean

One last thing to keep in mind is that an overly-cluttered homepage is not a good thing either. You’ll want to stick to these 6 elements for the most part, and use them to direct people to other sections of your site effectively. Otherwise, if people have too many options/links/images to look at, they might simply ignore it all and leave your site.

The most important elements, including your call-to-action need to be above the fold. The fold is the line after which visitors have to scroll to see the content. Keep in mind that the fold is different for different monitors and screen resolution.

If you do decide to make some of these changes to your homepage, you can use your Analytics to measure whether it worked. If you look at your current bounce rate before and after the changes, the bounce rate should decrease after these changes. You should also hopefully get more email sign-ups and sales from your online store too.

Your Website is Home for Your Music

Social media sites come and go (i.e. MySpace, Friendster, soon Google+?), or can completely change, like we’ve seen with the recent “Timeline” changes to Facebook Pages. Although social media sites are a great place to interact with and find new fans, you can’t rely on social media sites as a homebase for your music, and as a hub for your online strategy. You should focus on driving fans to your own website where they can always find your music, sign-up to your mailing list, or shop for music and merchandise directly from your own online store.

David Dufresne is the CEO of Bandzoogle, the platform where you can build a band website that does more. Bandzoogle websites sell music & merch, sync with your social networks, and put you in front of more fans. No web design skills needed! Take the tour or build your band website free.

It’s difficult to ignore – the music industry isn’t what it was a decade ago, let alone a few years ago. Experts agree that the music industry in its traditional form is dying. The shift towards digital has caused a slump in physical record sales, a decrease in full-album purchases, and consequently, a less lucrative industry as revenues continue to fall (It’s estimated that CD sales fell 9% in 2011.). And while the physical music industry is sliding down a slippery slope, the digital side is climbing as consumers become increasingly tech and mobile-savvy. Digital sales rose by 8% in 2011, elevating digital revenue to $5 billion.

For music artists, the surge in digital-savvy consumers is a good thing – actually, a very good thing. To compete in this cutthroat industry where only the best find success, music artists need to take advantage of the tools readily available in the marketplace. What can be seen as a wake-up call for the industry can also be a music artist’s best friend.

Technology has enabled musicians to promote their music in ways that physical records could never do. The Internet has given musicians the ability to reach a wider audience from all corners of the world; it has also made it easier for consumers to purchase all genres of music in a blink of an eye while spending less. With digital, the limitations of a physical record store are no longer. Music has become more global and more accessible with technology.

How Musicians Can Leverage Technology to Stay On Top

Musicians can use technology to promote their music and connect with new and existing fans.

1. Create Online Buzz

One of the most powerful and easiest ways to create online buzz is through social networks: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and others are easy to set up, free, and most importantly reach hundreds of millions of users a.k.a. potential fans.

YouTube can be used to share video content, including music videos, behind-the-scenes clips, and vlogs. The fastest way to be seen on YouTube is by uploading viral content, which can quickly be seen by the millions of users who watch over 3 billion videos a day.

Musicians can use Facebook to build their fanbase by creating a fan page to create photo albums, post more personal content, and view the demographics of their fans.

Musicians can use Twitter to give followers real-time updates on their whereabouts, music releases, and more; Twitter can also be used to host real-time chats with fans called Tweet Chats.

2. Foster the Community

Technology has created bridges between states, countries, and even continents. Back in the day, musicians connected with their fans on tour, during record signings, fan meets, and other events. But now, musicians can connect with their fans through the Internet and, increasingly, mobile devices. And it’s not just musicians who can connect with fans; fans can connect with each other as well.

With mobile devices, interaction is no longer limited to the desktop. Fans can be part of the conversation wherever, whenever. To have mobile presence, consider creating your own mobile app. Creating a mobile app from scratch is a big investment in both time and money- two things that most beginning artists don’t have enough to spare. Luckily, there are app platforms available for musicians to easily and inexpensively build their own social apps for fans.

3. Increase Music Sales

Creating online buzz and building your fan base are important; however, without sales, musicians can’t survive for long.

It used to be people had to go to their local record store to buy CDs and cassettes. This isn’t the case anymore. Technology has enabled consumers to make their purchases online. And with the introduction of digital music, consumers can purchase and download their music in an instant. The problems associated with physical merchandise like shipping & handling, available stock, and damages are gone with digital downloads.

