Hello and welcome to the final Advice column of the week. The following article is something akin to a sequel, pairing Haulix with a few old friends for a second adventure with a similar theme: Tour problems. I’m not sure this pair of columns will become a trilogy, but I suppose anything is possible in a world where Think Like A Man Too exists. If you have any questions regarding the content of this blog, or if you would like to learn more information about the services offered by Haulix, please email james@haulix.com and share your thoughts. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
Back in December, we partnered with our dear friends in The Venetia Fair to teach bands and solo artists touring the icy roads a few things that may help them survive their winter tour efforts. The column was a surprising hit, and so it is with great pleasure that we welcome them back to our site a second time to share their summer tour survival tips. Take it away, guys…
“Here Comes the Sun and I Say It’s Alright” – The Beatles. Errrheard?
Good day everyone, Mike Abiuso of The Venetia Fair, SwitchBitch (Records/Studio/Magazine) and Behind The Curtains Media. I feel like I practically live here at Haulix, which is a good thing, so thanks for having me back team!
I don’t know if you’ve read my last “Winter Tour Survival”, but if you haven’t, let me just reiterate the essentials that go for both seasons: (If you have, you’re going to be very bored, so just follow these ZZZZZZZZZZZZ’s)
Vehicle and Paperwork must be up to date:
-Driver’s licenses are legit
-Vehicle registered
-Vehicle insured
-Vehicle inspected
-Oil change (up to date and kept up to date on the road)
-Someone should have AAA for roadside assistance
If you have a van and trailer:
-Be sure the separate breaking system is functioning
-Under stand the low and high gears for up and downgrades
-Get a ball lock for your hitch incase you need to drop the trailer to park in heavily populated cities
Touring in general:
-Try to keep the tank above ¼ tank or have and to be safe have an extra reserve gas tank
-Get reflective cones and/or flares to put out incase you breakdown
(ZZZZZZZZzzzzzz hey wake up, you still there?)
Ok, moving on to “Part ll – Summer Tour Survival”…Now that we don’t have to worry about actually freezing to death, we mainly need to focus on keeping a good amount of food and water for survival and the rest is mostly comfort or “luxury”. Water is a given…get it in bulk and go, but food is way different this season. Can’t buy frozen food and keep it in the trailer any more unless you like eating a “mushy mold, fly graveyard sandwich” which I’ve heard has recently been labeled “exclusively for vegans” as of today. It’s all about those sealed cracker snacks and canned goods, which unfortunately, the ones that taste decent are awful for you. Click here to take a look at a year round specialty of mine that I like to call “tour-derves” (judge me? – dead to me)
So what we have here is a base coat of seared (aka canned) tuna, topped with peanut butter and/or cheese filled crackers with a light glaze of Sriracha to take away from the food portion of the meal. All served on the finest store brand paper plates. You get the idea, moving on.
When speaking in terms of water, this is where luxury comes in. Now I hate drinking water, but knowing it’s an essential I found a luxurious way to get around slamming that bull-shit of a drink. Umm SodaStream! Wootwoot, sound the alarm and flash the lights cause that jam keeps me alive. We (The Venetia Fair) usually get a case of water for the van, a back up case in the trailer and I also get a gallon jug of water to pour into a sodastream container, pull the sodastream from my drawer and just BLAST it w/ CO2. (Don’t know what a sodastream is? Know what google is?). Yeah, so seltzer for days.
Continuing on the topic of drinks. Alcohol always seems to find it’s way into a musicians life. It might have to do with having 6 hours to kill at a bar after load-in, but what do I know? Well, I do know that in the summer, if you’re 15 drinks in and feel amazing passing out in the van, that in a mere few hours that same van will transform into a human incinerator, so particularly after consuming alcohol, a few things you may want to keep near your van bed (or the place you sleep when touring) is A) water (seltzer) B) a battery operated fan and C) a $.99 spray bottle of water. These things I haven’t had lately on tour, but when The Venetia Fair did Warped Tour, I definitely had that jones going on.
