Poster Performace

In an older post, I uploaded a draft poster I was planning to use for promoting my band. I thought this poster would have been good to use because it fit our genre, had a photo of us and had lots of space for gigs. But when it came to actually using it when we had a gig, it didn't really live up to my expectations.

A few things I noticed were:
-We needed a decent photo
-Not enough space for extra information
-No direct links to our Facebook/Twitter

After a few alterations, I came up with this:

This was used to promote a gig we had in a shop at Merry Hill. I'll go into what it was like playing in a shop later on, but for now let's focus on the poster. As you can see, it seems to have a better lay out, in the sense that our name is nice and big, and the photo looks professional. Also, we have the date and time big too, meaning it would be hard to miss. The thing I really like about this poster is the QR code in the bottom right corner. If someone were to scan this with a smart phone, it would take them directly to our Facebook page. This is a HUGE advantage, because most people are too lazy to go wading through Facebook to find us. It's also quite a gimmick. I know I would scan it, just because it's something you don't normally use a phone for.

After putting this up on the band page and around the shop we were playing at, we had quite a big response from people. It wasn't quite the amount I was expecting, but there was still a buzz about it. The shop actually taped these down on the counter, so everyone who bought something would see it. I personally think this worked a lot better than the old one would have, only because it seems a lot more professional.

As for playing in a shop, it was an extremely weird experience. A normal gig for us entails being loud, dancing, running around in the crowd and just having a laugh. Being in a shop, it was quite difficult to do this. We were up on a balcony, so we couldn't exactly give the performance we wanted, but we have it a hell of a go. If we were playing a pub or club somewhere, it would be completely different. And again, if we we're playing a festival, it's another different experience. Having done all of these, I can begin to explain what kind of impact location has on a band.

As I've gone over, playing in a shop in a crowded shopping centre is all well and could, but it almost inhibits your ability to be 'normal'. For me, it was the fear of knocking something over, or injuring someone. However, playing in a pub or club is different. In these venues, you don't share the stage with the public or a shelf full of shoes. You can move, dance, run, anything. Another factor is why people are actually there. Why do people go to shops? To shop. Why do people go to venues? Live music. These may not be the right words to portray what I'm thinking, but I almost felt 'in the way' at the shop. Moving on to playing festivals, it's another story. Again, the stage is yours to own, but the audience interact in a different way. Yes, you still have the drunken fool screaming 'PLAY FREEBIRD!' but at a festival, there's a whole lot more. It's a much more relaxed kind of gig.

All in all, each different location is influential. It shapes how you play. Having never busked before, I'm quite interested as to how musicians react to that.

Venues

 There are many places for bands to get heard. Whether it's on the internet, at a venue, or a street corner, everywhere is a potential venue. In this blog post, I'm going to explore some venues, and see which one has the better opportunities.

When people talk about venues, I normally picture a room with a PA, a stage and a bar. Most places are like this (with some variations of course). Being in a band, it's not as easy as just booking a gig in a proper venue dedicated to live music. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's not as easy as doing up your shoelaces. Some obvious venues include: Pubs, clubs, theaters, arenas, etc. Getting pub gigs is rather easy, but as the size of the venue increases, so does the difficulty of getting a gig. One of our tutors came up with a genius idea. Clubs are becoming evermore popular with younger generations. The amount of people that pay to go into a dark, sweaty room and drink themselves into a mess is phenomenal. And who provides the music? A DJ. Most people nowadays know a DJ. I, for one, know about 6. If a band or artist were to take one of their tracks and make either a DnB or Dubstep remix, you could ask one of your friends to play this when they next work. This could get so much promotion for your band!

I'm going to go at this from a certain viewpoint. I'm going to discuss these ideas from potential audience. For example, you could get 100 people in a pub to hear your music, whereas if you were playing an arena, there's a potential 2-3000. Of course, 100 is better than none, and 3000 is obviously better than 100. But what if there was a way to have a constant flow of new listeners while you're playing? Is that possible?

