Festival performances can change your career, but they can also be a waste of money. Marketing, or lack thereof, makes all the difference.
Every musician dreams of headlining a major music festival. The idea of performing for tens of thousands gathered to hear songs you developed is a career peak many artists spend a lifetime chasing. There is never a guarantee any amount of good songs and hard work will be enough, but that is no reason to not try in the first place.
For those musicians on the come up, festival performances often look very different from the one describe in the preceding paragraph. Most young artists lucky enough to land a festival time slot perform while the sun is high in the sky and the crowd is scattered. Some artists perform to only a handful of people, despite appearing at a festival whose headliners see a sea of people when they take the same stage hours later. It seems festival crowds, like every other audience in entertainment, are fickle.
But don’t fret! There are many things young musicians can do to maximize their return for performing at music festivals. What time a group or artist performs matters far less than how they promote the event, how they engage with festival attendees, and what they day in the weeks following the event. Don’t believe us? Just watch the video below.
On this episode of Music Biz 101, host James Shotwell explains the importance of festival appearances and what artists can do to maximize the exposure they receive for festival performances.