Digital music is more convenient, customizable, accessible, and in most cases less expensive than CDs. People only need an Internet connection to access music from thousands of artists, both mainstream and underground, across all genres. To get their music out to the masses, musicians should aim to make their music available online, whether in digital stores and streaming services or on the homepage of their website. If consumers have more opportunities to listen to your music, they’ll be more inclined to purchase their favorite tracks.

In Conclusion

One thing is certain: Technology will continue to advance and change the music industry. Musicians must not fight this; they must embrace technology and take advantage of the opportunities available to climb to the top.

Mobile Roadie is a turn-key platform to inexpensively develop and manage iPhone and Android mobile apps. Learn more about how mobile apps can help you engage your fanbase at mobileroadie.com and be sure to follow them on Facebook and Twitter.

Why run a fan funded project?

Here are a few advantages of fan-funding your release:

• You don’t owe anyone money at the end of the campaign as is the case with a label, an investor or a lender
• You own 100% of the recording
• Your funding campaign can serve as early marketing for your release and fuel content for your social media strategy which creates awareness for your band
• You end up having sales straight out of the gate before Day One of your official release

What do I need to run my fan funding campaign?

If you or someone in your band or circle of friends has some web development skills, you can build this out on your own website using Paypal or another similar payment processor, however there are lots of great tools on the market today that are built specifically for this purpose. We like:

• Kickstarter
• Sellaband
• PledgeMusic
• and artistShare

These are the tools we’ve used and enjoyed or heard the most positive feedback about. There are always new players in this space, so do your own research to find the best fit for your project.

The objective of these dedicated services is to make it easier and faster to build your campaign. If your act doesn’t have a huge following, they also help you to reach an existing community of music lovers interested in funding artists like you.

Each fan funding service has slightly different terms and conditions so research and compare to find the one that best suits your project. Whether you build a campaign on your own website and accept donations via Paypal or use a dedicated fan funding service, these companies will likely charge a percentage fee of the money you raise.

In the case of a dedicated fan funding service what you get in return for their ‘commission’ are tools that help you market the project and simplify the transaction such as Facebook widgets and other social media tie-ins. Some of these services also allow you to offer contributors input into the creative process.

How do I design my campaign and package offers?

The first thing you need to establish in setting up your campaign is exactly how much money you need to raise and how it is going to be used. This is your ‘pitch’. This tells a potential contributor why they should give your band money.

You might also want to create:

• a well laid out recording plan with some demo or pre-production samples of your music
• a live video, some recent accolades you’ve achieved, and a professional photo
• details on how you’re going to promote and release the recording
• a ‘pitch video’ that explains what you money need, how you are going to use it and why this is a good idea. This can be posted on Youtube, embedded in your campaign site and shared on Facebook and Twitter

You will want to offer multiple packages that range from as low as a donation of a few dollars up to $1000 or more which can include exclusive downloads, signed artwork, videos, vinyl, a private house concert and whatever else your creative mind can come up with. This is key because you likely have fans that have different levels of dedication to your band as well as varying incomes. You want to make sure that you have something for everyone.

Here are a couple of examples of great campaigns that can give you some ideas on how to build and present your packages:

The Shadowboxers’ Kickstarter Campaign

Three Sheet’s PledgeMusic Campaign

Once you have your packages all sorted out it’s time to set up your campaign site and start your campaign.

How do I promote my fan funding campaign?

Once you have your campaign set up, you need to promote it! Here are a few things you can do to market your campaign:

• Post the campaign on your website and post regular updates of your campaign’s success.
• Post your campaign video on Youtube and any other video services that make sense for your band.
• Keep your followers on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn engaged in your campaign and campaign updates (some fan funding services have tools that make it easy to keep your fans and funders up to date on your progress)
• Share the campaign with your fan base in a blast to your email list (Don’t have an email list? Start one!)
• Print business cards or handbills promoting the campaign to give out at your shows.
• Share the story of your campaign with bloggers. As always when working with bloggers, you want to be specific in your pitch to them, writing about elements of the project or campaign that will be relevant to each blog. A blanket email to a pile of blogs can do more harm than good.
• Write a press release about your campaign and distribute to your media database. Again as with pitching to blogs, you should modify the press release to accommodate each outlet you are pitching to.
• Contact promoters and local business people about your campaign. You may find a few buyers of the upper tier packages through this method.