Yes. Busking.We've all seen buskers in our lifetimes. Whether it's an old accordion player sat outside the town hall, or a violinist outside McDonalds. As people, we normally turn up our noses and walk on like it's nothing special. But these buskers have the master plan. They're out there, playing they're instrument to thousands of people that walk past, and even earning a bit of cash when a generous person walks past with some change.

So what's stopping us from doing that? We could set up a small band, sit out in the sun, play our music and be heard. It seems almost too good to be true. The fact you could have a river of people walking past and every one of them hears your music. On a busy summers day, town is usually jam packed, so there could be thousands upon thousands walking past. Although in most cities you require a busking license, no one can stifle you. People can only tell you to move on. And if that happens, come back tomorrow. And keep coming back.

As well as busking, there's a thing musicians do called a 'living room tour'. This is when an artist or a band is paid, and they set up in someone's living room and play a gig. This would be an amazing experience to see, and it's definitely surreal to actually perform it. Fenton have been hired for a living room gig before, and it went down extremely well. We earned a fair amount of money from it, and we even got free food!

Promotion

When you think about it, how do you properly promote a gig? There's no real way to let every single person in your town know you're performing, but there are ways to get enough people talking about it.

The ways I normally promote are:

-Facebook event pages
-Posters
-Talking to people
-Using the band page to tell people about the gig

These ways  have worked so far, but I've wanted to find a way to take it to the extreme. I posted a draft poster in a previous post, which seemed to have everything. But when I actually applied everything I needed into it, it seemed not to. I had to rethink positions and font sizes to get all the info on. I also found a website that lets you create a QR code linked to our band page, which people would scan with their smartphone and be took to it.

I've been toying with the idea of printing a load of these QR codes off and sticking them around town and places people congregate. Most people are drawn in by QR codes, maybe because it's not every day you can scan something with your phone. There are a few downsides I can see, however. With the way the youth are today, they would end up ripping it down, or 'tagging' it. As well as this, I'm not too sure if it's legal. Maybe it would be classed as graffiti. I'll have to research into this.

On the other hand though, even if 5 people scan it and see our band page, that's 5 more people that might be interested in us. It could be an extra £50. They could also pass us on to some friends, and then word of mouth comes in to play.

Word of mouth is a powerful promotion tool. The amount of times my friends have said to me 'Hey, check out this band, you'll love them!' is unreal. I check out the band, I like them, they've gained a fan. If we could find a way to get people saying this about us, it would be extremely helpful.

A while ago, we were thinking of how viral videos spread in the band. So we made one. Of course, I was the idiot in said video. I'll put the link to the video below. Believe it or not, this video actually worked. It hit just over 2,000 views on Facebook, and people still come and quote what I said in the video to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Mqjez4pkbc

Messing About On Photoshop

I was having a mess around on Photoshop, and thought I could make some promotional material for my band. This is just a rough template of a poster we could use. Of course, that's not the photo I'm going to use, but I put it in anyway to give an idea of what I was going for.

Livestreaming

I was just thinking about how my band could reach a wider audience than those actually at the gig, and the idea of livestreaming came to me. It seems like a simple enough thing to do, and that way people can watch us perform without actually having to leave their bedrooms.

Having never really done a proper livestream before, I wanted to make it as professional as possible (aka no low quality webcams or audio). I Googled 'How to do a professional livestream' and came up with this gem of a page:

http://www.streamingmedia.com/Producer/Articles/Editorial/Sponsored-Articles/Six-Tips-for-Planning-a-Professional-Looking-Live-Streamed-Event-90985.aspx

It's told me everything I need to know, and it isn't really all that difficult. My band (Fenton) did an amazing gig last year in Wales, and the organizers have asked us to do it again. I'm hoping to take down all my equipment and stream that providing that the venue has wifi and I can use the mixer.

Fingers crossed!