Guerrilla Marketing
I love booking shows and tours. It can be very hard work, but I find it very rewarding. I enjoy researching venues and I enjoy cold calling the entertainment directors. When I am lucky enough to reach the right person, I enjoy selling the band. For out-of-town shows this is very challenging. Getting the entertainment director to listen to our music is the first challenge. When they did listen, they liked what they heard but still had doubts that we, as a traveling act, could “draw” people. Unfortunately, they are most interested in “packing” the venue full of people.
I once had an entertainment director tell me “I don’t care if you have cats on poles and you pull their tails to create noise, as long as you bring a lot of people into the club”. I would then explain that we work very hard to create buzz and laid out our plan to do so. We would contact local media outlets. We would schedule local radio appearances. We contacted local bands who would often help us hang posters around town and we would show up early and hand out flyers. We called it “Guerilla Marketing” and we were the masters.
When we came to an agreement, I would print posters and mail them along with a contract and an additional envelope with return postage. That was thrilling. I would get to work on the promotion. I found most people were receptive, especially as a tour would grow. It was selling, selling and more selling. As with all sales, you hone your craft with each success. The key is to never stop trying. You can get 100 no’s before you get a yes. All the while you are learning how to strike the right chords with the prospects. When you get that Yes you remember what you said, how you said it and you say it again the same way. There is a momentum that builds, and you are up and running. I have a gift for this kind of work. I am tenacious. I have unbridled enthusiasm. I have often thought that had I worked this hard in any other industry I would be rich. However, I love music, I love writing music, I love performing music and there is no other job so extraordinarily fun and rewarding. Moreover, there is a great purpose in sharing music with people.
We all work so hard, struggle to find happiness and long for the ability to understand each other. Then suddenly you find yourself on the dance floor in a room full of strangers moving to the same grove and all is right with the world.