There are lots of great opportunities to get your fans to pitch in and help you reach your fundraising goals, beyond just buying your album or a ticket for your show. You’re limited only by your creativity in coming up with offers that make sense for your fan base.

There are many fan funding success stories, and they’re not limited to raising money for your recording project. Your campaign might focus on raising funds for tour support or maybe you’re not a band at all! Craig Mod and Ashley Rawlings raised $24K in 30 days for their book, Art Space Tokyo. Craig has written a case study that provides a ton of information, details and analysis about their experience. If you’re serious about fan funding your project this is definitely recommended reading.

What experiences have you had with your own fan funding campaigns? Have you ever contributed to another artist’s fundraising campaign? Tell us about it in the comments, post on our Facebook or tweet us!

Marcato Musician CEO Darren Gallop has developed fan funding campaigns for the bands he manages and built the Marcato Musician platform to help artists and managers collaborate with their team and assign and track tasks when planning and executing projects like fundraising campaigns. Learn more and try Marcato Musician free for 30 days at marcatomusician.com

It’s no secret these days that live performance can be one of the most important elements in a musician’s career for at least two reasons. Live performance is a key source of revenue and record sales for an artist and is key to increasing an artist’s exposure level. For this reason you should aim to establish the best possible relationship with performance venues and the people who manage these very important resources in your career.

The results of a positive relationship with the venues where you perform include increased opportunities, greater revenue, more flexibility and referral to other venues in other towns.

As you build your network of cities where you perform, these relationships can be very helpful. If a venue needs an opener for a high profile band that is coming to town they are going to call the band they like. By like, I mean they like their music, personality and want to nurture your relationship. If they don’t like you, don’t expect the call.

Here are eight simple things that make up the secret to successful live shows and building a successful live performance career for your band:

Promote the show

When you have a show at a venue promote the hell out of it. Send posters well in advance, set-up a Facebook event or if the venue offers to create the event, share and promote it. Tweet about it, put it on your website, reach out to press in the area. Let the venue know what you are doing and give them any updates if you get any press or if there is anything they should know that they can use for further promotion of the show.

Send the Venue Your Music

Ask them how they want to have the music. Ask them if they want a CD to play at the venue. Suggest maybe they do some CD giveaways at another show beforehand. You can also do this with digital dropcards or download codes.

Under Promise and Over Deliver

This can be said about many things in your professional and personal life. Do more than what you say you will do when you are pitching the show, and certainly not less. Most people talk about all of the great things they will do to make the show a hit and then they do half of them. This is bad business in general. Make a list of all of the things you told the venue you would do for the show as well as all of the things that were in the contract. Enter them in your calendar and make sure you do them and on time. If the venue has to chase after you for stuff it will be a much less positive experience for them.

Be On Time

Show up for the soundcheck on time, start your show on time, end your show on time. Get your gear out of the venue on time. If for any reason something is going to run late or not go as planned communicate with your venue contact as soon as you realize there is an issue.

Deliver a Kick Ass Show NO MATTER WHAT

Even if you don’t get the audience you were hoping for, KICK ASS! Even if you are only performing for the staff and a handful of regulars, don’t show your discouragement. If you did not get the audience everyone hoped but your show was awesome they may give you another chance. If you don’t get the audience and you and your band mates act like a bunch of cry babies this is less likely to be the case.

Be Friendly and Polite to EVERYONE

Everyone at the venue is important. Treat everyone with respect. Just because you think your band is cool does not mean you are better or more important than the bouncers and servers. Don’t just kiss the booker’s ass. Be awesome to everyone.

In my gigging days I have always been nice to everyone in all of the venues I played. The booker often asks the staff what they think so you want everyone to report good news. Also, I have seen myself be in a town visiting or playing another venue with another band and then drop over to a venue to be greeted by a door person who lets me in for free and then have a server who gives me a free drink. Or even better, bouncers helping us carry our gear out at the end of the night!

Be Loyal To the Venue

Do not play another show just before or recently after in the same town or even a neighbouring town without the venue’s consent first. In fact once you have a venue that works for you in a particular town or city, stick with that venue unless you outgrow it and need a larger venue or if the opportunity to start playing a better venue comes up which you should certainly consider.