While on the topic of sleeping situations, it’s a great idea to keep the van doors and windows open at night to keep air flowing. While that’s a great idea it also provides a free buffet for bugs and mosquitos, so you’re going to want to grab a few cheap bud nets to throw over all openings.
Being that this is beginning to get quite lengthily and I don’t want to bore the readers that made it thus far, I’m going to close out with showering. Every musician smells like the thickest festering shit syrup all the time. To reduce this in attempts to be a part or real civilization I would suggest three things. 1) pick up a sunshower which is a bag you can fill with a spigot, set on the roof of your trailer to warm up and shower with the power of gravity. 2) pick up a camping shower which is a bit more expensive, but basically it’s a pump version of the sunshower similar to the way your grandmother fertilizes her tomatoes, but with water instead. 3) Get a planet fitness membership and shower there.
Ok folks, as always, don’t do anything anyone in The Venetia Fair would do, and hope to see you this summer!
Hello, everyone! I know we said yesterday was going to be the last advice column the week, but this could probably qualify as one as well. When you know you have to write about something, however, you just have to sit down and write. That is what happened with this post over the last twenty-four hours, and I think it’s safe to say there will be more discussion on this topic in the days and weeks to come. If you have any questions about the content of the blog, or if you would like more information regarding the distributional services offered by Haulix, please email james@haulix.com and share your thoughts. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
Sometimes you know exactly what you want to say and when you want to say it. Other times, life comes along out of nowhere and slaps you in the face with an idea or thought you then immediately feel compared to share with others. It’s a momentary eruption of thought that can be influenced by anything, and that is especially true in the digital age. For me, such a moment struck last night as I was scrolling through my Twitter feed, and I will admit up front I was initially looking at my phone in hopes someone would be sharing something I had written earlier in the day. The answer to my inquiry was a definite no, but before I put my phone down to throw a personal pity party for myself a tweet from Michigan punk favorites The Swellers caught my eye and I knew right away there was a topic we needed to discuss on the blog today.
“We’ve been a band for almost twelve years, played on five continents and never had to sell tickets to play a show,” The Swellers wrote. "You don’t either.”
For as long as I have been a part of the this industry, which at this point is well over a decade, pay-to-play performances have been a topic of debate in the music community. Some will have you believe they are a necessary evil that exists to protect promoters from booking bands who do nothing to promote their own shows, while others – including myself – will tell you they are little more than a bullying tactic used by essentially needless middle men and women to make money off live music without needing to promote or perform themselves.
So, what is ‘pay-to-play’?
There are a number of ways to describe pay-to-play situations, but essentially it is any situation where promotion companies require musicians to pay a “fee” to get on a bill for a show (aside from application fees to appear at musical festivals and conventions). You may be paying with your own money out of pocket, or with funds gathered through advanced ticket sales, but as long as you are paying the venue/promoter/etc. before you step foot on their stage then you have found yourself in a pay-to-play situation. Independent promoters developed this method of booking to take advantage of naive talent, and over the years a countless number of excuses have been developed to cover up this fact, including the need for artists to help cover venue costs. That is not your job, and you should never feel obliged to pay a promoter, including in circumstances where they incur expenses at the end of the night. That is a risk that accepted when they took on the role of promoter, and anyone who is an actual professional will never ask that you help chip in to cover their loss. There is of course an exception to this rule if you are somehow directly involved in the planning of the show, say as a ‘co-promoter,’ but 99% of the time that should not be the case.
Are there good pay-to-play situations?
In short, no. Artists are asked to enter into pay-to-play situations because the promoter either has very little faith in the success of the event or because they know it will be a success and want to cash in as soon as possible with the free promotion presented by local talent. If the show you are paying to play on involves a national headliner, there is a good chance the tickets you are selling will go towards paying that touring act’s booking fee. You know who didn’t have to sell tickets in advance? The touring act who gets the money from your sales.
