Archive for April, 2012
The Fair Play guide: Artist submission sites
In the final part of the Fair Play guide series this post covers artist submission sites, sites such as Sonic Bids and Get Me On Stage have become a contentious issue amongst musicians. Whilst some artists feel aggrieved that a cost is attached to a gig/festival application, others have benefitted from the process, by receiving gig offers for events that they have previously struggled to secure.
The Fair Play guide: Showcase conferences and events
International showcase conferences and festivals e.g., SXSW and Midem, can offer artists a valuable gig – an audience of industry professionals, often including labels looking for new acts to sign. However, a lot of the delegates may have an idea of who they want to watch, based on recommendations, and so these shows are generally more useful to artists that have already caused a buzz, even if it’s only locally or on a relatively small scale.
The Fair Play Guide: Showcase competitions
There has been an increase in showcase-style competitions whereby bands compete against one another, with the winning bands going through to the next stage, which sometimes involves another gig in a bigger venue.
The Fair Play Guide: Tips for co-promotion deals
Following on with the Fair Play Guide series, in the previous post, we introduced the suggestion of co-promotion deals and what the MU says constitues a bad deal. This post offers up a few more tips for negotiating and arranging co-promotion gigs.
The Fair Play Guide: Co-promotion deals
There’s no reason why all co-promotion deals should be the same, as there are so many variables, including: venue capacity, location, other acts on the bill, and ticket price etc. It is therefore most effective to treat each gig as an individual negotiation. Many artists reach a level whereby they can command their desired fee and conditions without compromise, sometimes through an agent, but most gigging musicians have to negotiate on each and every show.
Pay to Play deals typically involve musicians being forced to buy large quantities of tickets for their own gig, which they would then have to try and sell to punters. We are going to run a series of blog posts under the title of “The Fair Play Guide” that offer advise for grassroots bands on the topic of co-promotion deals.