When you do decide to move on, let the venue you were previously working with know. Write them an email or call them. Thank them for their support and let them know why you are moving on. If it’s that you need more capacity to fulfil your growing fan-base they will likely understand. If it’s because you are getting a better offer, at least give them the chance to counter-offer.

Tip the Service Staff

If the servers are running you drinks, bringing you food and helping you out, give them a tip at the end of the night. If you had a great night give them a good tip. In my experience this goes a long way. You will likely get better and faster service and they will be much more likely to say nice things about you and your band to senior management and venue patrons.

In Summary

Remember, venues are your clients so treat them with respect. If they like you musically and personally and you conduct respectful business with them they will likely give you more and treat you better. It’s a win-win scenario.

Marcato Musician CEO Darren Gallop has toured internationally with his bands and built the Marcato Musician platform to help artists and managers organize tours and create tour itineraries with ease. Learn more and try Marcato Musician free for 30 days at marcatomusician.com

OK, so lets say that you have all of the tools ready to go from part one of this blog series. Now it’s time to start pitching and getting booked for those festival shows. Remember, you are a sales person now! Whether you are a DIY artist, a manager or an agent, all of these jobs are about sales. The product is the band’s live performance and the potential clients are the festivals. Here are the 8 steps to getting booked in those festival slots:

Track the Festivals you want to Book

This is where I recommend the use of a CRM or, if you are a marcatomusician.com user, you can use Marcato’s calendar, contacts manager and tasks to take charge of your festival booking mission. At the very minimum you can use an app like Address Book/Contacts on your Mac or Microsoft Outlook. In the sales world, a ‘lead’ is a potential customer or client. Your leads are festivals that you want your band to play. Here are the information fields you want to enter for each lead:

• Festival Name
• Festival Date
• Submission Deadline
• Submission links and process
• Key contacts at the festival
• Festival Website
• Twitter Handle
• Facebook URL

While you are entering this data make sure to follow the festival on Twitter and like them on Facebook. There are several sites online that have lists of festivals by genre or region. Another good way to find festivals is to look at future and past performance listings from similar artists that are where you are now or within a few career steps ahead of you. If you are a new artist you may not want to look at the agenda of platinum selling artists for ideas on where you can play.

As you are entering festival data, make sure that you create categories, tags or folders so that you can organize festivals by region, size and prioritize based on attainability. For example, if you are an artist from Chicago who has never played outside of a few of the surrounding states, you probably don’t have much of a chance at playing Bonaroo. Instead, you could categorize Bonaroo as a lead you would approach when you hit certain career objectives. As you submit to festivals in your database, learn something new about them or correspond with people from them, make sure to enter this data so that your database is up to date and includes your correspondence history with them.

Make a Festival Submission Timeline

This is really simple. In your CRM, artist management software, or calendar, enter all of the submission dates for all of the priority festivals to which you want to submit. Some festivals require you to pay to submit. You want to be careful here to make sure that if you are paying to submit that you are hitting festivals where you have a decent chance of being selected. You can certainly be less selective with festivals who do not charge submission fees as the only cost is your time, unless they request physical submissioms.

Make sure you use reminders in your calendar and set these reminders to notify you at least a week before the deadline as well as 24 hours before the deadline. Missing a deadline for an important submission is a bad feeling and when there is a lot going on it’s easy to do if you are not organized.

Rate Your Chances of Getting Booked

Evaluate your chances of success getting booked for each festival in your priority leads database. Here are some of the key things that are going to be decision factors for festivals:

• Is the music at a calibre that is suitable for the festival?
• Is the genre and style of the music within the scope of the festival?
• Will the artist contribute to ticket sales?
• Does the artist have a current recording or something on the horizon?
• Does the artist have any buzz (i.e. articles in significant press)?
• Are there other reputable festivals that are booking the artist or have booked the artist?

Don’t forget to subscribe to the Marcato Musician blog so that you can catch the 3rd and final part of the series where we’ll hear directly from festival directors about what they are looking for from emerging artists. The above points are guidlines but each festival will likely have some differences in terms of their programming philosophy.

Prepare Your Festival Submissions

Be careful, take your time, read everything and do as much research as you can about the submission. Provide the festival’s programming team with exactly what they are asking for. Double and triple check everything. It is amazing how often people do not include everything that is requested in the submission process. This is almost guaranteed to blow your chances of getting booked at the festival.