As I mentioned a few paragraphs above, the risk of loss/expenses in on assumed by the promoter when they decided to book the show. You are not responsible for making sure they break even at the end of the night, and you are definitely not responsible for guaranteeing a profit. You are responsible for showing up on time, performing your set to the best of your abilities, and doing your best to not be a dick to anyone in charge. You’re the talent, not the lead salesman for a promoter who offers you little-to-nothing in exchange.
These companies are asking artists to promote. What’s wrong with that?
When you require someone to do something you are not asking them anything. You are demanding it. Artists should promote shows because that is part of their job as musicians, yes, but nothing in the job description of a musician states that they will market until a specific amount of people agree to purchase a certain product. In pay-to-play situations artists are being forced to hard sell fans, which has been proven to be a terrible marketing approach in music, and furthermore they are made to assume the promoter’s risk, as well as the stress associated with handling the cost of putting on a live performance.
From personal experiences, I have known many small bands to make last minute calls to family and friends hoping people will buy tickets to a show – even if there is no way that person can attend – just so the artist can perform for fifteen minutes an hour and a half before some mid-level national headliner comes out and half heartedly thanks the ‘local talent’ that opened the show. In situations such as this, which happen daily in cities and towns across the country, who benefits except the absent, uninvolved promoter? No one.
It can also be argued that pay-to-play actually hinders marketing efforts, as it forces artists to focus on those they believe they can immediately sell on attending a performance and makes no mention of the need for general, routine marketing. They may send out a few digital posts asking those in need of tickets to contact them, but at the end of the day they are going to focus on hitting whatever threshold they need to meet, be it a number or tickets or an amount of money, and then the initial pressure is off. Once an artist meets the goal set by the promoter they can play the show, and even if the only people who show up are the twenty people who were able to come out of the twenty-five that artist convinced to buy tickets there would be nothing the promoter could say to put the blame on the artist because the artist had, at least on paper, met their obligations as talent.
This is all great information, but if we’re being entirely honest Haulix is a company dedicated to fighting piracy. What do you know about booking?
GREAT QUESTION. We may have built our company online, but as individuals our team has years of experience working with live music, both as promoters and musicians. That said, we understand that when dealing with matters related to tour life it can be more reassuring to hear things from people who are currently involved in your area of the music business. With that in mind we reached out to a number of influential people, including Nate Dorough of Fusion Shows and DC Area show promoter Tyler Osborne, to learn their thoughts on pay-to-play:
"I think it’s bullshit. If you’re required to pay to play an event, that’s not at all cool. Bands should never have to fork over money or do any sort of crazy thing just to get on a gig. However, I am a big believer that for local acts, their draw is best when they help sell tickets to their fanbase.
One of the biggest pushes we make in the concert industry is to get people to buy tickets in advance. That way, it’s sealed that they’ll attend. You can budget based on advance sales, whether you need to spend more marketing dollars or not, how much money you can spend on hospitality for the bands, staffing, etc. If someone does not hold an advance ticket, they may decide the day of the show that the couch looks nice, that they’d rather stay home and watch TV, etc. All of our marketing efforts are pushing to get people to come to the show, however they choose to do so, but it’s easier on everyone if they buy tickets in advance.
So when a local act is added to a show, they have the unique ability to physically deliver tickets to friends and family who would attend. So at Fusion, we give artists the OPTION of selling tickets, and usually pay better the bands who sell more tickets. We also pay bands who don’t sell tickets, if the show itself does well. But no one with our group is ever forced to sell. If they’re just not into it, that’s OK by us.
