Booking

I (digitally) sat down with Kyle Weber, one half of the brother-Weber founders of Indie On The Move, to discuss their excellent booking resource for DIY musicians. As I wrote in Booking Your Own Tour: A How-To Guide, I used their site when booking recent tours and found it to be...

Last year I went on two national tours covering 40 states and played over 100 shows. I booked nearly every show. It was my first time visiting about 30 of the cities and many of the other cities' venues I had never played before. Both tours were financially successful. Let me sa...

Building a fan base is a daunting task. Just reading that sentence your blood pressure probably rose a couple points. Everyone talks about how it's so important to 'build a fan base,' but no one really gives a simple way how or what that even really means.You should not look at t...

Once you have a show confirmed you should send one final email that includes all of the necessary details. This acts like a contract. Most venues with capacities under 600 don't typically work with contracts - especially when booking directly with the artist. Even if they do work...

When I was first getting started in Minneapolis I took note of other local bands who were somewhat successful locally. I was not yet. I sent these bands emails to the extent of 'Saw your show last night. Love your sound. If you ever need an opener hit me up.' As you may expect I...

Don't ever book a show and just expect people will show up. They won't. Additionally, if you book a tour of cities you've never been to and there's no buzz about you in these cities and you aren't playing these shows with established acts from each city, the tour will be a bust....

I've played over 500 shows and I booked the majority of these. I set up a 60 date tour around the entire country from scratch - starting without contacts for the majority of the cities. I've spent the better part of 4 years living on the road, making nearly all of my in...