If you feel that the submission process does not give a lot of information about what you need to submit, it doesn’t hurt to email the festival and ask them any questions you have. DO NOT MAKE THIS A PITCH! Just ask questions about what they are looking for at their festival this year. What kind of music? What sort of content?

NOTE: Some festivals specifically ask on their submission page for artists not to email them. I would recommend not emailing these festivals as this is obviously something they are not interested in.

Depending on how the festival accepts submissions, you should receive some form of confirmation that they have received your submission. If you do not receive a confirmation message, you might want to send a friendly email asking if they can confirm receipt of your submission. Being prepared and submitting well before the deadline is a good way to ensure that you’re still considered in the off chance your original submission isn’t received.

Show ‘em the Love

Assuming that you have your social pages set up and active, it doesn’t hurt to show some love to the festivals where you want to get booked. For example, you can tweet “Just submitted to @marcatofestival. Fingers crossed we’ll see you June 15th weekend at http://bit.ly/zDypba“. You can even tweet before you submit, for example: “Looking for help to decide which track to include on our submission to @marcatofestival“. You may even get some feedback from the festival. This twitter activity shows the festival that you are active with your social media, and are likely going to promote the event to your fan-base if you get the slot.

Leverage your Relationships and Contacts

Once you have your list of priority festivals, walk through the list with your team to see if you have anyone in your network that can help you get noticed. Maybe someone you work with knows someone in the festival and can fire off a recommendation to their contact there. Ask a few of the closer folks in your extended network. Maybe there is a sound guy that mixes you from time to time that also works at this festival and wouldn’t mind dropping a CD and or a recommendation to a decision maker. Having someone who can grab the attention of the festival team can draw some additional consideration to your band. When there are 2000 submissions, a solid recommendation from someone they know and trust can have a huge affect.

Follow-up Without Being a Pest

If the festival asks specifically to not email them, don’t. However, if they don’t specify, it doesn’t hurt to email them to let them know of something relevant that is going on in your career. Maybe your song is charting on college radio in their town, or you were recently nominated for some awards or invited to play some other festivals. You can also use twitter as a means to get this information into their hands.

I do not recommend emailing persistently asking them if they have decided yet. This will probably draw attention to your submission, but not the kind of attention you want. I have done this in my early days and have gotten the “please stop emailing us” response. You don’t want to drive people to that point. It does not help them like you.

Networking and Showcasing

There are many regional, national and international music industry conferences and festivals all over the world that provide opportunities for showcasing artists to get in front of festival buyers. I highly recommend taking advantage of these opportunities. You’ll probably want to make a list of these in your CRM or Address Book under the tag or category Showcase Events.

Remember, your festival performance career takes years to develop. Each festival you land increases your chances to be booked by more festivals. So, although Bonaroo is not in the year 1 plan, if you persistently keep building your career and playing more and more festivals you may get there by year 3 or 4. Keep building your profile, improving your music and growing your network and following the above steps and you are guaranteed to see improvements.

Darren Gallop is an artist and manager who has built artist management web app Marcato Musician to help artists and managers organize their careers and keep track of projects like getting booked at music festivals. Learn more and try Marcato Musician free for 30 days at marcatomusician.com

This guest blog by digital PR expert and author Ariel Hyatt originally appeared on her SoundAdvice blog on February 13, 2012. Ariel is a thought leader in the digital PR world: the founder of a successful PR firm; international speaker & educator and the author of two books on social media and marketing for artists. Ariel’s Cyber PR® process marks the intersection of social media with engaged behavior, PR, and online Marketing.

So – as you know I am a newsletter evangelist!

I believe it is the NUMBER ONE thing that will help you create a career in the music industry; communicating with your fan base regularly and consistently.

If you do not already have a schedule mapped out for sending your newsletters – get your calendar out NOW and pencil in 12 dates – 1X per month (I suggest you send your newsletter 2X per month but start with once a month and grow from there).

Studies show that the best days to send newsletters (for the highest open rates) are Wednesdays and Thursday so make sure to send them out mid week.

Image courtesy of Mail Chimp

Here are 5 critical things to keep in mind as you are crafting your newsletters:

1. Keep Your Subject Line to 55 Characters

Most e-mail programs cut off the subject line after 55 and 60 characters, so keep your subject line short and sweet, and to the point; five to six words max.

2. Get Personal

Saying something personal brings you closer to your fan base.  So share a photo of something you love (your pet, your kids, your friends), or something fun and non-music related you did recently like a vacation.