Unfortunately, some of the folks who want to make a huge fuss about pay-to-play will lump the way we do it into some sort of "scheme”, and we couldn’t be more against pay-to-play situations.“ – Nate Dorough, Fusion Shows (Founder)
"Does it make sense for a promoter to have opening bands sell tickets to play their shows? Sure. That doesn’t mean as a band you have to. We played houses or rented out VFW halls and chose the places where we could build our own fan base. It worked. I still feel guilty when we play a show and the local band had to sell tickets. Sure it helped us get our guarantee, but they did the legwork. The goal is to become an entity to where you get asked to play by a promoter because everyone knows you draw people. Or be good/cool enough to where the headlining band asks you directly. Selling tickets is the insurance policy, but in the grand scheme of things it isn’t guaranteeing those people staying to watch the other bands. Make a good reputation for yourself by promoting the hell out of your shows, building your own scene and following through with a killer show. That’s how you can sell tickets.” – Jonathan Diener, The Swellers
“It would be easy for me to just give a one liner and say "pay to play” is completely bullshit, and yes that is the case, but there’s more to this. In my time involved in music I’ve seen this play out in many different ways. Most of the time I see promoters give a band X amount of tickets and have them sell as many as possible and then have them pound the pavement hocking tickets to whomever will fork over the money; most often parents and close friends come in to save the day and the show for the promoter to cover the cost of the headliner. Now, this is BS on so many levels. First off the promoter has put all the pressure on the bands to make the show a success and absolved themselves from any risk. Also in doing this, the promoter diminishes the value and morale of the bands that they want to sell their (the promoter’s) tickets. Shows need to be a two-way street with promoters and bands working together and being paid fairly to have a truly successful show. A lot of times bands feel trapped, having to play this game in fear of not being booked again at that venue and that fear is abused by SOME – not all – promoters to keep bands in their pocket. This also bleeds the scene dry and makes concert-goers not give a shit anymore because they’re tired of being hassled by bands to buy tickets. Another somewhat common practice is for a promoter to say you need to sell X amount of tickets or you can’t play. This is the worst of them all. Bands bust their asses to sell tickets, over-post on social media, and still need to come out of pocket to play the show. This makes for a shit show on so many levels…..the bands are pissed out of the gate that they did not meet the promoters goal, that their fan base is not what they thought it was and so on and so on. Then the promoter is pissed because now they fear having to come out of pocket to make ends meet. All that being said it often turns into a crap show with fans/friends/family showing up and watching their kids/friends band and then leaving, leaving it a half empty or less show for the headliner. So I’ve said what is wrong but the real question is how to fix the problem. That’s a way harder question that I think about a lot. So I would love to hear from the fans and bands on what they think would be fair.“ – Danny Fonorow, Jonas Sees in Color
"I know some bands get some good use out of it, but as a concept pay to play shows generally suck. Some scenes are so deeply entrenched in this model that it’s almost necessary, but within the punk scene, if you make good music, people will notice and your band will play shows. I never have and never will run or have my band do play to play shows, there’s just no need at the DIY level.” – Tyler Osborne, DC Area Concert Promoter
Hello and welcome to the final artist advice column of the week. We have been planning to run this article for a while, but with Warped Tour kicking off this weekend it seemed no time could or would be more perfect than this afternoon. Whether you have a full tour planned this summer or a single show, we believe the information below will improve the likelihood of fan retention while also increasing merch sales. If you have any questions about the content of the blog, or if you would like more information regarding the distributional services offered by Haulix, please email james@haulix.com and share your thoughts. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
We are less than two weeks from the official start of summer, but thanks to the crazy weather of 2014 most of the United States has only recently begun to feel the heat of the impending season. The vast majority of our population has spent the better part of the last eight months indoors, keeping themselves company with the glow of their laptop or smartphone screen. If you’re in a band, you probably also spent this time mastering your online marketing skills. If so, bravo! This post is for you.
In the time since summer last gave way to fall you have gained hundreds of digital followers across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Tumblr, not to mention having finally found a way to network with the people who run some of your favorite music blogs. People are tweeting about you and posting photos of the merch they ordered from your online store, which you love and gladly reply to because you’re not a heartless artist expecting money from strangers (and it requires next to zero effort on your part). You probably even have a summer tour in the works, or at least a handful of dates with a festival appearance or two. You may even be on Warped Tour. If so, again, bravo! You are well on your way to turning your digital buzz into real world success, but in order to do that you will need to shed the safety net of digital engagement and learn to interact with customers, as well as potential customers, in a real world setting. Be it slinging merch at an upcoming show, or working the line outside a major festival, there are several things to keep in mind if you want to maximize the impact of your time and marketing efforts.
