It’s all well and good for all of us to keep shouting, “Make your show an event! Give people a REASON to come!” But maybe your head is so full from trying to make everything else happen that you can’t come up with any ideas.
Here are a few bits and pieces to help get you started.
1. Start simple. Use a landmark event in your band’s history.
A CD release party is an event. You’ve all had one of those. Create more of them by releasing singles and EPs rather than a traditional album. You’ll get four release events over a 12 month period. You introduce the ability to give one EP away free (whilst charging for the others). Then, use the feedback to inform the decisions you make about the songs and their order for your album. Finally, when you do release the album, it’s simply as a service to everyone who has already lost three out of the four initial EP releases. Welcome to the New Music Industry: You are not selling albums. You are saving your friends the time of sifting through all of the fucking EPs you put out earlier this year just so they can listen to your music.
Use other events too: Your last show before SXSW, the first show after returning from Germany, your keyboard player’s last show, the lead singer’s birthday (come watch him fuck up, miss all the high notes, and split his pants).
2. Add a Cause.
The great thing about a cause is it changes the question you’re asking. Instead of, “Do you want to come see my band?” (Answer: No, I don’t), you ask, “Do you want to help starving children in India?” You increase the chances of a better outcome for all concerned. This also gives you a reason to send out a legitimate update to everyone after the event. “Congratulations to all of us! We raised $500.”
Anything to do with firefighters or the police has a triple benefit of the charitable component, increased likelihood of getting out of a speeding ticket (“Officer, we just performed a charity concert for the fraternal order of police”), and (of course) those guys have all the best drugs.
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