3. You Don’t Have To Have A Show To Send A Newsletter

How about just inviting everyone on your newsletter out for drinks evening, or to join you for a show, or share something fun that you’ve done recently; again, or maybe you just purchased a new album and you love it, and you want to talk about it.

4. Mailing Address & Unsubscribe Link

Know that by law you need to put your mailing address and an unsubscribe link at the bottom of each of your newsletters.  If you are uncomfortable adding your home address, then open up a P.O. Box and use that.

5. First Names Get Attention

Use the first name of each person you send your newsletter out to.  The best way to get anyone’s attention is to include their first name in the subject line of an e-mail, something like this:

Hey Kevin! Summer News From the Darrin James Band.

It’s catchy, and it gets people’s attention immediately to the subject of your e-mail.  Any of the mailing list / newsletter management service that I love, including Bandletter, Fanbridge and Reverbnation can help you customize your e-mails so that your first names of your e-mail list appear in the subject line. Testing shows that the response rates will go up 50%-70% or more if you include first names.

Learn more helpful tips from Ariel Hyatt and check out her book Music Success in Nine Weeks at arielpublicity.com

Before you start raising money, you should have a budget for your recording and know exactly how much you need to raise.

Here are some creative ways to raise money that have worked for me and they can all work for you too if you invest the time and energy to do them properly.

Fan Funding and Donations Sites

There are many services dedicated to fan funding and donations. Some like Kickstarter.com even allow to tie your fan funding into a pre-sale campaign for your music which helps you build relationships with your fans and reach your goals faster.

This is one of the best ways you can fund a recording because the money you raise is revenue (rather than a debt you need to pay back), you have some record sales you can count on release day, and there is a potential to promote your campaign and create awareness for your band and recording with social media.

Once you finish your recording, you can then go back to your fans with a similar campaign to raise money for the release or for tour support.

Here are four fan funding sites that can help you raise money for your recording project and other band expenses:

• Kickstarter.com
• Sellaband.com
• PledgeMusic.com
• Artistshare.com

Government Funding and Grants

Many parts of the world have government funding programs for music and the arts. Canada and many European countries have programs where you can receive a low or no interest loan or even a non-rapayble grant to record and promote your music.

Unfortunately most of the states in the USA lack programs of this nature. That said, do your research. Contact other musicians, music and artist organizations, arts councils and your local government to see if there are any programs that may be of help. If you are lucky enough to find a program in your area, contact the organization that administrates the program and find out about the application process.

Business and Non-Profit donations

You may be able to find a local business and or non-profit organization that will donate to your band or sponsor your recording. This be a significant tax write off for the business or organization in many parts of the world. In addition you can offer, for example, signed pre-release copies of the recording, their name and or logo on the CD and release posters and mention of the sponsor in your newsletter and on your website.

Gig Your Ass Off

If you can book shows and make a few bucks from them, play everywhere you can within a short distance of where you live. This was how I used to do it before I knew how to write business plans and grants and pitch to investors. We played for every coffee shop, bar, private party, wedding… anyone or anywhere that would give us any money to play. We even learned cover songs and played them 2 nights a week for cash.

The good thing about this is that on top of raising money and not having debt, the band and everyone in it improves their musicianship and showmanship and you add a few fans to your fanbase along the way.

Work Your Ass Off

When I was in my early 20′s I used to head up to northwestern Canada and plant trees all summer to save money for touring with my band in the winter. The work was complete hell but at 12 cents a tree I was planting about 2000 trees a day on average with 6 day work weeks for 3 months of the summer. We lived in the forest in tents so there was nowhere to spend our earnings. I met a bunch of musicians one summer who were doing the same thing, only instead of touring they were all saving their money to make a recording and dedicate the winter to their music.

The good thing about this method is that you do not have to pay the money back. The bad thing is that you will not be working on your career that much while working these kinds of shifts, though, 3 months goes by quickly…

Investors - Friends, Family, Angel Investors

Don’t be afraid to ask people for help. If you have friends or family with some cash they may be in a position to help you. The same may be the case for some of your early fans and local investors. You never know if you don’t ask.

The best situation is to get people to donate or pre-order your new material, but if you are not hitting your goals with that exclusively then taking on investment is another option. I have raised a lot of money for bands this way.