1. Prepare in advance. Be quick and efficient whenever possible
It’s relatively easy to plan for on site marketing and merch sales, but being prepare to act on those plans is another story entirely. Before you ever step foot in a venue or on festival grounds you need to make sure you have everything you need organized in a way that makes accessing it quick and easy. If you’re selling merch, make sure to count stock, organize and arrange you product prior to arriving on site. If you’re working lines or festival grounds with music, make sure your iPod has battery life, additional chargers, and at least two sets of headphones. If you need signs, make them the day before. Time spent setting up or dealing with unorganized merch is time lost with music fans.
2. Remember no ones like a hard sell
When you’re an up and coming artist depending on merch sales to get to the next town, let alone eat, it can be very tempting to try and push your merchandise on music fans. RESIST! You may have the best music in the world that no one has heard, but it’s never going to go anywhere if people feel like they’re being sold something the moment you begin speaking with them. If you come across as friendly, helpful, and knowledgable you will have a far better likelihood of gaining (and retaining) consumer interest. Share with people why you do what you do, and what it is about your music and message that sets you apart. Leverage your authenticity to make yourself more appealing to customers, but be careful to not push too far and come across as cocky or overly confident. People need to know you believe in yourself, but no one wants to support someone who likens themselves to a god.
3. Think of every interaction as a new opportunity to network
It’s great when people buy things and ask for more information about your music, but even if they walk away from their initial encounter with you and your art empty handed they can still aide your longterm marketing efforts. You never know who they may know, and being a generally likable person will go a long way towards leaving a good impression. Also, person-to-person interactions are a great way to learn about your fan base, as well as the regional scene as whole. Do people support unsigned bands in this area? Are there a lot of venues you could play at on future tours, or is this more of a one basement town? These things matter, and the best way to get accurate insight on the climate of any music scene is from the people who help it thrive day in and day out.
4. Try and get feedback, even if it’s not what you want to hear
This bit was written more to those sharing their music with first time listeners than those selling merch, but it can and should be applied to both. Wherever you go, make it a point to listen to people as much, if not more than you speak to them. If you’re sharing your music, ask them what they do and don’t like about it. Ask them who they think you sound like and whether or not they could see themselves catching your live show at some point in the future. Take the wins with the losses, and always do your best to be polite. There may be people who treat you like crap or speak ill of your art, but it is of the utmost importance that you find the power within yourself to rise above and treat that the same way you would a regular fan. Music, like everything creative, is subjective, and they are not wrong or bad simply because they do not like the art you create. By accepting that fact and taking the time to hear their complaints, you open yourself up to the possibility of seeing, hearing, or otherwise understanding your own creation in a whole new light.
5. Smile and be polite
Following the point made above, kindness is next to godliness in this world, and the quickest way to win over the heart of a consumer inundated with advertising is through being a generally decent human being. This probably goes without saying, but people are for more willing to engage with people who seem friendly and inviting than those who look pissed at the world or out to make a buck. There was a time when businesses could succeed through deception, trickery, and wordplay, but in the modern age you need to forge a relationship with consumers they can trust and that is best accomplished through kindness.
Hello and welcome to the fifth installment of Eric Morgan’s How To Kill Your Band. This column offers advice to up and coming artists from the perspective of a professional musician who has thrived with and without label support over the last decade. If you have any questions regarding the content of this blog, or if you would like to learn more information about the services offered by Haulix, please email james@haulix.com and share your thoughts. We can also be found on Twitter and Facebook.
An Introduction:
I’ve been in the music industry as an artist for nearly 10 years now. In that decade I’ve achieved nearly all of my childhood music dreams, but I’ve also made just as many mistakes that run over my mind before I fall asleep each night. A wonderment of how a few different decisions, rerunning in hindsight, would work out in some alternate universe. This ever creeping determinism is a fallacy I’m quite aware of but one that I will never completely shake, though it’s these experiences I’ve learned the most valuable lessons. These are the things I’d like to share in a series of mini-blogs I call How To Kill Your Band.
