As an independent musician getting gigs is a prime source for earning money. There are all sorts of gigs you can get depending on your genre, but the best paying gigs by far are the private ones. These are gigs where you are hired to perform for guests at a private function such as weddings, galas, rehearsal dinners, receptions, awards ceremonies, banquets, birthday parties, and so on. What do folks planning these events all have in common? With the exception of people who decide to host functions at their own place, they all work with venues and public event halls like museums, vineyards, recreational centers, hotels, and basically any public venue who rents their facilities out for private functions to host their event. This means you can generate paid gig leads for yourself by simply reaching out to event managers working at these facilities. In this article, we’ll walk you through how to position yourself as a source for live entertainment in order to get more paid gigs. This is an excellent way for independent musicians to get more paid gigs without having to do too much extra work or pay a butt load of money in advertising fees. In fact, if you follow this guide, you might get away with not paying anything or at the very least, a nominal cost of printing and postage.
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The first step is to create a fact sheet for your services as a musician. This fact sheet will include promo pictures of you and/or your band, a bio, reviews, any relevant accolades, a form of contact and webpage, and optionally, a price range. This fact sheet will go to an employee of the venue whose job it is to coordinate with people planning events at their venue. They go by many titles, such as Events Manager, Catering and Events Director, Special Events Coordinator, Sales Director, etc. To simplify things we’ll call this person Events Manager throughout the rest of this article. The fact sheet could be either in PDF or JPG format and emailed or printed and mailed. The purpose of the fact sheet is to give the Events Manager information about you that they would disseminate to people planning events at their facility. Their job is to provide resources and answer any questions so that these events will run smoothly at their venue. They want to make sure their client feels appreciated and keep them coming back to their venue for future events. So naturally, the Events Manager will want to provide anything they need, or point them to where they can get it. Live music is often requested and the Event Managers don’t always have in house musicians they can go to. This is where your little fact sheet comes in. The Events Manager can simply forward your information to their clients. And voila, your live music service has just been promoted. Imagine if you can get this fact sheet in the hands of every Events Manager in town. Just think of how many private gigs you might be able to book in a year!
Create your materials.
So what does this fact sheet look like? I’m sharing the one I use for myself below. You’ll see that it’s very straight forward and includes a few simple elements including a bio, a review, pricing, photos, and contact information.
You can create your fact sheet in any size that fits your needs. You can use it for both emailing and printing physical copies. It’s an easy handout an Events Manager can use to send to their clients. You can design this or something similar in Canva for free, or feel free to use my design here. You can also create a design of your own in Photoshop if you know your way around the software. Another option is to hire a professional. Have you tried Fiverr? You’ll find tons of graphic designers there and you can get stuff done for cheap on Fiverr.
You may not want to include pricing on your fact sheet if you have a more complex set-up or your pricing changes frequently. Personally, I like including the pricing because I tend to get more serious inquiries if they know ahead of time how much they can expect to pay.
If you have the capability, I recommend taking this a step further by creating a landing page on your website specifically geared to people receiving this fact sheet. You would include a link to this webpage on your fact sheet. The webpage would have all the information included on the fact sheet in addition to music samples, more pictures, reviews, and a list of previous events. By customizing the content on this particular webpage to their specific needs, you’re virtually extending the conversation and getting them one step closer to contacting you.
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Generate a contact list.
Once you have your fact sheet and webpage created, it’s now time to generate a contact list of Events Managers. You can do this by doing a search online for them. Start with major hotels since that is probably the easiest. Work your way through that list by collecting names, titles, addresses, emails, and phone numbers. As mentioned earlier, the title of the person you’re looking for can change with each venue. You may not easily find them at first glance and you may have to call to identify your mark. Just remember, you’re looking for the staff members who deal directly with the clients putting on the events. Repeat this process with museums, community centers, event halls, vineyards, and any other facility you can think of that might sell event rental space. You can do this in your own city and neighboring cities as well. Put them all in a spreadsheet. If you’re thorough, you should have a list of 50-100 names or more.
Reach out.
Now that you have your materials created and a contact list, it’s time to make the connection. It may make sense to try and reach the person ahead of time and let them know you’re sending something their way. That way they’re expecting it from you. Or you can simply send them your fact sheet via email or snail mail or a combination of both. Play around with your methods here and see what works best for you. You may want to consider offering a small finder’s fee if you can afford it. This will give them incentive to sending your information out more.
Follow-up.
Don’t forget to follow-up. If you initially reached out with a physical mailing, don’t be afraid to follow-up with an email or phone call. Put the contacts on a follow-up plan where you reach out to them every few months. Ask them how business is going and if you can do anything to help. Ask if they need more physical fact sheets. Reach out and say happy holidays. These are key contacts who are capable of sending you paid gigs. You should cultivate these relationships. If you are in regular contact with key contacts, they’re more likely to recommend you.
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