The most effective way to do this is to structure your band as a business and develop a basic term sheet that describes the investment – how much money you need and what it is for, how and when they are getting their money back, and what they stand to make in profit, over and above getting back their investment.

Here is an example of how I have done this in the past:

• You, the investor, give me $5000
• I give you 10 signed pre-release versions of the record upon completion
• Your name (or company name and logo) appear on the CD, on our website and cd release posters
• The first $5500 in physical and digital sales go to you, the investor

It is best to have at least a short business plan and a budget to present to potential investors that indicates your expenses, anticipated sales, project strategies and timeline. You would be surprised how many accountants, doctors, lawyers etc. that will feel pretty cool about being part of this sort of deal, especially if they are a fan. Also, in many parts of the world, investing in a business has some decent tax savings for people that make big bucks and are in high tax brackets.

This method requires you to pay money back much like a loan, however in this case if you don’t succeed in selling records and growing your band then you are not necessarily required to pay the investors back like you would with a bank loan.

Loans from Financial Institutions

Banks traditionally do not consider emerging artists as businesses so getting a business loan for recording your project is fairly unlikely. That said, if you have assets, a job or other forms of security this may be an option. You’ll also want to check with your local Chamber of Commerce or any other local organizations that are focused on economic development in your area. You may find a program that can help you with some form of loan or grant.

You will likely need to develop a business plan to support your loan request but there are many resources online that can help you with this if you find a program that is a fit.

NOTE: Owing money sucks! So, if you can make one of the other options above work for you that is probably a better option. 

Remember that once you finish your recording you will need to release it and tour to support it. These things will also have a price tag attached to them and you need to budget for these well before you need them to happen. All of the above creative ways to raise money apply for funding these important projects too.

If you have any questions or examples of the creative ways to raise money that have worked for you please leave them in the comments section!

Darren Gallop is the CEO of Marcato Musician, owns a record label and is an artist manager and an artist himself. He has been coming up with creative ways to raise money for his bands’ recording and touring projects for more than 20 years.

Landing festival gigs is one of the most attainable ways to get your live show in front of larger crowds. Every artist and manager should want to know how to get booked at music festivals.

The fact is, most festival artistic directors start their planning by securing their headliners. Then they start to fill the other slots with up and coming talent, even musicians they’ve never heard of before.

These slots are fairly competitive. The larger the profile of the festival the more competition there is. It’s not uncommon to see as many as 1000 submissions for a small/medium-sized festival and upwards of 20,000 for larger international events. In both cases these submissions compete for anywhere from 20 to 400 performance slots.

It may sound discouraging but 20% to 75% of these submissions are an instant “NO! NOT A CHANCE!” You can avoid being instantly rejected by understanding WHY festival programers ignore so many applications. It’s usually because these applications or the artists submitting them:

• are not a style or genre that the festival even programs (failure to research the events you’re applying to is a great way to NOT get booked at music festivals)
• are not ready (if you’ve only played shows in your home town and haven’t released a professional recording you are probably not ready to hit the festival scene)
• do not have the tools and marketing collateral to properly pitch
• do not know how to pitch

All of these submissions are automatically and rapidly declined, sometimes even before festival staff has a chance to hear your music.

The objective of this blog series is to educate DIY artists and emerging managers and agents on the tools and processes that answer the question of how to get booked at music festivals and dramatically improve their festival booking success rate.

8 and 1/2 Tips – How to Get Booked at Music Festivals:

1. Be Awesome

If you want to get booked at music festivals, you need to stand out. This means more than just ‘don’t suck’. Your songs need to be great and your live performance has to be memorable. If you’re not there yet you may be better off spending your time writing, producing, rehearsing and gigging in small clubs for a while longer.

I often see bands that have great tunes and play them very well but lack engagement with their live show. I have witnessed Tom Jackson go through the process of producing a band’s live show and I would recommend taking the opportunity to check out his stuff if you get a chance. Remember you are not just selling your music or yourself — it’s really your live show that festival promoters are interested in. Having a killer live show is a great way to get booked at music festivals.