Part 5 – DIY Touring
So you’ve made it through last week’s post and countered the bluntness of why anyone would even consider booking your band – well then you must have something special or you’ve got Apple level marketing genius. Either way, it works. The next step in the heroic quest to get your music on the road is to figure out how to book your own tours. Like I mentioned last week, learning to book tours independently is one of the few skills learned during bandlife that can eventually turn itself into a legitimate job so it’s worth diving into if you want to stay in the industry postmortem. Luckily for you, five years ago I took my just-graduated-college naivety and dove headfirst into booking AHAF’s first tour making just about every mistake you could possibly make. We’ll gloss over the embarrassing stuff and get right into a few tips and resources I’ve discovered that can help get you started.
Indie On The Move
Back in 2009, an “agent” had booked us our first tour that we’d been promoting for months along with our record label. Three weeks before it was to start, the agent vanished and we came to find out only half the dates were actually booked. We should of just canceled the tour, but being young and dumb I decided to finish it myself. After several tedious days of Googling/MySpacing venues in different cities I ended up coming across IndieOnTheMove.com. At the time, it was an oasis of venue information conveniently sorted by location and provided just enough hope to keep me going. To this day it continues to be a valuable resource for diy touring bands and has a great community providing not just venue information but it’s own tips for new bands on the road. However, I learned fairly quickly that having venue information is only valuable if they have in-house talent buyers specific to your genre. In most cases, promoters separate from the venue are responsible for putting on shows and this needs to be under consideration when contacting venues directly. Nevertheless, it’s a superb starting point when searching possible venues to go after on your initial routing.
Local Metal
One feature of MySpace that I still miss to this day is the ability to search for bands by location. Sure you can use ReverbNation* or Bandcamp but it’s not nearly as comprehensive as the service Tom built. Further, finding bands only lets you creep their show flyers in hopes of finding a mention of the promoter. Fortunately, the Local Metal Facebook network has become a directory of venues, promoters, and even current local bands in each state. As you’ll see in the main page’s info, each state has it’s own separate FB page and that page contains the directory of local contacts. Even more than being categorized by state, each state’s page has gone another step and conveniently listed contacts by city. This is by far my favorite diy find for collecting promoter contacts and has been invaluable on tours I’ve booked in new territories and contrary to the name, it provides worthy contacts across multiple genres.
*Quick note on Reverbnation, don’t use it. Or at least don’t show it to people. I live just a couple blocks away from the RN headquarters so it pains me to advise against a local startup but recently an A/R for a large record label mentioned to me that part of his daily email triage is to automatically delete anyone who sends a Reverbnation link with their submission. Seems harsh right? But it’s similar to applying for a job with an aol.com email address – it projects that you’re somewhat out of touch with the modern trends and realities within the industry.
Learn how to write an email
Now that you have a list of names to contact it’s time to, well, contact them. Here’s where you need to explain why someone should book your band and do so in a way that provides the breadth of necessary information in an organized, easy to read message. The importance of brevity here cannot be understated. Writing a 10 line deep first paragraph describing the virtues of your band’s dietary decisions is the quickest way to get passed over. Understand the volume of emails a promoter receives and try to not make their life any harder. The subject line should contain the bands on the package along with the specific date requested while the body needs only to list the bands’ most pertinent marketable information and links to Facebook and notable YouTube videos. Think of what a promoter might use to promote your band and give them the tools to do so right off the bat.
Above all else, the best advice I can give is to stay organized. Carefully maintain your contact and routing spreadsheets, respond to every email, and learn to love Google Docs. Booking, like anything, takes practice and you’ll make a fair share of dumb moves but it rewards those that are obsessive in their determination. Treat everything you book as if it’s going on your resume because as I’ve mentioned, it’s a skill that can turn itself into a job in an industry where experience is valued over degrees.
