Booking

I’ve played about 30-40 house concerts over the past 7 years or so. They are some of my favorite shows I’ve ever done. Now, I’ve played everywhere from bars, theaters, festivals, colleges, clubs and arenas. You name it, I’ve probably played some kind of venue similar to i...

A friend of mine with a good following in LA just told me how she showed up to her show last night only to find out that the venue had cancelled it without her knowledge. Another touring artist I know discovered just two days before her LA stop that the promoter had a miscommunic...

I want to clear up a few things after yesterday's 9 Times It's OK To Ask Musicians To Play For Free bombshell. 99% of you got it was sarcasm. But for the 1%, heyyyyoooo! I got your emails. And also, I posted it to Digital Music News to reach the broader music community - namely...

A lot of musicians want to play colleges, but most don't really know what that means. As someone who has played over 100 official university sponsored shows around the country, it's a field I know quite intimately. From the schools surrounded by a hundred miles of corn to the tho...

I'll admit it. I'm horrible when it comes to email. I have a contact form on Ari's Take which I was pretty good at keeping up with when I launched the site 3 years ago. But now I'm about 6 month behind on responses. Yikes. Even my personal email I get backed up on - to the point...

You know where to play locally. You've been to most clubs and have made mental lists of the venues you'd like to play. Some of them are venues you want to pursue now and some you set as ones to work for when your fan base is a bit bigger. Some you've played and have vowed never t...

Between 2006 and 2009, brothers Kyle and Bryan Weber had played (and booked) over 600 shows with their band Zelazowa. From conversations they had with other bands they met on the road about the best venues to play in various cities, the Weber brothers got an idea. Because there r...

We're nearing the holidays and musicians have been asking me what rates they should pitch to buyers who request their services. Be it a corporate holiday party, rotunda in the mall or a corner in a restaurant. This is an entire business in it of itself. I have friends, well, one...

Not two hours after I posted my Should You Pay To Play article, I happened to received this email from an LA 'promoter.'Here is how our conversation went...T's response:Ari. This is an EXCELLENT post. There's definitely a stigma associated with pay to play. But respectfully, I dr...

I live in LA. I've only been here 3 years, but in that time I've met many excellent musicians in town all talented enough to explode at any moment. The sad reality is, in a town so saturated with incredible musicians, the cream isn't necessarily rising to the top as quickly as it...