2. Keep Your Bio Short and Sweet

Don’t start off with where you went to school and the life stories of each band member. What is your story? How is it relevant? What does your music sound like? Who are your key influences? What are the most relevant highlights of your career? There are professionals that can write your bio for somewhere in the $150 to $300 range. If you plan to write it yourself, here are a couple of good posts about writing a bio:

• Creating An Effective Bio (Taxi.com) 
• How to Write an Artist Biography: A Bio Made Simple (MusicBizAcademy.com)

(Yes, I just Googled how to write an effective musician bio and grabbed the highest-ranking posts. It’s that easy to learn how to do just about anything these days!)

3. Have Really Good Recordings

Having a great recording is an awesome tool. You don’t need a full album or even an EP to get booked at music festivals, a few great tracks can do the job. You want to have these tracks somewhere online (like Soundcloud or Bandcamp) where they can be easily streamed and/or downloaded. If possible, you should have physical copies set aside for special situations. We’ll talk about how to use these tools in the next part of the “How to Get Booked at Music Festivals” series.

4. Make Headlines

Recognition in the press is a powerful thing. The more relevant the source the more powerful the article and the more weight it carries when trying to get booked at music festivals. A small community or college paper will not be as significant as a review in Pitchfork or Billboard. A press strategy and publicist can be one of the most important elements of your overall business and marketing plan.

5. Live Audio/Video Samples

This can be one of the most powerful tools you can ever invest in. Even if someone hears your CD and loves it, there’s no guarantee that your live performance is great.

Here is an example from a series of videos that cost me about $2,000 to produce start to finish. I built them to sell an emerging artist for opening slots on major tours and to get booked at music festivals in the Canadian market. It has been about 14 months since these videos where produced and the artist has secured many high profile performance slots (including opening for rock band Heart on a 30-day tour) which has paid for the cost of this video over and over.

I also made an additional series that represented what the artist does live with her full band:

This can be done at a cheaper rate if you have friends that can help or the time and skills to deal with some of the production yourself. The production value does not necessarily have to be this high to achieve similar goals, though if you can afford to spend on quality it doesn’t hurt.

In both of these videos I opted for a controlled environment instead of doing this at a live show because I wanted the ability to do each song a few times and ensure the best camera angles. I also had limited time to work with due to the artists touring schedule. An actual live show in a cool venue with an audience that’s really digging it is even more effective but also creates several variables that are less controllable. I have had bad experiences with other acts where we are doing a live show and then during the song that I really wanted to capture the guitar crapped out and then it kind of fell apart. (I suggest if you are going for the actual live show recording route to plan to record 2 or more evenings to ensure you get what you need.)

5 and 1/2. Be an Opportunist

When we landed the opening tour with Heart, I hired someone to come in with an HD video recorder at a show in a major venue and set up my ProTools Mbox with a feed from the board and a stereo mic pattern in the room.

This cost me $300 and has become another great sales and marketing tool:

Bottom line, having some great live content can drastically eliminate risk from the festival’s perspective and makes it easier to get booked at music festivals.

6. Look Good in Pictures

A few hundred dollars for some professional photography will go a long way to portray a professional image. Unprofessional artists rarely get booked at music festivals! Try to come up with a theme or an idea. Pick a cool location, look the part you’re playing, and look like you are all on the same team. Don’t dress like you are going to your buddy’s house to drink beer and watch football. Live shots can be great too — I recommend a bit of both.

7. Have a Solid Social Media Presence

Social media presence is key in building your music career this day and age, and helps when trying to get booked at music festivals. Many indie labels, major labels, promoters and agents go straight to your online presence. It shows them how serious you are about your success and what your fan base is like. Ariel Hyatt of Cyber PR runs a blog and newsletter, writes books, speaks at many conferences around the world and teaches courses on this topic.

8. Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

If you’ve ever worked in sales you likely know something about this. If not, it’s time to learn because you work in sales now!

Your product is your band’s live performance and your customers are music festivals. Basically, you are looking for a software system (it can be web-based or desktop), or if you are old school some form of Rolodex or agenda/contact book combination. You can even use the tools you have on your Mac or PC like iCal or Outlook to create reminders and your address book to keep notes of your communication with people.

You want something to keep track of every festival you want to play, the people that you encounter that work at the festival, your conversations with these people and follow-up plans. We will go into more detail on the use of the CRM in the next part of this series.

Now Put These Tips to Work!

I hope these eight (and a half) tips to get booked at music festivals will help you think about the festival application process and take your bookings to the next level. Subscribe to the Marcato Musician blog and watch for Part Two of this blog series on how to get booked at music festivals.